GB Electronics (UK) Ltd ( GBE ) can design and produce schematic electronic circuits and printed circuit boards (PCBs), with a special focus on design for manufacturing. Both rigid (glass fibre) and flexible PCBs can be designed and made. GBE can provide:

• Schematic circuit diagrams.
• PCB layout and placement diagrams.
• CAD drawings.
• Bill of Materials (BoM).
• Operation notes and code release (if required for products with firmware).

Output is available in various standard formats including Adobe Acrobat PDF, DXF, DWG, Gerber, and paper.

• PCB manufacture
• Component placing and soldering.
• Assembly and cabling.
• Connectors, both board-to-board and external.

Information on rigid printed circuit boards and design
Once a circuit design is proposed, a schematic drawing is made. We use standard symbols to represent the components in the design and the connections between them. From this drawing, a netlist is compiled that describes electronically the connections between all the components. The netlist data can then be translated into a physical layout and, in the case of more complex boards, can be used to create a test scheme for a JTAG boundary scan scheme.

PCBs can be made with various layers.
Single layer PCB s

The simplest PBC is a single layer with copper tracks connecting the components on one side and the electronic components on the other.

Double layer PCBs

Multi-layered PCBs.

Multi-layered PCBs contain inner layers. For example, a typical four-layered PCP will have a power and ground plane, maybe with some additional tracking, on the two inner layers. PCBs with eight, or more, layers will have both tracking and power layers. These boards are typically highly populated with components, perhaps on both sides.

PCBs can be referred to as conventional through-hole or surface-mount PCBs. Although surface-mount PCBs may contain some conventional components, such as connectors, they allow a dense population of components and are assembled by machine, thus lending themselves to large-scale production. If required GBE can also deal with small-scale production of surface-mount PCBs and production can be scaled up as required. GBE has Far East connections, which are useful for optimising the costs of large-scale production. We also manage the production and delivery of offshore manufacture and offer final programming and/or testing.

PCB repair and fault finding
GBE offer a fault finding and repair service for PCBs. Coupled with our experience in obsolete and hard-to-find components, we not only find the fault but also source the components to make the necessary repairs.