Printed Circuit Board Design

As the “brains” of sophisticated electronic devices used in experiments throughout the Laboratory, specialized circuit boards are required. These Printed Circuits Boards (PCBs) are exposed to such extreme environments as high radiation, humidity, and cryogenic temperatures in a wide variety of experiments. Circuit boards for these diverse applications are not readily available commercially. Our facility is capable of designing, fabricating and assembling unique PCBs for Instrumentation Division research activities and for other Laboratory programs and activities requiring such specialized circuit boards.

Recent expansion and upgrading of this facility with state-of-the-art equipment has made it an invaluable resource to the Division, for BNL’s scientific community, and for our international collaborators.

The Division’s PCB design, fabrication and assembly personnel possess the skills and expertise required for realizing many different types of boards. The fabrication facility can prepare multilayer circuit boards with drilled holes of unprecedented accuracy and, with the equipment available, conducting circuit lines in the boards can be made much thinner, and the spacing much closer, than those on commercially mass-produced boards.

The PCB design group has personnel, software, and equipment geared towards fabricating and assembling the circuit boards.

Capabilities

• Schematic entry
• Manual and Automatic Place and Route.
• Data translation for artwork generation.
• Generation of data for CNC drilling of boards.
• Photo-plotting (artwork) capabilities.

Software

• Mentor Graphics PowerLogic - Schematic entry.
• Mentor Graphics ViewDraw - Schematic entry.
• Mentor Graphics PowerPCB - Place and Route engine.
• Cadence Specctra – Automatic place and route engine.
• AutoCAD – Computer Aided Drafting
• CAM 350 – Artwork generator and analysis.
• HyperLynx – Signal Integrity analysis

Equipment

• Cymbolic Science F9650 Laser Plotter
• Konica K28 Film Processor

Recent expansion and upgrading of this facility with state-of-the-art equipment has made it an invaluable circuit board resource to BNL's scientific community and international collaborators. The facility can now prepare multi-layer fiberglass boards with drilled holes of unprecedented accuracy. Also, with the new equipment, the conducting circuit lines can be made much thinner, and the spacing much closer, than those on commercially, mass-produced boards - as little as 1/1000th of an inch.

Personnel

Supervisor : A. Kandasamy
Design Team
K. A. Ackley
R.J. Ryan
K. J. Wolniewicz