Industry News /

2026-01-21

What is a PCB? The history of PCB design.

What is a PCB? What are the historical developments and current trends in PCB design...

Industry News /

2026-01-21

Trends and Countermeasures in PCB Design Development

Driven by Moore's Law, the electronics industry continues to develop products with ever-increasing functionality and integration.

Industry News /

2026-01-21

What are single-sided PCBs, double-sided PCBs, and multilayer PCBs?

PCB circuit boards come in a wide variety of types and can be classified according to factors such as substrate material, structure, and manufacturing process. By structure, PCB circuit boards can be divided into single-sided PCBs, double-sided PCBs...

Industry News /

2026-01-21

Common Surface Treatment Methods for High-Frequency PCB Boards

When making high-frequency PCB prototypes, different surface finishing methods are employed depending on the number of layers. For simple single-layer and double-layer boards, the most common surface finishing methods are typically hot air solder leveling (HASL) or organic solderability preservative (OSP)...

Industry News /

2026-01-21

High-Frequency PCB Design

The PCB (printed circuit board), as the “mother of electronic products,” is a critical and foundational link in the entire electronics industry chain...

Industry News /

2026-01-21

What is COB?

COB stands for "Chip-On-Board," a new packaging technology that differs from the conventional SMD surface-mount packaging technique. Specifically, it involves adhering bare chips onto a PCB using conductive or non-conductive adhesive, followed by wire bonding to establish electrical connections. The chip and bonded wires are then encapsulated with an adhesive. This packaging approach does not eliminate the need for packaging altogether; rather, it integrates upstream and downstream enterprises, enabling the entire production process—from packaging to the fabrication of LED display modules or screens—to be completed within a single factory. By integrating and streamlining the production processes of both packaging and display-screen manufacturers, this approach makes the production process easier to organize and control. As a result, product pixel pitches can be made smaller, reliability is significantly enhanced, and costs become more affordable and accessible to the general public. COB light sources represent a high-efficiency integrated surface-lighting technology in which LED chips are directly mounted onto a highly reflective mirror-metal substrate. This technology eliminates the traditional framework concept, requiring no electroplating, reflow soldering, or surface-mount assembly processes. Consequently, the number of manufacturing steps is reduced by nearly one-third, and costs are also cut by about one-third. Simply put, COB light sources can be understood as high-power integrated surface light sources. Their light-emitting area and external dimensions can be tailored according to the specific design requirements of the product's shape and structure.

Industry News /

2026-01-21

Advantages of COB packaging

1. Ultra-light and ultra-thin: Depending on the customer’s specific requirements, PCB boards with thicknesses ranging from 0.4 to 1.2 mm can be used, reducing the weight to as little as one-third of that of conventional products, thereby significantly lowering customers’ costs in terms of structure, transportation, and engineering. 2. Impact-resistant and compression-resistant: COB products directly encapsulate LED chips within recessed light slots on the PCB board, then seal and cure them with epoxy resin. The surface of the light points is raised into a spherical shape, smooth yet highly durable, offering excellent resistance to impact and wear. 3. Wide viewing angle: COB packaging utilizes shallow-well spherical light emission, providing a viewing angle greater than 175 degrees—approaching 180 degrees—and delivering superior optical diffusion and color blending effects. 4. Bendable: The bendability is a unique feature of COB packaging. Bending the PCB does not damage the encapsulated LED chips; thus, COB modules can easily be used to create curved LED screens, circular screens, and wave-shaped screens. They are ideal substrates for personalized display screens in bars and nightclubs. Seamless splicing is achievable, the construction is simple, and the cost is significantly lower than that of flexible circuit boards or traditional display module-based irregular-shaped LED screens. 5. Excellent heat dissipation: In COB products, the LEDs are encapsulated directly onto the PCB board. The copper foil on the PCB board efficiently conducts heat away from the LED chips. Moreover, the thickness of the PCB’s copper foil is strictly controlled by precise manufacturing processes, and combined with the immersion gold plating process, the product virtually eliminates severe light decay. As a result, dead lights are rare, greatly extending the lifespan of the product. 6. Wear-resistant and easy to clean: The surface of the light points is raised into a spherical shape, smooth and hard, making it resistant to impact and wear. If a single point fails, it can be repaired individually. Without a protective mask, dust can be easily removed using water or a cloth. 7. Superior all-weather performance: Employing triple-layer protection, the product exhibits outstanding resistance to water, humidity, corrosion, dust, static electricity, oxidation, and ultraviolet radiation. It meets the demands of all-weather operation and can function normally even under temperature variations ranging from -30°C to +80°C.

Industry News /

2026-01-21

Were the Famicom game cartridges from the Red and White Console similar to USB flash drives as storage devices? And what programming language were these games written in?

The FC cartridge also comes equipped with an enhancement chip, so later FC games boast significantly improved graphics and larger file sizes compared to earlier FC games. For example, the MMC5 chip adds 1 KB of memory, two rectangular-wave sound sources, enhanced image-processing capabilities, and support for larger game sizes.

Industry News /

2026-01-21

What is an external chip package?

Packaging refers to the encapsulating shell used to mount semiconductor integrated circuit chips. These shells serve multiple functions, including housing, securing, sealing, and protecting the chip, as well as enhancing heat dissipation performance—making them an indispensable component of semiconductor integrated circuit chips. Moreover, packaging also acts as a bridge that connects the internal world of the chip with external circuits. Therefore, chip packaging is divided into two distinct steps: “internal packaging” and “external packaging.” First, the factory connects the chip’s terminals to the substrate within the packaging shell using wires. This step is called “internal packaging.” Next, the substrate’s leads are connected to other components or circuit boards via its own leads; this stage is referred to as “external packaging.” As you can see, our chips aren’t directly soldered onto the circuit board. Instead, they’re first connected to a “substrate/chip base”—which serves as a bridge—through “internal packaging,” and then the “substrate/chip base” itself is connected to the circuit board via “external packaging,” thereby providing additional protection for the chip. Among these processes, the most common type of “internal packaging” is known as “flip-chip packaging.” In this method, the chip’s active side (the side containing the bonding pads) is flipped downward and directly attached to the substrate. Higher-end chips typically use this packaging method—for example, the components found in our computers. As for “external packaging,” depending on their appearance, the number of pins, pin pitch, size, and shape, they go by different names, with hundreds of varieties available. For instance, the SOP package—a type we often encounter—is shaped like a centipede and features multiple “L-shaped” pins; its variants alone number close to ten. Another example is the two commonly used packaging methods for CPUs: PGA pin-grid array (also known as pin grid array) and BGA ball-grid array (also known as ball grid array). The pin-grid array packaging features multiple square arrays of pins both inside and outside the chip. This allows the CPU to be easily and effortlessly inserted into a socket without any risk of poor contact. The plug-and-pull operation is more convenient, and the reliability is significantly higher. In contrast, the ball-grid array packaging has spherical bumps on its exterior. This packaging method not only boosts the yield rate of finished chips but also reduces signal transmission delays, greatly enhancing the chip’s ability to operate at higher frequencies. As such, it’s clear that “external packaging” doesn’t just affect the chip’s appearance—it also profoundly influences its performance and lifespan.

Industry News /

2026-01-21

What is an IC chip (a microelectronic device)?

An IC chip (Integrated Circuit Chip) is a chip made by placing an integrated circuit—comprising a large number of microelectronic components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors—onto a plastic substrate. IC chips include wafer chips and packaged chips; accordingly, the IC chip production line consists of two main parts: a wafer fabrication line and a packaging line.