PCBs for Consumer Electronics
The abundance of PCB-containing products we use daily has increased dramatically over the last few decades. Consumer electronics have made our lives easier than ever before. These include devices for communication purposes, simplifying and easing certain aspects of our lives, and providing entertainment. All electronic devices are able to perform their daily tasks easily with the proper stuffing of electronic components on PCBs. ELEPCB has experienced personnel and top-notch technological equipment to fabricate efficient Printed Circuit Boards and related services for its customers and manufacturing industries. During circuit board assembly, ELEPCB always focused on maintaining high standards. As a result, ELEPCB can offer its customers highly efficient operation PCB of consumer electronic devices.
Table of Contents
Where is Consumer Electronics PCBs?
There are no particular standards or categories into which consumer daily devices can be categorized. Generally, consumer electronics products sometimes refer to audio and video devices or consumer electronics may refer to daily household electrical products. For example, Tap-recorder, camcorders, Television set, DVD players, sound systems, and other home and self-f-caring products that involve electronics especially PCBAs as their main component.
Digital cameras, PDAs, mobile phones, and other advanced electronic products are becoming common with the advent of technology. There are three major fields i-e computer technology, Information Technology, and Communication since the late 1990s. The main purpose of these fields is to collect data, process the collected data, and have two-way communication within the networks, all these processes are carried out with the help of PCB designing which comprises of processors and other supporting hardware like embedded systems, operating systems, and uploading software tools. On a greater scale than the already discussed one, there come all home-accommodated devices like a set-top box, wireless data communication, PCs, smart TV boxes, video games so on. Generally, the most common entertainment consumer products include audio and video appliances, and again all these products have PCB as the main component in them to perform the desired tasks efficiently.
Refrigerators, microwave ovens, and washing machines with communication features have also become popular consumer electronics items. Electronic products for consumers have a simple architecture generally comprises of PCBAs and are used to give ease and comfort in communication, doing different tasks, and entertainment. Advancement also brings compactness to consumer household products by reducing their size while keeping all functionality intact and sometimes also offering efficient energy-saving designs.
Major Challenges for Consumer Electronics:
No other industry in the global market evolve as consumer electronics evolved with the advancement of technology. As this industry evolves than for sure it faces many challenges, some of these challenges are jotted down here
- Short Product Life Cycle:
Consumer electronics have a relatively short life cycle, typically lasting no more than 3-5 years. The advancement of the Internet of Things usually results in a significant improvement in product development, integration, and energy consumption. Moore’s Law is widely assumed to govern the consumer electronics industry. When there is no change in price, the number of constituents that can be incorporated on an integrated circuit will roughly double every 18-24 months, just like the performance. With the continuous improvement of ICs and appearance designs, consumer electronic products are constantly evolving.
- Price Challenge:
Most consumer electronic products are relatively homogeneous. The same category of consumer electronic products have almost the same features and functionality but only they differ from each other with respect to branding, and software versions. Pricing can be considered an external factor and mostly is stable. The price should be in such a way that it could compete with other similar consumer electronic products in the market that are available in the market with other brandings.
- Supply Chain Challenge:
Supply chain security has become progressively difficult as a consequence of geopolitical restrictions, and the newly spread virus epidemic. Under such circumstances, having a stable supply chain at competitive prices has become a major concern and one of the difficult tasks for the supply chain team.
- Fluctuating Demand:
There are a lot of factors that have an impact on the demand for consumer electronics products. Some of these factors include rapid innovation in t technology, the limited life span of electronic components, varying consumers’ preferences, and many more. Controlling excess and meeting sales targets is critical to the fiscal outcome.
- Environmental Factors:
New rules and standards force PCB fabricators to analyze environmental effects on the PCB life cycle. As it is important to consider each and every aspect that has an impact on the consumer product life cycle. Every component, from the production processes and chemicals used for consumer products and their disposals, must be examined. For consumer products, it is recommended to have smaller devices with a longer operational lifespan, are the best fit for users.
Testing of Consumer Electronics:
As consumer electronics appliances have to survive any environmental change where they are operational without any setback in their performance. This means it is important to test comprehensively all consumer appliances at extreme conditions throughout t their manufacturing processes. Following are some tests which are categorized into, b before-manufacturing and after manufacturing of consumer electronics as:
Before manufacturing:
- DFM & DFA checks
- BOM checks
- Procurement and Component engineering assistance
- Special stack-up help / NPI review
After manufacturing:
- Functional inspections
- Thermal cycling tests (TCT)
- Thermal shock tests (TST)
- Temperature-humidity bias tests (THB)
- AOI report or visual inspection report
- Flying probe or in-circuit testing report
PCB Applications for the Consumer Electronics Industry
Our devoted staff at ELEPCB is heavily involved in the production of customized boards for the consumer electronics sectors. These printed circuit boards can now do their everyday responsibilities more quickly. We can assemble high-grade boards for the following consumer electronics goods as an industry-leading maker of prototype circuit boards:
- Camcorders
- Stereo players
- Display Cards
- Power Supplies
- Money Handling
- Vending Machines
- LED and Retail Lighting
- Solid State Drives
- Digital Camera Systems
- Desktop PC’s memory
- Wired and wireless mouse
- Video gaming consoles
- Computer Network Devices
- Money Handling
- Computer monitors and televisions
- Surveillance Systems
- All-in-one printers and fax machines
- Smartphones, computers, and tablets
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