PCB DESIGN AND FABRICATION, KPR Institute Engineering and Technology, Autonomous Engineering Institution, Coimbatore, India

Students gained knowledge about the different steps involved in designing a PCB board using Altium software. Also, they were able to fabricate the PCB boards using the chemical process.

PCB design and fabrication workshop was organized by the ECE department in PCB Laboratory on 17.02.2023 in connection to FIESTA 23. Around 178 participants from various colleges attended the workshop. The session was handled by Dr. Finney Daniel Shadrach, AP (SL.G) / ECE. The session was divided into two parts, namely design, and fabrication. PCB design helps in bringing electronic circuits to life in their physical form. In the design part students were exposed to the various PCB design processes involved in Altium software such as schematics, schematic library, footprint generation, PCB library, PCB layout, and Gerber generation. Further, students were also given awareness about the various open-source PCB software available in the market such as Kicad, Eagle, Allegro etc.,. In the second part, students were given exposure to the fabrication process. The fabrication process involves the following major components such as PCB board cutting, etching, screen printing, thinning process, and soldering. The various types of boards and the applications of different boards were also explained. The training was provided with FR4 material which is an industry-standard board. In order to enhance their practical knowledge the students were given a simple circuit module and were asked to fabricate it. They were divided into batches and they were made to do the fabrication process. Students felt interested and the participants were also explained about the SDG and were able to justify it in connection to PCB. At the end of the session, students were able to design and fabricate the PCB board.