Designing a circuit is often only part of the adventure—the rest of the journey involves waiting to see how well that circuit will perform when fabricated from real-world components and printed-circuit-board (PCB) materials. Fortunately, this industry has its hotbeds of experience in constructing practical PCBs, such as San Francisco Circuits. That experience not only helps in the assembly of reliable, repeatable high-frequency PCBs, but it provides invaluable guidance for the type of circuit material and assembly services that will work best in assembling a particular circuit design.
Circuit-board fabrication services include a variety of different flexible and rigid-flex circuit materials. Designers can match the performance of the circuit material to the expected performance of a circuit, whether for prototyping services or in production quantities.
The company offers single- or double-sided FR-4 circuit materials for lower-cost designs and higher-quality circuit materials, such as the RO3000 and RO4000 series from Rogers Corp., for higher-performance prototype services. Lower-volume prototype circuits can usually be turned around from a layout file in 12 to 24 hours, even with detailed circuit structures such as blind and buried vias.