Panel Guidelines

Defining Panel by Customer

1.What does Panel by customer mean?

Panel by customer is a term used to describe when the customer provides us with panel-specific drawings or Gerber data in panel form. The panel by customer is used to produce the panel Gerber to meet their exact specifications. It may also be considered a panel by the customer when they prepare the panel independently because of special requirements for the panel border and its features.

2.What are the cases in which panels by customers are considered?

Panels by customers are considered in the following cases:

If the customer has supplied Gerber data in panel form.
If the customer has provided us with the drawings for his panel requirements.
If the panel consists of special requirements and the customer has prepared the panel by themself.

3.Are panel borders added to the panel by customers?

Generally, we do recommend adding a 5 mm panel border for both PCB Power developed panels and panels created by customers.

4.How to count the number of different designs on a panel?

The number of distinct Gerbers merged on a single panel gives you the count for the number of different designs installed on a panel.

5.Illustrate, with an example, how to count the number of designs on a panel.

Here are a few examples to show you how to count the number of designs on a panel:

Figure 1

Figure 1: The number of different designs in the above-given figure is 6.

Figure 2

Figure 2: The second figure consists of 3 different panels:

The number of different designs in Panel 1 is 1.
The number of different designs in Panel 2 is 4.
The number of different designs in Panel 3 is 5.

6.What types of Board separations are supported in Panel by customers?

V-cut or break routing separation method can be used if your customers provide outline-based shapes. Usually, the most recommended method for board separation in the case of panels with different designs is break routing.

Defining Panel by PCB Power

1.What does Panel by PCB Power mean?

It is a term used to describe when a customer wants to design a PCB board with ease of assembly to generate better efficiency. In such a case, the customer requests us to design the panel by providing all the panel dimensions and their requirements. Oftentimes, customers specifically ask for step-and-repeat information in a readme file along with total dimensions.

2.What is the meaning of Panel ups?

Panel ups refer to the number of times the PCB will be copied in either the X or Y direction. For instance, if a customer wants a specific PCB to be duplicated twice in the X direction and thrice in the Y direction, the result for panel ups will be 2 X 3 = 6

3.How does PPM choose the Panel ups?

We recommend a panel designed by PCB Power when the PCB size is less than 20 × 20 mm. And in that case, we take into account the panel size for which we can get the highest production panel usage.

4.What are the guidelines for panel borders?

The ideal recommendation for panel borders is a minimum of 5 mm panel border on all four sides, excluding a 2 mm gap for break routing.

5.What are the guidelines for choosing the distance between PCBs in a Panel?

The distance between PCBs in a panel will be 0 if the V-cut separation method is used, while the minimum distance required in the case of break routing method will be 2 mm. For small PCB sizes and round-shaped PCBs, we advise a 10 mm distance between PCBs in panels to provide adequate mechanical strength and better stability.

6.Which types of Board separation are supported in the Panel by customers?

Customers can utilise V-cut or break routing methods to separate boards that are based on the outline shape. V-cut is typically leveraged for PCBs with rectangular shapes or when the component weight on the PCB is high. The break routing method is the ideal option if the PCBs shape is not a perfect rectangle.