Printed circuit boards are basically present in electronic devices also known as printed circuit boards. This green circuit board made of precious metal connects all the electrical parts of the device so that it functions properly. Without a PCB, an electronic device cannot work.
A PCB schematic is a simple two-dimensional circuit design that shows the functions and connections between different components.
So the PCB schematic is the first part of the printed circuit board design. It is a graphical representation, whether in written or data form, that uses conventional notation to describe circuit connections. It also hints at the components to use and how to connect them.
As the name suggests, a PCB schematic is a plan, a blueprint. It doesn’t mean where the components will be placed specifically. Instead, schematics lay out how the PCB will ultimately achieve connectivity and form a key part of the planning process.
Once the blueprint is complete, the next step is the PCB design. A design is the layout or physical representation of a PCB schematic, including the layout of copper lines and holes. The PCB design shows the location of the above components and their connections to the copper.
PCB design is a performance-related stage. Based on the PCB design, engineers build real components to test whether the device works properly. As mentioned earlier, anyone should be able to understand a PCB schematic, but it’s not easy to understand what it does by looking at a prototype.
These two stages have been completed, and after you are satisfied with the performance of the PCB, it needs to be implemented by the manufacturer.
PCB schematic elements
After a general understanding of the difference between the two, let’s take a closer look at the elements of the PCB schematic. As we said, all connections are visible, but we need to keep some things in mind:
In order to clearly see the connections, they are not created to scale; they may be very close to each other in a PCB design.
Actually some connections may be crossed, which is not possible.
Some connections may be on opposite sides of the layout, marked to indicate that they are connected.
This PCB blueprint can take one, two, or even a few pages to describe everything that needs to be included in the design.
As a final note, more complex schematics can be grouped by function to improve readability. This arrangement of connections does not happen in the next stage, and the schematics often do not match the final design of the 3D model.