manufacturing//PCB

Printed circuit board — fiberglass-and-copper substrate that mechanically supports and electrically connects chip components via etched traces.

Printed circuit board — fiberglass-and-copper substrate that mechanically supports and electrically connects chip components via etched traces.

Design tools: KiCad, Altium.

Manufacturing involves layer stackup, drilling, plating, solder mask, and silkscreen.

A MCU or MPU sits on the PCB alongside passives (resistors, capacitors), connectors, and power regulation.

Board complexity ranges from 2-layer hobbyist to 20+ layer server motherboards.

Design: KiCad ⟶ fabrication in China (JLCPCB, PCBWay) ~0.50 EUR + welding.

Copper traces connect EXACT pins of specific chips and sensors; if you change a chip, the PCB becomes useless.

Suit shape and size to the target device.

Charging options: POGO pins (golden little dots), NFC, USB.

NVLink on PCB connects multiple Orin chips for scaled-out compute.