The abbreviations PWB and PCB are very common, especially in the field of electronics manufacturing. Therefore it is necessary to gain a clear understanding of the meaning of each one and the differences between the two. On this article, we will help our readers to distinguish PWB from PCB.
PCB: Based on insulating substrate, it means a kind of products on which the wires are connected and components are printed from point to point on a dielectric substrate in a predetermined design. It is the English abbreviation of Printed Circuit Board.In a word, PCB stands for printed circuit board, where the width, side to side and multi-layer relationship(spacing) of conductor runs has or is designed to have a specific effect on circuit operation other than just a point to point connection.
PWB: Based on insulating substrate, it means a kind of products on which the wires are connected from point to point on a dielectric substrate in a predetermined design. However, there is no printed component on it. PWBs are the early name of the British, because at that time there were only circuit diagrams on the circuit board, but no printed components. So they belonged to the more primitive board. Under its effect, now many traditional British and some Hong Kong people still call the circuit board to be PWB, which is the English abbreviation of Printed Wire Board. In a word, PWB stands for printed wiring board, one of the first uses when the issue was only a point to point connection.
The PCBs are the boards already equipped with various components, however the PWB is just a designed substrate with no components.
Moreover, PWB vs PCB greatly varies from one region to the other. For example, in the United States of America, the term Printed Circuit Board is more common in use while the use of the name PWB is more commonly used in Japan. In Japan, PWB is more preferred that PCB because it prevents confusion with another name, polychlorinated biphenyls, which refers to a particular poison available in Japan.
For your more information, in approximately 1999 the IPC Technical Activities Executive Committee made a mandate to only use the term PCB for all new document development because more often than not the printed circuitry design will have an impact on function.
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