Brief introduction of Copper Clad Laminate
Copper clad laminate is a type of base material used in PCB industry. It is usually abbreviated as CCL. It is easy to know that it mainly composed by two parts, copper and laminate. Copper is used for electronic connection while the laminate is mainly used for insulation and mechanical support.
Usually the CCL is manufactured and supplied in large size, like 41*49inches, 43*49inches. The PCB factory has to cut the CCL material into suitable sizes according to the PCB panels. SDY usually produce and ship the boards in panels in order to increase the CCL material usage rate. If you donot have any requirements on PCB panels or have clear idea about PCB panels, SDY offers free suggestion on PCB panel. You may refer to following article for more details about PCB panels, PCB Panel Instructions.
There are various kinds of CCL with different laminates, like rigid CCL, flex CCL, organic resin CCL, metal-base CCL, ceramic-base CCL, glass fiber cloth base CCL, paper base CCL, compound base CCL, phenolic CCL and epoxy resin CLL. And nowadays the most widely used one is FR-4 CCL, featured by epoxy resin, organic resin and rigid glass fiber cloth base.
The most important specifications of CCL for PCB board include thickness, copper thickness, and glass transition temperature. Glass transition temperature is usually abbreviated as TG. The temperature number is added after TG to mark its glass transition temperature, like FR-4 TG130, which means the glass transition temperature of this FR-4 CCL material is 130℃. The PCB board made by this FR-4 CCL material is able to work well under environment temperature 130℃. When the working environment is more than 130℃, the glass fiber of CCL material may become rubbery state, so the PCB board may be damaged. It has to take the PCB board working environment temperature into consideration and choose the proper TG features of CCL material.
Normally the FR-4 CCL material TG temperature ranges from 130℃ to 180℃. It is usually called standard TG, middle TG and high TG according to different temperature. Standard TG refers to TG temperature from 130℃ to 140℃, middle TG refers to TG temperature 150℃, and high TG refers to TG temperature from 170℃ to 180℃. There are some CCL materials have TG lower than 130℃ or more than 180℃, which is not so common.
SDY manufactures PCB boards according to required copper clad laminate from well known brands like Shengyi, King Board, Grace, and so on. Kindly please feel free to contact us or write email to Alex@sdy-pcb.com for any PCB questions to RFQs.