How Are Motherboards Made?

The motherboard could be considered the nervous system of a computer; providing the pathways essential for communication between the different components. When working correctly, you won’t even notice this crucial part of your computer.

When it comes to manufacturing these important components, there are a number of challenges faced. It requires a lot of different tech to build them. Below, we’ll look at a brief overview of how these clever motherboards are made.

What are motherboards made from?

Motherboards tend to be created from two types of materials. These include:

• Copper
• Fibreglass

The copper is used to create conductive pathways, while layers of fibreglass are used for insulation. The fibreglass is put together in layers to ensure they are compact, and it also speeds up processing as the electrons don’t have as far to travel.

While there may not be many materials used in the construction of motherboards, that isn’t to say you could easily create one yourself. In fact, the manufacturing processes used to create a motherboard are extremely complex.

The manufacturing processes

There is several manufacturing processed used in the construction of a motherboard. They include:

• Surface Mount Technology
• DIP
• Testing

Surface Mount Technology is used to solder the small components to the motherboard. While you can purchase a lot of the components needed through companies such as RS Components, you’ll need access to specialist technologies and processes such as this one in order to put them all together.

DIP, or Duel Inline Package, involves the motherboards being inserted into a machine which installs tiny capacitors. Then, bigger components are mounted onto the motherboards by hand. It will be given a manual inspection before being placed into a heat chamber. This reinforces the components using 265 Degree Celsius temperatures.

The motherboards are then tested before being packaged and distributed. This is a very brief description of how motherboards are made. If you do your research, you’ll see it’s extremely complex. A lot of expensive technology is used in the creation of modern-day motherboards.

Overall, while it isn’t impossible to create your own motherboard, it is extremely difficult. You’d need a lot of expensive specialist equipment. It’s also a lot more difficult to ensure the motherboard has been created safely and to the standards recommended. So, it’s definitely a good idea to purchase a motherboard that’s already been built, rather than trying to build one yourself.

Tom Parillo

I am interested in all things technology, especially automation, robotics and tech that helps change how society will live in the future.