I believe many people are no strangers to PCB boards. They may be heard frequently in daily life, but they may not know much about PCBA.
It will even be confused with the PCB. So what is a PCB? How did PCBA evolve? What is the difference between PCB and PCBA? Let's take a closer look below.

About PCB
PCB is the abbreviation of Printed Circuit Board.
Because it is made by electronic printing, it is called a "printing" circuit board.
PCB is an important electronic part in the electronics industry, a support for electronic components, and a carrier for electrical connection of electronic components.
PCB has been widely used in the manufacture of electronic products, and its unique features are summarized as follows:
1、High wiring density, small size and light weight, which is conducive to miniaturization of electronic equipment.
2、Because of the repeatability and consistency of graphics, mistake in wiring and assembly are reduced, and maintenance, debugging and inspection time of equipment is saved.
3，It is conducive to mechanization and automatic production, improves labor productivity and reduces the cost of electronic equipment.
4．The design can be standardized to facilitate interchange.

About PCBA
PCBA is the abbreviation of Printed Circuit Board + Assembly, that is to say, PCBA is the whole process of installing SMD and inserting DIP device　 on PCB empty board.
"The production process is: PCB board positioning, printing solder paste, placement machine placement,Reflow soldering, inspection."
Note: SMT and DIP are the ways to integrate parts on PCB board. The main difference is that SMT does not need to drill holes on PCB.
In DIP, the PIN foot of the part is inserted into the hole that has been drilled.

SMT (Surface Mounted Technology) surface mounting technology mainly uses mounting machine to mount some small parts on PCB board.
Its production process is: PCB board positioning, printing solder paste, mounting,
Reflow soldering and product inspection.
DIP is to insert parts on PCB board. Some parts are larger and not suitable for mounting technology, so they are installed in the form of insertion.
Its main production processes are pasting adhesive, inserting device, inspection, wave soldering, printing board and product inspection.

The difference between *PCB and PCBA *

As can be seen from the above introduction, PCBA generally refers to a processing process, which can also be understood as finished circuit boards.
That is to say, the process on the PCB board has been completed before it can be regarded as PCBA. PCB refers to an empty printed circuit board with no parts on it.

In general, PCBA is the finished   Board and PCB is bare board.