What is the procedure for PCB designing?

Hi everybody, i am new at pcb designing.I know this is a very basic question.Can anybody kindly tell me what is the procedure for pcb designing.Which softwwares i can use.What is the difference between smt and pcb technology.
Any response would be helpful.
Thanks.

Re: new to pcb designing

Hello Wajahat,
There are many pcb design tools. The higher end tools such as Pads, Allegro, Expedition, etc.. Are very sofisticated and require several months if not a year or more to master. These tools allow an engineer to have complete control over vias, padstacks, component creation, trace routing, layer stackups simulation, and so on...
The lesser tools can get the job done without too much of a learning curve. (good for a beginer) If your design requires a higher level of complexity I would not use a lower end tool. (you might want to consider highering a contractor)

SMT= In the PCB design world this usually means "Surface Mount"
PCB= "Printed Circuit Board"
Did you mean: TH? "Thru Hole" instead of PCB maybe?

You might want to do a search of this board PCB design. There is alot of really good material here.

Have a good one,

Eda

Re: new to pcb designing

Hi,

I recomend you to use Eagle from CadSoft. It is a easy to use, powerfull and free (light edition) Layout Editor.
Here you can find the pads for any common devices, like ARM or PIC microcontrollers. And you can design many kind of boards like SMT, single side board, double side, Thru hole, etc.

Try it, it will be a good option to start designing your own PCB.

Regards,

Carlos[/u]