What Is a Server PCB?

The server PCB industry consists of companies that design and manufacture printed circuit boards specifically tailored for servers. These boards facilitate the interconnection of various electronic components within a server, enabling it to function effectively in data centers and other computing environments.

A server PCB carries electrical signals between system components, much like your nervous system carries signals between your brain and your muscles. This is essential for ensuring that your servers operate efficiently and safely.

Power Backplane

A server PCB contains a power backplane, a system of slots that provide communication and power to the motherboard and plug-in cards. The server uses plug-in expansion or single-board computer (SBC) and system host board (SHB) to add processing, memory and other capabilities.

Compared with cable systems, the backplane is more reliable and less prone to mechanical failures. Backplane systems also have the advantage of allowing modules to be removed or added without shutting down the entire system – known as hot-swapping. This allows maintenance at 24/7 factories to be seamless and keeps production running.

As the demand for servers grows, achieving higher data rates and efficient power dissipation are critical challenges for server PCB manufacturers. They need to design boards that can handle these high-speed designs with excellent signal integrity and EMI performance.

New memory technologies, such as HBM and DDR5, are generating opportunities for server PCB manufacturers to produce high-speed solutions that offer better power delivery to the memory modules. These solutions are more demanding in terms of routing density and circuit complexity. However, these new memory technologies also offer significant power savings. The TI eFuse portfolio has a wide selection of options that can address these different voltage and current level requirements. For instance, the eFuse® TPS2660x can provide local current limiting and short-circuit protection to isolate faults from other modules on the backplane.

Motherboard

The motherboard of a server PCB serves as the central nexus through which internal and external devices connect. Its components include the CPU, Memory, Hard drives, Optical drives and Video card. Additionally, it provides connections for expansion cards via cables.

As servers became increasingly powerful, manufacturers sought PCBs that could meet the high data rates demanded by these systems. They also wanted a Server PCB solution that was flexible and scalable. The resulting board design often included high-density routing, efficient thermal management and superior signal integrity.

In addition to the aforementioned features, many server motherboards have multiple RAM slots and IO ports. These ports allow for additional RAM to be added as needed, or for Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) cards to be installed for a wide variety of purposes.

Some companies that provide AI server PCBs, including Avary Holdings, Victory Giant Technology and Shennan Circuits, claim that their products are used for computer vision applications. These include imaging, games and machine vision. With the growth of global data traffic and acceleration of information construction, the demand for AI Server PCB Supplier servers is increasing. This is creating opportunities for a range of server PCB products, including 8-16-layer boards, 6 layers and package substrates.

Socket Logic

The motherboard is the main printed circuit board in a server, which houses at least one central processing unit (CPU), provides firmware or BIOS and offers an array of slots for memory modules. It also offers a series of secondary chips to handle I/O and processing support. It is responsible for handling data flows and provides high-density routing, EMI reduction, and improved thermal performance.

This server release introduces a new Bill of Materials (BOM) comparison feature that detects changes in raw BOM data between two specified project releases and offers a download for each comparison result. In addition, the Components pane of PCB Explorer has been updated to display a greater range of component Part Choices and Schematic and PCB model previews.

The CTEs of the socket and bare PCB were measured by strain gauges, whereas those of the ferrite-based solder joints and Cu pins were determined by hybrid method and FEM simulation using a simplified model. The front and back gauge-determined bending strains of the socket lines were converted to curvature and warpage data using Equations (4)–(6). The resulting contour maps of the out-of-plane deformations along the socket line o–a for the full and simplified models are shown in Figure 21. Both models exhibited similar thermally induced deformations under the same cooling rate conditions. The results indicate that the simplified socket model is representative of the full socket-PCB assembly.

Memory

A server PCB contains memory chips that store and access data for computers and electronic devices. Unlike standard computer memory, which uses single-bit cells, server memory is made of multiple bits in each cell and operates at higher speeds. It is also available in a variety of formats and capacities, such as unbuffered memory (which sends data on each clock cycle) and registered memory, which adds a buffer to reduce electrical load and signal noise in high-performance systems.

Server memory is a critical component in data centers, and it can be found in a wide range of applications in homes, businesses, and industries. PCB manufacturers are adapting to meet the growing demand for servers by designing board layouts that support more advanced processor and memory technologies.

The high-speed designs of modern servers require specialized PCBs with high routing density and superior signal integrity. This has created opportunities for PCB manufacturers that specialize in these markets. Nippon Mektron, for example, has introduced a new series of high-density server PCBs with faster signal transmission and increased thermal performance.

Overheating is a common problem for memory modules. It can reduce the lifespan of the memory chips and cause system instability or failure. To avoid this, server PCBs must be designed to keep the temperature in the case at a safe level and provide adequate airflow. In addition, ESD protection is required during memory module installation to prevent static electricity from damaging sensitive components.