PCB Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is the process of obtaining a product specification directly from the product, and not from a manufacturer or designer.

Reverse engineering of a circuit board is necessary when production files (gerber) are unavailable, or to rework the design in order to bring an old circuit for new use, taking advantage of better materials or production processes.

The process is to identify all components, and their interconnections, in order to generate new spec files and schematics. Extra data such as trace width and length are needed for high frequency designs, as impedance and signal losses from "antenna like" behavior from tracks needs to be taken into account.