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Stream/Area:
-
Subject:
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Paper ID:
IJSREM61838
Volume:
10 |
4 |
April 2026
Pages:
1-5
Publication Frequency:
Monthly (12 issues per year)
License:International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management follows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing free use and distribution with proper attribution.
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Babu Banarasi Das Institute Of Technology and Management
Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) form the structural backbone of modern electronic devices, connecting and supporting electronic components in systems ranging from consumer electronics to aerospace equipment. Ensuring defect-free PCBs during manufacturing is critical because even minor defects such as open circuits, shorts, mouse bites, spurious copper, or micro-cracks can significantly impact product reliability and functionality. Traditional inspection methods, including manual visual inspection and rule-based image processing techniques, often suffer from limitations such as low accuracy, high labor dependency, and sensitivity to environmental conditions like lighting and noise. This review paper presents a comprehensive analysis of recent research developments in PCB defect detection using deep learning techniques. The study categorizes existing approaches into traditional machine vision methods, deep learning-based detection models, and hybrid intelligent inspection systems. Furthermore, the paper discusses recent advancements such as multi-scale feature fusion, attention-based networks, generative data augmentation. The review also highlights key research gaps including the challenges of detecting extremely small defects, dataset limitations, domain adaptation issues, and the integration of intelligent inspection systems within Industry 4.0 manufacturing pipelines. Finally, this work proposes a conceptual framework for an advanced deep learning–based PCB inspection system capable of improving detection accuracy, reducing inspection time, and enabling automated quality control in modern electronics manufacturing.
KEYWORDS
This review paper analyzed various deep learning approaches used for PCB defect detection in manufacturing. The results discussed in the previous section confirm that deep learning models such as CNNs and YOLO-based object detection techniques significantly improve defect detection accuracy compared to traditional image processing methods. The analysis also shows that modern models can effectively detect common PCB defects such as open circuits, short circuits, mouse bites, and spurious copper. However, challenges still exist in detecting extremely small defects and handling limited datasets. Overall, deep learning provides an efficient solution for automated PCB inspection. Future research should focus on improving lightweight models, increasing dataset diversity, and developing more robust detection systems for industrial manufacturing environments.
[1] Elsharkawy, A., Hassan, M., & Abdelrahman, T. (2025). YOLOv11-PCB: Enhanced object detection for printed circuit board inspection. Scientific Reports, 15(2), 1–14. [2] Huang, J., Zhao, F., & Chen, L. (2025). GAN-augmented YOLOv11 for rare PCB defect detection. arXiv preprint. [3] HoangVan, T., Nguyen, D., & Tran, H. (2025). ESRPCB: Edge-guided super-resolution for micro PCB defect detection. arXiv preprint. [4] Ouyang, J., & Li, K. (2025). Vision-language models for PCB defect classification. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, 21(1), 1–15. [5] Pingzhen, P., Li, X., & Zhao, R. (2025). Lightweight multi-scale YOLOv8 with adaptive pruning for PCB inspection. arXiv preprint. [6] Song, Y., Liu, H., & Wang, Z. (2025). YOLO-HDEW: Edge-enhanced multi-scale attention for small PCB defect detection. Electronics, 14(3), 1–16. [7] Morales, D., Garcia, P., & Ortega, J. (2024). Semi-supervised learning for PCB defect detection using consistency regularization. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 4561–4568. [8] Sharma, N., & Patel, R. (2024). Real-time PCB defect detection using YOLOv8. IEEE Sensors Journal, 24(6), 8123–8134. [9] Singh, A., & Arora, V. (2024). Residual U-Net++ for PCB micro-crack detection. Machines, 12(4), 298. [10] Tanaka, K., Ito, S., & Yamamoto, H. (2024). Diffusion-based synthetic PCB dataset generation. arXiv preprint.
Publication Date
4/30/2026
Peer Review Type
Double-Blind Peer Review
Review Rounds: 2
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Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this research work.
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