ABL Circuits PCB Manufacture Routing: The final process in the board manufacture is to rout out the boards to size on a CNC Routing Machine which can be programmed from the original CAD data or manually with a video camera and joystick. The boards can either be left in a panel or routed out as singles, lots of companies prefer left in a panel because it aids assembly especially if the boards are quite small.
The precision dimensions can be achieved because the stepper motors on the machines go down to 100th of a millimetre so accuracy is ensured and the other process at the final stage of the panel process is scoring.