Brief Introduction for Production Cost of PCB Board

  Many PCB new purchasers may don’t know clear about the PCB price components. This article will introduce briefly about the basic component of PCB cost. Also the cost may be different for the same specification and material from different manufacturers. Many factors will influence the final cost of PCB board. Here we will discuss some basic part.  

　　1. Base material

1) Base material type.FR-4 is our most commonly used for single sided board, double sided PCB and multi-layer PCB. The cost depends on the thickness of board and copper foil. While the CEM-3, FR1, CEM-1, FR2…are frequently used in single layer board. The cost usually will be cheaper than FR4.

2) Base material thickness. Common thickness 0.4mm,0.6mm,0.8mm,1.0mm,1.2mm,1.5mm,1.6mm,2.0mm,2.4mm,3.0mm,3.4mm. Too thin or too thick is not applied frequently, the cost will be higher than standard.

3) Copper foil thickness. Frequent requirement is18um (0.5oz), 35um (1oz), 70 (2 oz), 105um (3oz), 140um (4oz) and so on. Usually, the thicker copper, the higher circuit boards cost.

4) Base material supplier. Widely used manufacturers are Shengyi\KB\Gouji\ITEQ and so on. The cost differs from manufacturers. Sometimes the cost difference should be not big for the same frequently used brand.

5) Special requirement such as high Tg, halogen free,  Aluminum Base, High frequency

　　2. Manufacture procedure

1) PCB line width and space smaller than such as 4/4mm, the price will be counted extra.

2) The board with BGA, the cost will rise. Some PCB manufacturers add the cost by quantity of BGA.

3) Surface finishing. The most frequently used is Hot Air Level (HASL), OSP (RoHs green board), Immersion tin, Immersion silver, Immersion gold etc. Different surface finishing will with different cost.

4) Technology/inspection standards. IPC 2 standard, IPC 3 standard, enterprise standard, military standard, the higher standard, the higher cost.　

　3. Another is the shape of the PCB. Usually use CNC in milling the PCB profile. But if the shape is complex, need to make by mould. There will be mould cost.

To summarize the above, the basic factors to affect the price of Circuit board as follows:
1.PCB size
2.PCB layers
3.Surface treatment (Immersion gold,Lead free HAL, OSP ...)
4.Quantity
5.PCB material (normal FR4, Rogers, PTFE ...)

Also there are other factors will cause cost arise:

1. Small conductor line width and space
2.Too many holes/vias quantity
3 .Small apertures

4. Mould needed
5. Tight tolerances
6. Small circuit board thickness aperture ratio
7.Special requirements (board thickness too thin or too thick, copper plating, package...)