PCB News - Talking about the influencing factors of PCB board price

As a PCB purchaser, you need to know a lot about PCBs, such as how to choose a PCB procurement platform or PCB manufacturer with the best cost-effectiveness, how to classify PCB suppliers, how to calculate PCB purchase prices, and affect PCB What are the price factors of the product, etc.; among them, the price influence factor of PCB is more critical. Today, let's talk about one or two.

Generally speaking, the price of a PCB circuit board will be greatly affected by the following seven factors.

Factor 1: PCB material

Taking high-end PCB as an example, the sheet materials generally include FR-4 with ordinary TG value, FR-4 with medium and high TG value, high-frequency materials, high-speed materials, polyimide flexible materials, etc. The thickness of the board ranges from 0.2mm to 6.0mm. The finished copper thickness varies from 1Oz to 80z, and the materials used are different in brand, material, plate thickness and copper thickness. The material cost will be relatively high and low, so the price will also be different.

Factor 2: PCB production process

Benqiang circuit 5G optical module PCB circuit board

Different production processes will obviously be associated with the level of cost. Such as the back drilling process of high-level communication backplanes, the segmented gold finger thick gold plating process of 5G optical modules with a frequency of 400G, the laser micro-hole processing process of 1-6 HDI boards, and any interconnection process, in-disk hole or general pass The hole requires the resin plugging process, the special laminated multi-layer impedance board process, the mixed surface treatment process of the smart phone PCB board, the crimping hole and the special-shaped hole and the step groove process, the ultra-thick copper process, and the board side gold coating Process...These special and complex processes will affect the production cost of the highly difficult and demanding PCB board to varying degrees, thereby affecting the level of its price.

Factor 3: Difficulty of PCB processing

For example, two high-density PCB boards have 300,000 holes (assuming the hole density is about 120,000/square meter), one of which has a minimum hole diameter of 0.1mm, and the other has a minimum hole diameter of 0.15 mm, then the 0.1mm board needs to be processed by laser drilling, and the 0.15mm hole can be drilled with CNC machinery. In addition, for PCB boards of the same processing type, the greater the hole density, the higher the processing cost; the smaller the holes, the greater the difficulty of PCB processing and the lower the production efficiency; these factors have an impact on the price of the board.

Our company's 16-layer thick gold-plated semiconductor test board

In addition, two high-density 16-layer PCB boards have different minimum line widths/line spacings, one of which is 70/70 microns and the other is 50/50um, so the production difficulty coefficient of the latter will be higher than that of the former. Larger and more difficult boards have a higher scrap rate and a higher cost, which ultimately affects the increase in prices.

Factor 4: Customer requirements

When other factors are the same, the higher the customer's requirements, the higher the cost. For example, the requirements of IPC-A-600H Class2 have a 99% primary pass rate, but if the PCB is inspected according to Class3 standards or military requirements, it may only have a 90% primary pass rate. The acceptance level required by the customer is different, and the scrap rate is also different., Leading to higher costs for PCB manufacturers, and prices will rise.

Factor 5: PCB manufacturers

Different PCB manufacturers have different quotation systems for the same kind of circuit boards. Low-end PCB board manufacturers use slightly lower material levels and simplified processes when manufacturing low-end circuit boards. The quotation is much lower than that of mid-to-high-end manufacturers; and for high-end PCBs Purchase orders are usually handed over to high-end manufacturers, and the price may be more expensive than the user’s direct customization from the original factory; but it may also be the same, because the low-end manufacturers’ orders to high-end manufacturers are relatively concentrated and large. So sometimes you can get very low purchase prices.

Factor 6: settlement method

The price quoted by the manufacturer is also different for the difference between the prepayment and the 60-day account period of the monthly settlement.

Factor 7: Regional factors

Generally speaking, PCB manufacturers in East China are more expensive due to higher operating costs, while those in South China are cheaper.