For many years, the variability of PCB price has been familiar to the people inside the PCB industry, however, even if some people with years of experience in PCB still do not fully understand the reasons, we analysis the main factors effecting the price of printed circuit board as following:
1. The difference of PCB raw material bring the diversity of PCB price.
Taking the double-sided PCB for example, the raw material for PCB manufacturing have Normal FR4, high Tg FR4, CEM1 and CEM3 etc. the total PCB board thickness could be from 0.2mm to 5.0mm. Copper thickness could be from 0.5oz to 5oz. Any of these factors will cause big difference in PCB price
2. The difference of PCB technology bring the diversity of PCB price.
For example, the surface treatment of Immersion gold and HASL, Gold plating and OSP, these difference PCB surface finished technology will cause different PCB cost. The difference of profile such as CNC Routing and Punch will cause difference cost as well.
3. The various difficulty of PCB bring the diversity of PCB price
Even if the PCB raw material and the PCB technology is the same, the difficulty of PCB will cause different PCB production cost. For example, there are two types of circuit boards with the same total 1000 holes, one pcb board has all holes larger than 0.6mm, but the other pcb board has all holes smaller than 0.6mm, they will cause different drill cost.
4. The difference of PCB acceptance standard cause the difference of PCB price
The different of customer acceptance requirements will affect the yield rate directly, for example, one PCB order requests the acceptance of IPC-A-600, Class2 and have 98% yield rate, but there is only 80% yield rate if request the acceptance of IPC-A-600 Class3. This will cause extra production cost for PCB Manufacturer.
5. The different PCB manufacturer has different PCB pricing
The different PCB manufacturer has different PCB pricing even for the same PCB board, since different PCB manufacturers have different level of PCB technology and PCB equipments. This is also a factor to affect PCB pricing.
