Factors affecting PCB prices

For many years, the volatile PCB prices have been familiar to people inside and outside the industry. Even some people with many years of PCB experience may not fully understand the ins and outs of this. Let’s analyze the main factors affecting PCB prices:

1.The different materials used in PCBs cause price diversity

Take ordinary double-sided boards as an example. The board materials generally have fr-4, cem-3, etc., the board thickness ranges from 0.2mm to 5.0mm, and the copper thickness varies from 0.5oz to 3oz. All of these have caused huge price differences in the board material; in terms of solder mask ink, there is also a certain price difference between ordinary thermosetting oil and photosensitive green oil, so the difference in materials has caused price diversity.

2.The different production processes used in PCBs cause price diversity

Different production processes will cause different costs. For example, gold-plated boards and tin-sprayed boards, milling boards and beer (punching) boards for making shapes, and the use of silk-screen lines and dry film lines will all form different costs, leading to price diversity.

3.Diversity of prices caused by different difficulty of PCB itself

Even if the materials and processes are the same, different difficulty of PCB itself will also cause different costs. For example, if there are 1000 holes on two circuit boards, one board has a hole diameter greater than 0.6mm and the other board has a hole diameter less than 0.6mm, which will result in different drilling costs; if the other two circuit boards are the same, but the line width and line spacing are different, one is greater than 0.2mm, and the other is less than 0.2mm, it will also cause different production costs, because the scrap rate of difficult boards is higher, which will inevitably increase the cost, and then cause price diversity.

4.Different customer requirements will also cause different prices

The level of customer requirements will directly affect the yield rate of the board factory. For example, a board according to ipc-a-600e, class1 requires a 98% pass rate, but according to class3 requirements, it may only have a 90% pass rate, which will cause different costs for the board factory, and finally lead to variable product prices.

5.Price diversity caused by different PCB manufacturers

Even for the same product, different manufacturers have different process equipment and technical levels, which will result in different costs. Nowadays, many manufacturers like to produce tin-spraying boards because the process is simple and the cost is low, but some manufacturers produce gold-plated boards, and the scrap rate increases, resulting in higher costs, so they would rather produce tin-spraying boards, so their tin-spraying board quotations are lower than gold-plated boards.

6.Price differences caused by different payment methods

At present, PCB board factories generally adjust PCB prices according to different payment methods, ranging from 5% to 10%, which also causes price differences.

7.Price diversity caused by different regions

At present, from a geographical point of view, the price in China is increasing from south to north, and there are certain differences in prices in different regions, so different regions also cause price diversity