General PCB Manufacturing Pros and Cons

[asmi]

Additional cost per BGA could be related to e-testing.  They might have to use a higher spec flying probe machine for some BGA pad layouts.

In this case it would be a flat fee, and I would be OK with that (as long as it's reasonable). But per-package fee is something really weird.

[GreggD]

Options for UL markings and certificate of conformance.

[asmi]

It's common in China that they charge you not only based on their cost, but also on your estimated profit from their service. Basically more BGA means higher tech, and higher tech means more profit.
By this way, they can offer lower cost to low tech DIYers to spread their name, and recoup the cost from established high tech corporate customers.

Well my profit from my boards is zero. I'm totally willing to share that profit with them if they so desire. Damn, I can give them the whole 100% of that profit!

[asmi]

For that case, PCBWay has an sponsorship discounting. Basically you sign an agreement with them stating your PCB work is not funded, and you agree to provide them with a photo including your acknowledgement to their service and your final physical board. They can give you a heavy discount.

Check out here: https://www.pcbway.com/project/sponsor/

There are some really cool projects.

I looked at that, and they seem to require photos of the project before getting sponsorship. But how am I supposed to have them, if I don't have the board?

[NorthGuy]

I want to add my vote for more layers (6, may be even , better specs (4-5mil traces/8-10mil drills), ENIG. There's plenty of places where you can order low-end, but it is real hard to find a manufacturer for reasonably priced 6-layer boards with good specifications. Even if it's small and you only need one or two, you'll end up paying $300 or more. This is a huge room for price improvement here.

[asmi]

I want to add my vote for more layers (6, may be even , better specs (4-5mil traces/8-10mil drills), ENIG. There's plenty of places where you can order low-end, but it is real hard to find a manufacturer for reasonably priced 6-layer boards with good specifications. Even if it's small and you only need one or two, you'll end up paying $300 or more. This is a huge room for price improvement here.

Allpcb now offers 5 6-layer boards 100x100 mm 0.125/0.125 mm trace/spacing 0.25 mm drill, 50 Ohm CI, ENIG for only $200. But they charge $8.695 per each BGA device you've got on the board They also offer 4-layer boards with the same specs for $95.76.
So we're slowly getting to the point where 6 layer boards are a viable option for hobbyists. 4-layer board already are totally viable, especially if you can make do with "default" 0.15/0.15/0.3 process.

[mrpackethead]

Been discussing this bga malarkey with them.. And they are are looking at it.

[NorthGuy]

WellPCB offers 1.2mm, 6L 6 mil drill with 3mil track/spacing and ENIG boards at $195/5pcs plus $2/pcs, for size of 50mm*50mm. They also offer ultra thin technology, down to 0.35mm/4L and 0.55mm/6L.

Thanks. These guys offer really good prices.

For some reason no one publish their stack-ups

Quote form is strange. If I select 3-4 mil option, the form says +10%, but price goes up dramatically. They also don't say what are the specs if you don't select "3-4 mil".

Will need to email them.

Allpcb now offers 5 6-layer boards 100x100 mm 0.125/0.125 mm trace/spacing 0.25 mm drill, 50 Ohm CI, ENIG for only $200. But they charge $8.695 per each BGA device you've got on the board They also offer 4-layer boards with the same specs for $95.76.
So we're slowly getting to the point where 6 layer boards are a viable option for hobbyists. 4-layer board already are totally viable, especially if you can make do with "default" 0.15/0.15/0.3 process.

Thanks for that too. WellPCB looks more promising though. But devil is in the details

Perhaps prices are going improve soon!

[asmi]

For some reason no one publish their stack-ups

Quote form is strange. If I select 3-4 mil option, the form says +10%, but price goes up dramatically. They also don't say what are the specs if you don't select "3-4 mil".

Will need to email them.

Their form is weird to say the least. For example, you can't select CI and 3-4 mil traces (wtf is that btw? is it 3 mil or 4 mil?) at the same time. If you will find out - please let me know. Also I wonder what would it cost to have a custom stackup, as all default stackups I've seen to far sucks for 50 Ohm traces unless you're OK with going to thinner PCB. And that is dangerous for big BGAs as they can easily crack if PCB is too "bendy".

Thanks for that too. WellPCB looks more promising though. But devil is in the details

And there are indeed "details". 4 times smaller area (I might suck at layout, but in my design just DC-DC converter to supply FPGA power takes up about 3x5 cm area), also standard TG-130 will not fare well under Lead-free reflow temperatures (PCBWay, for example automatically, upgrades board to TG150 for 4 layers and above).

Perhaps prices are going improve soon!

I can't wait for that to happen. But for now we're seem to be stuck with ~$300 per five 10x10 cm PCBs. PCBWay seems to offer no-cost custom stackup and via-in-a-pad options - at least their calculator says so, not sure if it's actually correct as it also shows non-CI boards much more expensive than CI ones, as well as 5x5 cm boards being twice the price of 10x10 cm ones, none of which makes any sense whatsoever. I kinda suspect that it's just broken for these kind of boards, but for now I'm trying my very best to stick to 4-layer boards to save money. I know there is PCBWay representative here on the forums, maybe he/she would be kind enough to shed some light on this madness.

[KL27x]

Additional cost per BGA could be related to e-testing.  They might have to use a higher spec flying probe machine for some BGA pad layouts.

In this case it would be a flat fee, and I would be OK with that (as long as it's reasonable). But per-package fee is something really weird.

I don't see it this way. The prices they give aren't exact. Based on the same area of board, same minimum pitch, components, vias.... essentially every possible spec that can be input into a quote algorithm.... one customers board can be a lot less profitable than another, due to MORE of the board being minimum pitch and/or having more traces, overall.  Presence of BGA can potentially be closely associated with the manufacturing cost (lower yield). In fact, if looked at this way, it might be generous that there is a flat per-unit fee, rather than and exponential one.

So if presence of a BGA (statistically, on average) increases chance for failed board by 10% (on average), putting half a dozen of them on 1 board means they make and test twice as many boards as you order and end up throwing half of them away.

Personally, I try to make my board manufacturer-friendly. In case I repeat order a lot of them, I can ask for a new quote/discount. If you "abuse" the minimum clearances to get the tiniest board possible to save a few cents, you will save money in the short run, based on the flat-pricing model, but you wlll not be a favorite customer, lol.

[asmi]

I don't see it this way. The prices they give aren't exact. Based on the same area of board, same minimum pitch, components, vias.... essentially every possible spec that can be input into a quote algorithm.... one customers board can be a lot less profitable than another, due to MORE of the board being minimum pitch and/or having more traces, overall.  Presence of BGA can potentially be closely associated with the manufacturing cost (lower yield). In fact, if looked at this way, it might be generous that there is a flat per-unit fee, rather than and exponential one.

Why would you want a 6 layer board if not for BGAs? I just don't understand this.

If presence of a BGA increases chance for failed board by 10% (on average), putting half a dozen of them on 1 board means they make and test twice as many boards as you order and end up throwing half of them away.

Can you please provide your source for 10% data point? It seem weird to me as BGA pads are usually larger than some other parts' footprints (like 0.2x0.2 mm pads of BME280 sensor), yet they didn't change anything extra from me for that... It just doesn't add up.
The theory posted above (about ripping off "perceived profit" off customers) at least makes some sense, but I just don't see a relationship between amount of BGAs and "profitability"/"high-tech"-ness of the board. Afterall, most SoC boards usually only contain two or three BGAs (main one for the SoC itself + 1 or 2 DDR3 devices), and these boards are definitely "high-tech".

[KL27x]

I am not sure what 6 layer issue is. I was only commenting on additional cost per BGA. Personally, every PCB I have ever seen with BGA on it, the density of components and microscopic caps/resistors is highly associated and localized around said BGA. To me, it seems logical that based on manufacturer's own statistics that each BGA could cost the manufacturer money/profit if they stick only with their "automatic quote machine," without exception.

The 10% is just theoretical. Pulled out of a hat for sake of argument.

In making my own boards, for instance, it is easily observable over time that yes, I can do 6/6 where absolutely necessary. But the more of the board I want to cover with this kind of pitch, and the larger the board, the more I can expect failure. One failure in a tight pitch area on a huge board still equals huge piece of garbage. Vs 1 mistake on panel of 10 smaller boards means 90% good boards.

If you order your boards on a panel, you will find that even large pitch very simple boards have a failure rate. This is a real cost in material and time and work.

[asmi]

I am not sure what 6 layer issue is. I was only commenting on additional cost per BGA. Personally, every PCB I have ever seen with BGA on it, the density of components and microscopic caps/resistors is highly associated and localized around said BGA. To me, it seems logical that based on manufacturer's own statistics that each BGA could cost the manufacturer money/profit if they stick only with their "automatic quote machine," without exception.

The 10% is just theoretical. Pulled out of a hat for sake of argument.

The "microscopic-ness" of caps for BGA decoupling is more related to BGA pitch than it is to amount of them. If they can't even reliably produce 0402 pads, they probably do not deserve to still be in business at this day and age.
But they can, and we all know that. Another curious thing - every other PCB fab I've ever used didn't not give a crap about what's actually on the board. allpcb is the first and only that I know if (so far) that does that. If this is caused by them having too many failures - I would probably serve myself well to steer clear of them and instead take my business to other fabs who are certain about their manufacturing abilities.

[KL27x]

In making my own boards, for instance, it is easily observable over time that yes, I can do 6/6 where absolutely necessary. But the more of the board I want to cover with this kind of pitch, and the larger the board, the more I can expect failure. One failure in a tight pitch area on a huge board still equals huge piece of garbage. Vs 1 mistake on panel of 10 smaller boards means 90% good boards.

If you order your boards on a panel, you will find that even large pitch very simple boards have a failure rate. This is a real cost in material and time and work.

It's not as simple as a manufacturer can do up to X pitch or not. There's a curve and an associated cost. Period. It's not a matter of my process is more accurate, so I can do this 100%. They must dedicate more time, experienced workers, and loss in yield rate for tighter pitch boards with higher pad counts. And there is probably a fairly strong association to presence of BGA.

Just because one manufacturer has this extra charge and another does not, this does not mean one manufacturer is ripping you off. It means they use a different model to account for their actual costs, on average. You can game the system to find the best price; but if/when everyone does this and when BGA becomes a larger part of their business, everyone else will also start charging extra, or at least change their pricing model.

[asmi]

In making my own boards, for instance, it is easily observable over time that yes, I can do 6/6 where absolutely necessary. But the more of the board I want to cover with this kind of pitch, and the larger the board, the more I can expect failure. One failure in a tight pitch area on a huge board still equals huge piece of garbage. Vs 1 mistake on panel of 10 smaller boards means 90% good boards.

I've been sticking to 0.15/0.15 mm for the past year or so and used several different fabs (including allpcb - albeit in their "middle-man" status of the time), and I am yet to see a single failure.
0.15/0.15 is not a modern technology - it used to be "high-tech" in the past century, but those times are long gone. Heck, I've been able to produce such tracks at home with laser printer's toner with 100% success!
Nowadays modern technology is 2-3 mil traces and 0.075mm microvias. If I was to order this kind of board - then I'd accept your justification of high price. But not for 20-years old tech.

[KL27x]

If you order your boards on a panel, you will find that even large pitch very simple boards have a failure rate. This is a real cost in material and time and work.

If a company is making boards at 100% success rate, and they are maintaining this on very large orders, they are pretty dumb. A smart company would be looking at what they're wasting time and effort on.

[asmi]

If you order your boards on a panel, you will find that even large pitch very simple boards have a failure rate. This is a real cost in material and time and work.

Yes they do, and I'm not arguing with that. What I'm contesting is connection between amount of BGAs and failure rate - frankly I think it just doesn't exist. Not with 1.0 mm pitch BGAs anyway (and they charge regardless of BGA pitch and pad size!).

[KL27x]

^At some point, easy quote/pricing system will break down if you differentiate between too many specifications. Perhaps they lump them together just to make the system work.

Tomato, tomato. You have options to use whatever company you want, with whatever quotation/pricing scheme you like better. I use a few different companies for different purposes. And I ask for new quotes (I,e. discounts), perhaps once a year or so, if I order the same board.

If a company is adding an extra charge for this or that, it is probably because they do not like your business. It is not as profitable as other customers that do not need this or that. If the extra charge is a deal breaker, definitely go somewhere else. Perhaps they were getting a lot of BGA customers and too many issues. Whether due to customer ignorance/support/chat/service cost or manufacturing/testing cost, or too many low volume orders, it doesn't matter. Perhaps they are operating too close to capacity in the department that is setup to handle BGA level boards and/or this part of their business is growing too fast for them to service. So they are trying to reduce demand. For w/e the reason, they are essentially saying your BGA business is not that important to them, at least not under the original pricing scheme. Their demand is greater than they care to sell at. If you can get a better price somewhere else, please do that so we can make more profit on our other services. And if/when other manufacturers get deluged with these low profit orders, they may adjust their scheme, too.

[mrpackethead]

Additional cost per BGA could be related to e-testing.  They might have to use a higher spec flying probe machine for some BGA pad layouts.

In this case it would be a flat fee, and I would be OK with that (as long as it's reasonable). But per-package fee is something really weird.

I don't see it this way. The prices they give aren't exact. Based on the same area of board, same minimum pitch, components, vias.... essentially every possible spec that can be input into a quote algorithm.... one customers board can be a lot less profitable than another, due to MORE of the board being minimum pitch and/or having more traces, overall.  Presence of BGA can potentially be closely associated with the manufacturing cost (lower yield). In fact, if looked at this way, it might be generous that there is a flat per-unit fee, rather than and exponential one.

So if presence of a BGA (statistically, on average) increases chance for failed board by 10% (on average), putting half a dozen of them on 1 board means they make and test twice as many boards as you order and end up throwing half of them away.

Personally, I try to make my board manufacturer-friendly. In case I repeat order a lot of them, I can ask for a new quote/discount. If you "abuse" the minimum clearances to get the tiniest board possible to save a few cents, you will save money in the short run, based on the flat-pricing model, but you wlll not be a favorite customer, lol.

After queryng this with AllPCB, they have decided to remove this BGA surcharge from their quotation engine.     I think they realised it was not something that was sensible.       However as a side issue to this,  their service is'tn so suitable for using with BGAs, as they dont' go to .2mm Vias, or offer via in pads, so that makes breakign out all but the biggest pitched bgas nearly impossible.

[asmi]

After queryng this with AllPCB, they have decided to remove this BGA surcharge from their quotation engine.     I think they realised it was not something that was sensible.       However as a side issue to this,  their service is'tn so suitable for using with BGAs, as they dont' go to .2mm Vias, or offer via in pads, so that makes breakign out all but the biggest pitched bgas nearly impossible.

So it was just a money grab afterall....
Interestingly enough their spec sheet says they can do down to 0.1/0.1 mm traces, but their online quote system doesn't give that option. 0.1/0.1 mm and 0.25 drill would be enough to handle 0.8 mm pitch BGAs and up.

Hmmm. Now their quote system doesn't even allow choosing 0.25 mm drills now (it used to just a couple of days ago). BGA count field is still there, and funny enough there is a "Min BGA pads size:0.25mm" note next to it. This pad size is usually used on 0.5 mm pitch BGAs, and I would love to see how can one break it out using 0.125/0.125/0.25 mm process

[KE5FX]

After queryng this with AllPCB, they have decided to remove this BGA surcharge from their quotation engine.     I think they realised it was not something that was sensible.       However as a side issue to this,  their service is'tn so suitable for using with BGAs, as they dont' go to .2mm Vias, or offer via in pads, so that makes breakign out all but the biggest pitched bgas nearly impossible.

So it was just a money grab afterall....
Interestingly enough their spec sheet says they can do down to 0.1/0.1 mm traces, but their online quote system doesn't give that option. 0.1/0.1 mm and 0.25 drill would be enough to handle 0.8 mm pitch BGAs and up.

Hmmm. Now their quote system doesn't even allow choosing 0.25 mm drills now (it used to just a couple of days ago). BGA count field is still there, and funny enough there is a "Min BGA pads size:0.25mm" note next to it. This pad size is usually used on 0.5 mm pitch BGAs, and I would love to see how can one break it out using 0.125/0.125/0.25 mm process

Their quote system has always been sort of messed up in that regard.  When I was playing with it last, the price increased non-monotonically as I specified smaller feature sizes.

[Corporate666]

It's been a month since Probb replied on the thread, so I am not sure if he's actively reading - but in case any other PCB manufacturers are, here's my thoughts (worth what you paid for them)

-I think there's a couple of different groups of people ordering.  Hobbyists and professionals.  Nothing wrong with either group, but I would imagine the former tends to need more hand-holding and you work harder for the profit than with business customers. 

-There are countless companies offering PCB services, many of them specialize in cheap.  I have a small business that manufactures boutique electronics products and I don't care about cheap.  Well, what I mean is that PCB's are so cheap nowadays that if a 10cm x 10cm board is $1 each in 100pcs quantity ($100 total) at one PCB manufacturer, I really couldn't care less if another PCB shop is charging $130 for the exact same board.  Because getting bad boards or sub-par boards is so detrimental to me, that I am MORE than happy to pay that 30% premium to get good boards.

The problem is - ALL of these PCB fabs claim their boards are top notch.  So how do you really know you're getting higher quality for a higher price?

As with many other products, it's good to just tell the customer right up-front what your market differentiator is.  If you are higher price, higher quality... don't be afraid to say so.  Many of us *want* higher quality and are willing to pay more. 

Another important thing to me - lots of options!  If a PCB fab has things like tented vias, thermal-resin filled vias, metal core PCB's, flex PCB's, peelable soldermask, custom colors for solder mask, offers panelization, offers stencils (ideally framed and frameless), offers options for manufacturing time (at a price premium) and shipping, offers immersion gold, hard gold, HASL, lead-free and other options... and lets me choose various board thicknesses, materials and such - well that is a fab plant I can grow with.  Some people will always be hobbyists - and that is fine - but I think a lot of people have a goal to commercialize their designs.  I would rather have a go-to fab shop that can do all the stuff I might need tomorrow as well as the cheap and easy stuff I need today.

I may be in the minority there, but that's what happened to me over the years.  I started with 2-layer, 1.6mm boards with HASL and green soldermask.  I used to use Olimex then - that was about 15 years ago.  Now I have a PnP, I stencil paste my boards, I've done metal core, multi-layers, thermal resin vias, metal plugged vias, blind/buried vias, various soldermask and silkcreen colors and flex boards.  I only used Olimex to start because they were easy (could just upload an Eagle file).  But I remember them going back and forth with me by email about some errors on my board.  I had no idea how to make Gerbers back then.  But I outgrew them, and the subsequent PCB manufacturers are the ones that got thousands of $$ per year from me for multi-thousand piece board orders, not Olimex.

[mrpackethead]

The problem is - ALL of these PCB fabs claim their boards are top notch.  So how do you really know you're getting higher quality for a higher price?

Price is NO indicator.. The cheaper fab might actually be better.   The only way you can find out is to try them out...     And its the 'total' quality that you've got to take into account. thats ontime delviery, easy to use.. If i have to spend hours sorting out drama because its too hard,  then it coudl be free, but it woudl still be expensive if that makes sense.      I've found that for all my 'basic' PCBs ( thats stuff that is 4 layer, .15/.15 and .3mm min vias ) that AllPCB have done a really good job.   Mostly on time, they ahve owned their mistakes and they are easy to communicate. It took a bit of time to work otu what they were about though, and all their changes dont' make it easy.

[asmi]

Their quote system has always been sort of messed up in that regard.  When I was playing with it last, the price increased non-monotonically as I specified smaller feature sizes.

Yea no kidding. 6-layers all default - $83.72, change finish to ENIG - $196.90! Boom! 

[NorthGuy]

Yes it is very annoying and sad when you change ONE LITTLE THING from defaults almost no matter what that is and all of a sudden the price goes WAY WAY WAY up disproportionately beyond any reasonable cost for a PCB of those specifications.

Yes, I find it annoying too. It is not as bad when you go to quantities. Then the difference is quite modest. But if you just want few for the prototype, it's just ridiculous. And they all apparently use the same software for quotes and they all have this pricing "feature".

OSHPark is by far the best for small boards in small quantities.  Quality is excellent. They have reasonable stackup for 4-layer boards and ENIG. And their tolerances are good for 0.8mm BGA (5 mil trace and 8 mil drill). I've just made PIC32MZ DA test board and it turned out great. I paid only $40 with free shipping! They don't have 6-layer though, and everything which is bigger getting pricey.