Check Quote Early in the Design Process

What are the quality needs?
IPC standard 2, IPC standard 3, MIL-31032, all have various needs and various cost points that are very important to capture in your price quotes. Will you have a need for a third component examination? This too has an impact on the overall cost.

What are the minimum drilled opening sizes?
The minimum drilled opening dimension can have an effect on pricing. Mechanically pierced openings are usually cheaper than laser pierced holes and also mechanically pierced openings less than.008″ can have an effect on cost. The expense added for smaller mechanically pierced holes can be very depending on the producer’s tools as well as procedure, so be sure to comprehend those capacities.

What is the by means of structure?
Do you prepare for the layout to be basic thru hole building? Will there be blind and hidden vias? Will there be micro vias? If there are mini vias, will these be filled and also piled or staggered, and the number of levels? The number of lamination cycles required to produce the flex or rigid flex has a remarkable result on expense.

What is the recommended surface finish?
Flex and inflexible flex designs can utilize just the same surface coating options as a stiff board. Do you require HASL? Lead-Free HASL? OSP? Silver? Tin? ENIG? ENEPIG? ENIG? These all have different price factors as well as both pricing and also lead-time are affected by which surface area finishes your maker has in house and runs most frequently.