What is PCB Assembly Prototyping?

PCB assembly prototyping is the trial production of circuit boards before mass production.

It mainly applied to electronic engineers in the design of the circuit, and complete the PCB Layout, to the reliable PCBA manufacturer for small batch PCB trial production process.

That is, the rapid prototyping of circuit boards. General engineers in the product design is not completed to confirm and complete testing before, are called PCB prototyping.

What do I need to check for PCB prototyping?

Before you choose a PCB assembly service, it is important to have a clear understanding of your project requirements.

Knowing all production requirements in advance will help you narrow down your search and find the right assembly service for your project.

Prototyping needs to confirm a few basic parameters

1, Board material.

2, Finished plate thickness.

3, Copper thickness.

2, Number of layers.

3, Hole diameter

4, Plating

5, Solder resist layer.

6, Surface treatment process

7, Character

What files are required for PCB prototyping?

Among the documents required for assembly, the most important are Gerber/ODB++, coordinate files, assembly drawings, and BOMs. As a PCB design engineer, if you do not communicate the necessary information to your contract manufacturer (CM) through these documents, a number of errors may occur. These include mismatched component counts, missing pin 1 and polarity markings, missing orientation indicators, packages, etc.

Make sure the Gerber file and BOM file are accurate, replace components with long lead times with components that can be ordered and picked up immediately, because sampling is only a preliminary verification of product design, so you can use alternative materials to save sampling time, or have a long lead time with the supplier before sampling, and then pick up the materials directly when you want to sample, this is also a way to reduce This is also a common method to reduce the waiting time for materials.

PCB & PCBA Fabrication Process:

place order → confirm production information → procurement→ inspection→ production → verification (pics)

Place order

Customers place orders according to their actual needs PCBA processing factory, and put forward specific requirements. And the processing factory will evaluate by their own ability to see if they can complete the order.

Confirm production information

After the customer decides to place an order, he will provide a series of documents and lists to the PCBA processing factory, such as PCB electronic files, coordinate files and BOM lists, etc., which are required for production.

Procurement of raw materials

PCBA fabrication factory according to the documents provided by the customer to the designated suppliers to purchase the relevant raw materials.

Incoming Material Inspection

Before PCB & PCBA processing, all raw materials to be used are subject to strict quality inspection to ensure that they are qualified and put into production.

PCBA production

In the time of PCB & PCBA processing, in order to ensure the quality of production, whether SMD or welding production, manufacturers need to strictly control the furnace temperature.

PCBA testing

PCBA processing factory for strict product testing, through the test PCB board delivery to customers.

Packaging after-sales

Factors Affecting the PCBs Cost

• Material selection:

The price diversity caused by the different materials used in PCB, board material generally FR-4, CEM-3, etc., board thickness, copper thickness will cause huge differences.

• Production process:

Different production process costs are also different. For example, sink gold board and OSP, gold plating surface treatment process; solder resist layer ink, ordinary heat-set oil and photopolymer green oil; production shape of the gong board and beer board; the use of silk screen lines and dry film lines, etc. will also affect the price of prototyping

• PCB design:

Different designs will have different problems. For example, two kinds of circuit boards with different apertures, line width spacing will also have different production costs; for example, a panel with more than 4, 5 different designs, the complexity of the machine in the gong board will become higher, the difficulty of the higher scrap rate, the inevitable cost increases.

• Customer requirements:

The level of customer requirements will directly affect the board factory’s yield, such as a board by ipc-a-600e, class1 requirements have 98% pass rate, but by class3 requirements may only 90% pass rate.

• PCB manufacturers capacity:

Even if the same product, but because of different manufacturers process equipment, technology level is different, will also form different costs.

Explore KingPCB’s PCB prototyping services

KingPCB engaged in the electronics industry for more than 20 years of experience, professional and efficient team is committed to providing customers with the best PCB one-stop procurement, assembly, manufacturing services for industrial, consumer electronics, aviation, medical, automotive and other fields.

Contact us now for your project with quick quotation!