Standard PCB

Standard PCB service refers to full feature printed circuit board manufacturing service. With years' experience in pcb fabrication company, we have handled hundreds of thousands of PCB projects, and covered almost all kinds of substrate materials including FR4, Aluminum, Rogers, etc. This page only touches standard FR4 based PCB. For PCBs with special technical substrate, please refer to corresponding webpages for information.

Unlike Prototype PCB service, our Standard PCB service has tighter production tolerances. The following two articles will give you enough information about those two services on their introductions and differences:

PCB Prototype Service vs. PCB Standard Production

Pcbmain offers both prototype service and standard PCB production. While you will usually eventually use both services, there is an appropriate time for each. The difference is simple. With the prototype service, we take your design and quickly build a small batch of boards using basic materials, which we then ship to you in just a few days. The idea is just to give you a sense of whether your design works or not and worth it to do a full production run. You can test the boards to locate any design flaws before you make a big investment in PCB fabrication based on that design.

In standard PCB production, we are actually making the boards you will use in your applications. This will take a bit longer since we may be using different materials and more complex fabrication processes (e.g. multi-layer designs), but it will usually still be as fast or faster than other PCB fabrication services. You will normally make a larger run of these, since you will actually be using these boards for your market applications.

If you are working from an existing design you have used before, you may want to jump directly to the standard PCB production service. Since design flaws are much less likely, it could save you some time to get the standard boards you need right away. If you are testing a new design, we highly recommend you engage our PCB prototype service. You will lose little time and be able to verify that your design works before standard production, which could save you considerable time and money if you do uncover design flaws.

Get Your Next PCB Design off the Ground with PCB Prototype Service

When you are just starting the development of a new product our rapid PCB prototyping service can help you get your new design from concept to production in record time. When developing a new product, quickly iterating through new versions of your design is of the utmost importance. Rapidly testing and correcting designs is what will allow you to hone in on a finished product as quickly as possible. Additionally, it is also well known that making large engineering changes to a design is best done in the early phases of product development. Quick-turn PCB fabrications service can allow you to locate just such design change requirements early in the development cycle. Spot design errors in low quantity prototype production runs of your PCB board before ramping up production volume. Hence, it allows you to refine your next design quickly at an affordable cost.

As the saying goes, "time is money" and waiting on long lead time PCBs can doom a project to failure. That is why we offer quick-turn PCB prototype service, which builds your proto boards in as few as 2 working days. Additionally, this service is well suited to low volume production runs with a minimum order quantity of only five boards.

Although our prototype PCBs do not have as high of production tolerances as standard circuit boards, they allow you to get a very good idea of how well your final production version work. Having an accurate view of how your final design will turn out is of great importance to ensuring that your design is successful. Our prototyping service provides you with a nearly identical product to that of a high volume standard production run, albeit at slightly lower manufacturing tolerances. Despite the lower production tolerances, we support track widths down to 4mils and track spacing down to 4mils, 5mils minimum annular rings and minimum drill sizes down to 0.2mm (8mils). Additionally, we can manufacture PCB up to 16 layers in layer count and 500x500 mm in size, covering most PCB applications. Reviewing these capabilities, it is apparent that our prototyping service will allow you to test and verify demanding tight tolerance designs at a lower cost, with shorter turnaround times than what you would encounter with standard PCB services.

When developing surface mount based solutions, it's also of great utility to order solder stencils for prototype assembly purposes. You need to test your circuit design and make sure it is good for huge production.

PCB Prototype Advantages:

Opportunity to do a small test run of your PCB design

Fast turnaround on your order

Identify any design flaws fast

You can change the design without having wasted an entire standard production run

PCB Prototype Disadvantages:

The boards’ tolerances are not as high as standard circuit boards

You will need to wait until you receive and test the prototype boards before formally ordering your standard production run Limited board materials

Limited number of layers for your boards