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What is the Cost of PCB Layout Services

Printed circuit boards, or PCBs, are vital components of

multiple electronic and electrical products. These components connect

various elements, and they function in everything from computer and

DVD players to car engines and underground sensors. Moreover, printed

circuit boards have been available since the second world war when

governments were utilizing them exclusively for military applications. As of

the 21st century, you can find these components in almost every electrical

or electronic gadget that you come across.

However, this means that when you are developing an electronic gadget,

you will likely require the services of a printed circuit board designer to

generate your PCB layout. Moreover, you will probably need an electrical

engineer to help you convert the design into a physical circuit board.

But, before you move on to the hiring stage, it is crucial to first figure out

the average rates of hiring a printed circuit board designer for PCB layout

services. Doing so will help you generate a reliable budget for your project.

So how much does it cost to gain PBC layout services? And should you

outsource the PCB layout development process or work on the project

independently?

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Table of Contents

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What you will need

Reducing PCB Design Risk-Layout

Even though you can quickly gain a rough estimation of how much it will

cost you to hire a printed circuit board designer, for you to gain an official

PCB layout quote, you’ll have to provide sufficient details about your

board design to the circuit board engineer. After receiving this information,

the circuit board design engineer will calculate how much it will cost you to

generate the design and then provide you with an estimated price that is

more accurate.

If you skip this step, your estimation may be inaccurate, leading to you

going over budget.

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When generating the PCB layout quote, you must provide some

documents to the printed circuit board design engineer. Moreover, there

are additional documents that you can also provide that, though optional,

can help offer a more accurate estimation.

Here are the most common documents that you’ll have to provide:

Schematic

The schematic is, without a doubt, one of the most crucial documents you

must provide to the PCB design engineer. The documents should be in a

PDF or Native design format for portability.

Generally, schematics tell printed circuit board design engineers a lot

about your product, including the following:

 How much effort will go into generating your circuit board layout

design

 How many hours will go into creating the layout design

Moreover, this document also gives the PCB designer a rough idea of the

complexity of your PCB design.

Bill of Materials

The next document is the bill of documents, commonly known as the BOM.

Generally, BOMs contain a list of all the parts and materials the
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manufacturer will utilize to generate your printed circuit board. Typically,

you can take BOM as a complex shopping list containing all the elements

that you’ll need to develop your printed circuit board.

BOM documents will inform the printed circuit board designer about the

components you wish to use on your PCB.

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Mechanical (simple X and Y dimensions, PDF, IDF, or DXF)

The last essential document you must hand over to the PCB designer is

the document containing mechanical information. The mechanical info

document typically includes details about the board’s outline and

dimensions.

When it comes to this document, printed circuit board designers need all

the information you can share, do not leave anything behind. That is

because this information will help them design the PCB so that it will be

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functional and still fit impeccably into the product that you will use the

circuit board on. Therefore, if you mess up this document, you might get

an oversized or under-size printed circuit board in return.

These are generally the most crucial files that you have to share with your

PCB designer for them to generate an excellent and accurate PCB layout.

However, you can still add more details to help the PCB designer get

your PCB layout quote more accurately. Moreover, this additional

information will be helpful during the design process.

Some optional files that you can choose to share include:

 Component datasheets

 Placement floorplan

 Constraint/routing rules

 Netfiles

What next?

With these details, your circuit board designer will clearly see how your

printed circuit board is supposed to look like at the end. Hence, they

should be in a position to give you a close-to-accurate estimation of how

much money you’ll have to spend to produce the PCB layout.

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However, if you do not have this document ready, you might have to bring

in an expert early in the PCB development project. The expert should be

able to study your project requirements and generate all these files for

you.

Printed circuit boards are pretty complex components, and they usually

pass through multiple hands before you get the finished product.

Therefore, if you do not have the detail needed to generate the PCB, or

you leave gaps for the engineers to fill. Then you might end up getting a

printed circuit board that doesn’t function appropriately. Or you may have

to pay more to get the finished product.

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Other things your PCB Designer might want to know

pcb layout

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While the documents we went through earlier are the most crucial

elements when getting a PCB layout quote, other details might further

help the PCB designer. Moreover, these additional details also help the

designer communicate and minimize errors that might come haunting

your project later on.

Generally, the PCB designer might want you to provide answers to the

following questions:

 What is your estimated PCB layout generation price?

 Which date do you expect to get your finished product?

 Do you have internal component libraries?

Using this information, the designer can effectively tailor the PCB layout to

your needs. Moreover, these details might also impact the PCB layout

service price.

If you have any inquiries regarding the design creation process, this is the

perfect time to voice your concern. By communicating your issues with

our designer at this time, you can easily set up communication at an early

stage which might ultimately help you out throughout the designing

process.

Tips to Estimate Working Hours

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Generally, most printed circuit board engineers tend to charge their fee by

the hour. Therefore, by effectively calculating the hours it will take to

generate your PCB layout, you can come up with an estimated layout

production cost.

PCB layout completions typically include the following elements:

 Output file generation

 Routing

 Critical routing

 Placement

 Critical placement

 Library component creation

If you have a component library already, this might reduce the amount of

time needed to produce your circuit board layout design. However, on the

flip side, if the pin placement area is tiny, the designer might take a lot of

time trying to generate a layout that will cater to these pins.

That is why generating the layout production cost is more challenging than

multiplying the circuit board’s size with the hourly fee of the PCB engineer.

Doing so will only help you get a rough idea of the price. However, it would

help if you started with the actual base price and adjusted this cost by

eliminating various add-ons.

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Why do we need PCB Engineer when handling Printed Circuit

Board Layout Services?

PCB layout line design

Without in-depth inspection, you might think that a PCB engineer and a

CAD designer do similar work. And generally, no one can blame you for

thinking this because they are both:

 Showing the circuit board layout and how the layout works

 And they are also generating the circuit board in various ways

Therefore, most people tend to skip printed circuit board engineers and

then head on to a CAD PCB designer to help them complete the PCB

layout.

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However, printed circuit board engineers have impeccable value that can

help you save much money in the PCB development life cycle. Moreover,

these engineers often have impeccable knowledge of the following:

 How the circuit board actually works (in-depth)

 The manufacturing process

By combining these two, the engineers can help you generate not just

your layout but also your physical board in a cost and time-effective

manner.

CAD PCB designer can quickly generate a circuit board design that works

per the user’s requirement. However, they might not have the knowledge

to test the design and figure out whether or not it can be manufactured.

That is where a PCB engineer comes to play. Moreover, the PCB engineer

can make simple alterations to your design which can help you save up a

lot of money in the production process.

Conclusion

Rates for PCB layout services are pretty variable. And even though most

people think that they can calculate the average PCB layout production

cost by multiplying the hours needed to work on the board by the hours

actually utilized by the engineer to work on the board. These hours can

fluctuate impeccably depending on various factors, such as the type of

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board you are developing. Therefore, we hope the information in this

article will help you gain impeccable cost estimates to help you achieve

the best PCB layout services.

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