I have a board I'm working on with a coworker; we are debating whether to go 4-layer or 6-layer board, and would like to use 6-layer but haven't found a reasonably priced fab house.
Is there any reputable PCB fab house out there that has good pricing on small-quantity (3-10 pcs) 6-layer PCBs? (approx 5"x6", nothing fancy) The best we've been able to do is about US$700, whereas there are specials on 2- or 4-layer PCBs that are in the $200-$300 range.
clarify background info: the board has 3 widely-used nets = AGND, DGND, +5V, which basically spells 5 layers, and there doesn't seem to be much advantage to 5 vs. 6. We've looked at sharing the AGND and +5V layers, that's an option; we've looked at routing the +5V by hand, that's an option; we've looked at combining AGND and DGND nets and living with the noise. The right thing to do from an engineering standpoint is a 6-layer board, but if it's going to be 2x the price it may be cost prohibitive given our particular situation (further details are beyond the scope of this forum).
clarification: (the board was made last year for $$$, but the question is still valid)
I asked about 6 layers and I meant 6 layers. The background info is only for educational purposes. As far as cost tradeoff judgement goes, here's where I was coming from:
For a shop that is interested in high-volume ultra-low-cost, you can either spend more time to design a 4-layer board well because of layout constraints, or rush through a 4-layer board design and hope it works.
Same thing for a hobbyist without much money wanting low quantities.
For a shop that is interested in time-to-market, you can either spend the money and use a 6-layer board, or rush through a 4-layer board design and hope it works.
We were in the middle, and had a coworker who was leaving, so I had to go with something that worked; we didn't have time to respin. Cost turned out to be not as much a barrier as I thought, but in some situations I get flak from management when cost is high, and it's really helpful to have a modest price option so I don't have to deal with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment