PCB Fabrication Sources

After you've developed a circuit, perhaps tested a prototype and have finally got the perfect design, you may wish to create a printed circuit board.  There are some home-brew methods, but if you get to the point of wanting more than a few boards, it may be time to turn to a commercial fab house.  Even in small quantity, having circuit boards made can be inexpensive, if you know where to go. Making circuit boards in large quantities will further lessen the price of the board - in my experience with production boards, making ten times more boards increases the price only be a factor of two!  With a large order, there are always the anxious moments wondering if you missed some detail on the board, or if the fab house will do a good job.

To help you find a good fab house, the tables below list some of the sources I have used that produce good boards as a reasonable price.

I've used a number of PCB fab houses over the years and have several I've come to rely on for quality boards at an affordable cost.  There is no single best answer - the quantity of boards needed, board options and the urgency in getting the boards all impact the "best" choice.  In the following tables are fab houses I have used except for Dorkbot and BatchPCB, but all of these are known to manufacture high quality boards.  BatchPCB is included for completeness as many people use this service originally established by SparkFun but in terms of price and delivery time, it may not be one of the better options.

Where the specification boxes are blank, I do not know the answer.  There may be other options than the specifications I have listed, so check if you need something different and please verify the details before ordering boards.

Revised Information as of 10 May 2011:

Seeed Studio, another Chinese fab house, has announced the Fusion PCB service, providing competition for ITead Studios.  ITead has responded by reducing prices and adding more options.  The table below summarizes some of the options available.  Check at the respective web site for more details and up-to-date information.

I have not used Seeed Studio but I know they have some interesting products.  I cannot attest to their circuit board quality.

For ITead Studios and Seeed Studio, 100% electrical testing adds $10 to the lot total.

For Seeed Studio, soldermask colors other than green are available for an additional lot charge of $10

Revised Information May, 2012

iTead and Seeed continue to expand their offerings, including more board sizes and larger quantity pricing.  The chart below is an attempt at making comparisons easy.

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