Choosing the right PCB materials is often a trade-off between cost and performance. Factors like signal integrity, thermal management, and manufacturability all come into play. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
► How do you approach this balancing act?
► Do you prioritize high-performance materials or lean toward cost-effective solutions?
► What tips or strategies have worked for you in achieving the perfect balance?
Share your thoughts, experiences, and insights below! 
As with any question asked to a lawyer (as they say…), an engineers answer will be “It depends”. First, there’s two major categories of board designers, the captive and the service bureau. So for a captive designer, they could conceivably sit at their desk and design nothing but DRAM modules for ten or fifteen years. In that time they’ll learn or create almost every optimal method. They may even have some special secrets no one else knows. But when taking on a completely new type of product, say an RF Power Amplifier, are going to have to be very vigorous to not let any errors slip through.
On the other hand, a designer at a service bureau may see every type of board from a vending machine to a tractor to a satellite to a medical product. So that designer gets very versatile and even has new burdens like regulatory compliance to deal with. But one person can’t know everything and they then tend toward “Jack of All Trades” and know a little about everything.
When I worked making lots of prototypes for many different customers, the fact they were prototypes fueled the need to be inexpensive. Do it on two layers if possible. Do it in FR4 if at all possible. Even aiming for rectangular boards, under 100 square inches and vias set to 10 mils. I got good at that, and then someone came along with their first HDI Board Design. Let’s just say I learned a lot of new things on that project.
Looking back further, when I was working mostly for RF places, we had yet again different drivers. Most customers were military subcontractors and most work was all per MIL Specs. Almost everything back then was two layer, and we had regular products that were all on FR4, and some High Performance products that were on what we used to call 3M Board (it was Teflon, PTFE). I even remember getting a brand new material. It was from Rogers and they called it RT/Duroid. All of our boards (regardless of impedance requirements) were either 0.062" or 0.031" Of course, being Military, especially back then, price was no object. Quality and traceability were, after performance, probably the next most important items.
So, unfortunately, when asked most technical questions about something as far reaching as PCB design, we’re almost always forced to say “It Depends” What’s important is to look at the initial requirements and decide what’s important for that project prior to picking out laminates. Best advice - become familiar with the major makers of laminates and their types of offerings. There’s less than a dozen major manufacturers and around three or four of them might be considered “Name Brands”. They’ll also give you the most support.
Thanks, Allan! Great insight, as always. And happy new year!
One of the reasons I started reading this forum was to try to figure out what even is manufacturable, and what is do-it-in-your-sleep vs we-won’t-say-we-can’t. I do not think I have a solid grasp on those yet.
(I have way less experience/knowledge than most of your customers, but it is also true that even major customers often start ignorant, and may reassign things to a new junior employee. I’ve seen questions even I could answer from people with real budgets on similar forums.)
So I really can’t weigh manufacturability; I can only weigh my (likely flawed and out-of-date) guesses about manufacturability, along with what the fabricator says.
Which is often “it depends, ask”. (Which, to be fair, is often my response about things I do understand better.) Alas, by the time I have a more specific question, it may be too late to change.
I assume that you signal something about manufacturability in the prices, which is why I greatly appreciate an automated quote, even if it is only a rough estimate. If it is just a computer program instead of a human being wasting their time, I don’t feel guilty about asking for quotes on a design I know I won’t order. (How much of my own time to spend creating the various test cases is a different question, but at least I don’t feel bad about it.)
Hi Jim, thanks for the post and happy new year!
True! That’s why we always tell designers to talk to their fab house very early on in the design process.