PCB Assembly Express partners with a number of printed circuit board manufacturers in China and Taiwan to provide our customers a wide range of PCB capabilities. Our partners in China usually have better prices but longer lead times. Our partners in Taiwan focus on quick-turn prototype and short run of complex multilayer PCBs.
| Quick-turn Prototype | Flexible PCBs |
| Multilayer | Rigid Flex PCBs |
| Thick Copper | Metal Core |
| High Tg | HDI |
| Rogers & other special materials | High Frequency |
Using the same PCB vendor for all your projects may not always produce the best result. If you PCB vendor is not the right fit for you project you may end up paying too much your boards or experience quality or delivery issues.
East Asia almost totally dominates the global PCB industry today. According to figures from Prismark, United States and Europe together accounted for only 8.5 per cent of world production in 2016. The world’s four largest manufacturing countries, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, together accounted for 84 per cent. Among them, China is the largest, accounting as it does for about 50 per cent of the world’s production of PCBs.
Factors in favor of using offshore PCB manufacturers are:
1. PCB projects with high-volume production runs and long lead times
2. High count layer boards or boards with non-standard features like blind and buried vias and via-in-pad are too expensive to fabricate domestically.
We offer both online and custom quote. You can get an online quote if your board has what the industry calls standard specs. The standard minimum trace and space is 5 mils or higher. The standard minimum hole size is 8 mil or higher. If your board does not meet these specs it cannot be quoted online. Features like blind and buried vias, controlled dialectic and via-in-pad are not considered standard. Boards with non-standard features cannot be quoted online. When your board cannot be quoted online you can request a custom quote.
PCB Assembly Express takes full responsibility for any quality issues. Before we assemble your offshore PCBs our team performs a quality inspection. If your assembled boards do not work properly due to a manufacturing problem we will work with our offshore PCB partner. We will have the bare boards remade and we will assemble the PCBs with no additional cost to you. If you ordered the boards to do your own assembly we will have the bare boards remade and ship to you directly at no cost to you.
Shipping from China and Taiwan to the USA, Canada or anywhere in the Americas is extremely affordable. In general, it is more expensive to ship boards from the West Coast to the East Coast than it is to ship from China or Taiwan to any location in North America. The shipping cost for a typical prototype PCB order (2-10 medium size boards) is about $35 for China and $45 for Taiwan. The average transit time from China to North America is 2 days. The average transit time from Taiwan to North America is 1 day. Most of our PCB manufacturing partners use UPS and FedEx.
When you get an online offshore PCB quote the shipping cost is already included. If you are planning to do your own assembly the bare boards are shipped to you directly from China or Taiwan. A tracking number is provided via email the day the boards ship.
A 25% import tariff applies for China offshore PCB orders over $800. There is no import tariff if the boards are fabricated in Taiwan.
