Electronic – Single- vs double-sided PCB assembly costs

costpcbpcb-assembly

I'm working on a new design (still laying out the components) and I have a chance here to reduce the size of the PCB by roughly 40%-50% if I use the other side for a QFP-100 IC (so it's heavy and will probably need gluing) and a few passives.

The PCB is 4 layers so savings are worth it, but I was wondering, if I used both sides and made the PCB smaller, how much extra will I pay for assembly? 2x? Will I be actually saving anything with those extra assembly costs, or might I end up paying more?

PS. I'm not sure I can get a quote right now, because I haven't finished the PCB yet, and they might need more info before they give me a quote, so I'd appreciate it if anyone with similar experience would share their thoughts with me, thanks.

Best Answer

As a single data point in this area, I just did a comparison with a company called Bittele (who build their boards and do assembly in China). They quoted US$3815 for the assembly of 1000 fairly simple single sided boards (components on only one side) and US$3976 for the same specs but a double sided board (components on both sides).
Therefore the cost difference (in this case) was US$161 for 1000 boards or $0.161 per board.