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UltraCAD Design, Inc

Bid Price vs Cost

Many people believe that the lowest bid price is the lowest design cost. UltraCAD's bid prices are very competitive. But our strength is that we have proven ourselves to be the lowest TOTAL COST design house, not necessarily the one with the lowest bid. That's why our long term repeat customers keep coming back!

The cost of designing your board is a small part of the TOTAL cost of prototype board acquisition. Many people can figure out one solution to a layout problem. But we at UltraCAD optimize the design of your board for TOTAL cost effectiveness. That means:

  1. We do it right the first time and on schedule. So you don't have to worry about delays and expenses due to misunderstandings, mistakes, and false promises.

    The work that UltraCAD did ... allowed us to ship over 4 million dollars of product on time! Had they failed, our losses would have been in the millions. (A satisfied customer with some critical requirements.)

  2. We anticipate the fact that many boards go through a revision stage. We design with this in mind, locating components and routing traces in a manner to facilitate future changes.

  3. Our documentation system ensures that future revisions will be done quickly, accurately, and with a minimum of problems, regardless of any employee changes either at our company or yours.

  4. We are thoroughly familiar with board fabrication techniques and optimize the board design for reliability, produceability, and economy. If we know who the fabricator will be, we can optimize the design output for the fabricator's particular individual processes. And we consider it part of our responsibility to coordinate with the board fabricator whenever necessary.

And those customers for whom budgets are important like the way we bend over backwards to avoid charging them for the inevitable changes and revisions that come up during the design process. You find that you need another set of drawings or Gerbers after the job is complete and invoiced? We do that for our customers without a second thought (and of course without charge.)

So, When you compare bids from other Service Bureaus, be sure to check the following:

Performance Factors

bulletAlways matches differential pair signal lines (in psecs, not nsecs)
bulletUnderstands clock phasing and noise immunity
bulletUnderstands impedance control
bulletUnderstands and controls EMI/RFI emissions (designs for FCC compliance)

Hidden Cost Factors:

bulletClose coordination with your engineers
(No costs of miscommunication)

bulletNo extra charges every time your engineer makes minor changes to net list
(No nit-picking extra charges)

bulletAlways includes final DRC (Design Rule Checking)
(Design is right EVERY time)

bulletIncludes correct, usable back annotation file (if appropriate)
(No wasted time or frustrations)

bulletIncludes test data files (if requested)
(Increases system reliability; reduces test/troubleshooting costs)

bulletGuarantees to deliver on schedule
(No costs resulting from unexpected delays, no excuses)

bulletAlways routes on the minimum possible number of layers
(Reduced fabrication costs)

bulletNo extra charge for coordinating with board or film house

bulletNo extra charge for extra sets of drawings or Gerber files

bulletNo charge for replacement drawings or files (if originals are lost)

UltraCAD's customers get all this included in the bid. They know that TOTAL costs ALWAYS exceed bid prices and that UltraCAD is always the lowest TOTAL COST Service Bureau. That's why most of our business is with satisfied repeat customers.

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