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EPTE Newsletter from Japan--KPCA Show 2008, Part I

The KPCA Show 2008 and International Symposium were held at the COEX Convention Center in Seoul, Korea, April 23, 2008. Exhibitors at the three day show reserved space in the Pacific Hall and Indian Hall inside the convention center.

The show has grown in size over the years, and now holds bragging rights as the largest exhibition for printed circuit boards in Korea. The JPCA Show in Japan and TPCA Show in Taiwan also feature products from the printed circuit board industry, but the KPCA Show has a few differences. Over 370 companies and organizations reserved booths in the convention center. The number of companies could be well over 400 since many foreign manufacturers shared booths with trading companies and local distributors.

Since the KPCA Show is an exhibition aimed at printed circuit board and flexible circuit manufacturers, most of the visitors were engineers and management from circuit board manufacturers. Most of the exhibitors were representatives for equipment manufacturers and relating material suppliers. Very few booths were reserved for circuit manufacturers, and only a handful for material suppliers of copper clad laminates--a big difference from three years ago when the material business was booming and new vendors were promoting new materials.

Despite the shrinking economy in the U.S. and Japan, the printed circuit board segment of the Korean electronics industry is still performing well. Industry veterans, within this Korean market, pointed out to me that the cellular phone and flat TV markets have become the driving force behind its success. Suppliers of printed circuits boards and flexible circuits, especially in the LG Electronics Group, have been busy since the beginning of the year.

Many types of manufacturing and testing equipment are related to the production of high end multi-layer boards and flexible circuits, and multiple equipment manufacturers are used for each manufacturing process. More than a half dozen manufacturers for NC drilling machines, and the same for drill bit suppliers were represented at the event. The companies originate from Japan, Taiwan, China and Europe, but the Korean companies were the main players. That same theme held true for other segments--Korean suppliers were the primary companies and foreign companies took a back seat. One manager from a flexible circuit company stated that anything related to the manufacturing processes for printed circuit boards could be handled from domestic equipment manufacturers and material suppliers. These segments are self sustaining and do not have to consider buying foreign equipment or materials.

In recent years, the technical capabilities from Korean equipment manufacturers reached the equivalent level of Japanese manufacturers. The machines on display from Korean manufacturers were very smart and offered at lower prices--couple that with better service, and circuit board manufacturers prefer domestic suppliers. Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of any Korean companies for manufacturing equipment. Such domestic equipment suppliers probably conduct business only with customers in Korea. Fortunately for these suppliers, the consumer electronics market and circuit board business in Korea continues to grow. These companies have enough business in their own back yard to keep them busy.

Dominique K. NumakuraDKN Research, http://www.dknresearch.com/.

Headlines of the Week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information on the news.)

1. Nagasu Sangyo (Equipment supplier in Japan) 4/21Has unveiled a new encapsulation technology "Mirrortron Sputtering Process" for organic EL devices. The new process minimizes the damage on the devices.

2. Innolux (Display manufacturer in Taiwan) 4/21Has been expanding the manufacturing capacity of touch screen panels in China and Taiwan. Total production will be 120k sheets per month by 2009.

3. Sony Chemical (Electronic material supplier in Japan) 4/18Has developed gel type transparent RF absorption material "Naclion" for the circuit board of PCs. Its shielding efficiency is about 35dB at several GHz range.

4. Hitachi Chemical (Electronic material supplier in Japan) 4/18Has developed a new anti-reflection film for lenses of cameras and microscopes. The reflection rate became one tenth to 0.1% compared to traditional films.

5. Canon (Major electronics company in Japan) 4/19Has commercialized a new exposure machine for the 8G LCD panel manufacturing process. The new machine shortens the installation time from six months to two.

6. Bridgestone (Major tire manufacturer in Japan) 4/21Will invest 2.1 billion yen to double the manufacturing capacity of adhesion films for solar cells to 2,000 tons, per month, by 2010.

7. Hitachi Metal (Major metal product supplier in Japan) 4/22Has developed the world's smallest piezo-type 3D acceleration sensor for mobile equipment--size: 2.5 x 2.5 x 1.0 mm.

8. Central Glass (Major glass material supplier in Japan) 4/21Has decided to terminate the glass substrate business of PDP devices.

9. LG Electronics (Major electronics company in Korea) 4/23Will start the volume production of thin 42" LCD modules for 19.8 mm thick TV in April.

10. STEMCO (Major tape substrate manufacturer in Korea) 4/24Has invested 70 million dollars to increase the manufacturing capacity of COF substrates for FPD products by 55% to 59 million units per month.

11. Matsushita Electric Works (Major circuit material supplier) 4/23Will increase the selling price of the paper phenol base copper clad laminates 12 to 15% in May to cover the rising cost of raw materials.

12. Matsushita Electric Works (Major circuit material supplier) 4/24Has begun operation of its second laminate plant in China. The manufacturing capacity doubled to 4.8 million sq. meters per year.

13. Panasonic and Pioneer (Major electronics companies in Japan) 4/25Have agreed to co-develop the PDP products for the new 2009 models of thin flat TVs. The engineers of Pioneer will move to Panasonic.

Interesting Literature Concerning the Packaging Industry

Articles from DKN Research

1. "Screen Printing for High-Density Flexible Electronics," Robert Turunen, Masafumi Nakayama and Dominique Numakura, Printed Circuit FAB, October, 2007, http://pcdandm.com/cms/content/view/3846/95/.

2. "Total Process Solution for the High-Density Multi-layer Flexible Printable Electronic Circuits," (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2007.

3. New "Roll to Roll Production of Flexible Circuits, Possibilities and Issues," Dominique Numakura, Joho Kiko, Tokyo, March 2008 (Japanese only).

4. "Coombs' Printed Circuits Handbook, 6th Edition, Part 15-Flexible Circuits," Dominique Numakura, McGraw Hill, New York, September, 2007.

5. New "Screen Printing Process for High Density Flexible Electronics," Robert Turunen, Dominique Numakura, Masafumi Nakayama and Hisayuki Kawasaki, IPC Printed Circuit Expo/APEX and the Designers Summit, April 2008.

6. New "Global Market of Flexible Circuits, Market Trends and Technical Design Trends by Applications," Dominique Numakura, Electronic Journal, February, 2008. (English Power Point file is available.)

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "A Different Look at PCB Manufacture in China," Chris Jorgensen, CircuiTree, March 2008.

2. "ESD Control for Class ESDS Devices," Roger Peirce, Circuits Assembly, April 2008.

3. "Flexible Circuits Market: Surging Ahead," Ashwin T. Ananthakrishnan, SMT, March, 2008.

4. "SIPs Give More to Moore," W. R. Bottoms, Printed Circuit Design & FAB, April, 2008.

5. "IC Package Drives Contact Technology Innovation," Ila Pal, Advanced Packaging, March, 2008.

7. "Microflex Circuit Applications for Medical Devices," Luke Volpe, MD & DI Magazine, January 2008.