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EPTE Newsletter from Japan: JPCA Show 2008, Part VI

A major point of discussion during the JPCA Show was the relatively large attendee turnout from foreign countries. No census was conducted, but I speculate there were probably several thousand foreigners in attendance who participated as visitors or exhibitors. As with previous years, the majority of attendees were Korean and Taiwanese; however, one difference with this year's melting pot was the increase in North American and Western European visitors. Most of these new visitors had two purposes for their visit: To gain knowledge of leading edge technologies for PCBs earmarked for consumer electronics, and to secure appropriate vendors for materials and equipment. Representatives from several companies stressed their desire to procure technology transfers from trustworthy companies (this could be a tough task).

Most foreign companies in attendance were there as exhibitors--not participants. It's tough to determine the number of foreign companies who reserved booths because most displayed their products through second party agents who reserved the space, or they featured products through trading companies. North American and European companies heavily promoted equipment and materials such as AOI machines and laser drilling machines for high-end circuit boards. The manufacturers boasted that their products and technologies are best in the industry. Their strategy seemed to be to make inroads to sell one customer (preferably a leading Japanese manufacturer) their product, and provide a proof source for the rest and hope that their new products are adopted by the high-tech industry. It's almost like acquiring a license to enter the market in other Asian countries, especially for Korea and Taiwan. Usually, these companies do not offer low prices compared with current technologies because of their additional values.

The selling strategy from Korean companies is different--their sales presentation focuses on quality and cost. Representative stress their quality is on par with the leading Japanese manufacturers, but at a slightly lower price. They did not claim their products are better than the Japanese, just similar. There are not many samples from the different segments, but there were printed circuit manufacturers, copper laminate suppliers, manufacturing machine and assembly machine vendors. I am not very optimistic that the Korean companies can grab a chunk of business in the Japanese market. Japanese customers do not shop new vendors or products using lower prices as a criterion, but, rather, look at total cost performances.

There were many Chinese companies and a few Thai companies at the exhibition--ranging from circuit board manufacturers to material suppliers. Most had smaller sized booths and not so flashy displays. Their sales pitch centered on low cost--not on quality, and display samples were not high-end products. I was skeptical with the authenticity of the high-end products that a few did display. They are probably not real commercialized products and may be knock-offs by other manufacturers from leading countries.

I am not sure how serious the Chinese and Thai companies are to promote their products in Japan. One broker told me he would be happy with one trial order because it will serve as a status symbol back home. They could boast that their products have reached a high enough level of quality to be approved by Japanese customers.

The selling approach from Taiwanese companies focused on two different selling attributes--some pointed out their high performance, while others centered on low cost. The insiders say Taiwanese quality with Chinese cost because of their volume capabilities from the China operations. Some buyers from major Japanese electronics companies did research the Taiwanese vendors during the show. Taiwanese circuit board shops and material suppliers may have some business thrown their way from leading electronics companies in Japan.

Every year, I hope the Asian companies, other than one from Japan, unveil an innovative or surprising new technology or product at the JPCA Show. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until next year. It may happen sooner rather than later since the technology gap between Japan and other countries is shrinking every year. Some leading Korean and Taiwanese manufacturers already have an equivalent technology level compared to their Japanese counterparts. Unfortunately, they are having difficulty crossing the border.

Additional segments were on display at the show (such as test and design), but not enough material was available to mention here

This newsletter concludes my coverage of this year's exhibition.

Dominique K. Numakura

DKN Research, http://www.dknresearch.com/

Headlines of the Week

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

1. Oki Cable (Middle-class cable and flex circuit manufacturer in Japan) 7/9The manufacturer has developed the industry's first 3-D wiring system with double-sided flexible circuits.

2. Kyosha (Major circuit board manufacturer in Japan) 7/9The company has obtained all shares of Sanwa Denshi, a middle-class PWB manufacturer in Japan, making Sanwa a 100% subsidiary of Kyosha.

3. Apic Yamada (Equipment manufacturer in Japan) 7/9The manufacturer has commercialized a new molding machine, "WLP-100," for the manufacturing process of embedded wafer level package (EWLP).

4. Minami (Packaging company in Japan) 7/9The company has developed a new printing process to generate through holes on wafers for the stacked semiconductor packaging process.

5. Hitachi Plant Technology (Equipment manufacturer in Japan) 7/9The manufacturer has commercialized a new screen printer, "MEISTER MS-510," for the printing of solder paste assuming small- and mid-size circuit boards.

6. Nippon Electronics Light (Subsidiary of NEC) 7/11The company has developed a thin light guide sheet produced by a screen printing process for the key pads of cellular phones.

7. Tanaka Denshi Kogyo (Major supplier of bonding wires in Japan) 7/8The supplier will increase its monthly manufacturing capacity of copper bonding wires to twenty million meters, five times larger than current capacity.

8. Tonen Chemical (Petroleum chemistry company in Japan) 7/14The company will build a new plant in Korea for the production of separator films for lithium ion batteries.

9. Samsung Electronics (The largest electronics company in Korea) 7/15The company plans to reduce inventories of its components and materials by half in the second half of 2008 to reduce costs.

10. CESA (Industry organization of entertainment products) 7/14The organization says that Japanese computer game manufacturers reported record revenue in 2007 of 2.9 trillion yen, a 79.9% increase from the previous year.

11. Taiyo Ink (Major solder mask material supplier in Japan) 7/15The supplier will review and modify its current long term business plan because of the appreciation of currency against the U.S. dollar.

12. Orc (Exposure machine manufacturer in Japan) 7/16The manufacturer has rolled out a new laser direct imaging machine, "DXP-3502," for both the etching resist and solder mask. The full line is applicable to double-sided boards.

13. Dai Nippon Printing (Equipment manufacturer in Japan) 7/16The manufacturer will commercialize the world fastest AOI machine, "PI-9000," for next generation HDI circuit boards.

14. Oki Electric (Major electronics company in Japan) 7/16The company has co-developed a new semiconductor packaging technology, dual face package (DFP), with the Kyushu Institute of Technology and Nakaya Micro Device.

15. Hitachi Chemical (Major electronics material supplier in Japan) 7/17The supplier will invest 520 million yen to fund a new R&D center for dry film materials for PWB customers in China. The center is scheduled to open in April 2009.

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," Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2007 (Japanese only).

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 Flexible Circuit Industry, Market Trends and Technology Trends by Applications," Dominique Numakura, International Symposium of KPCA Show, April, 2008 (English PowerPoint file is available).

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "Toward a PCB Production Floor Metric for Go/No Go Testing of Lossy High-Speed Transmission Lines," Brandon Gore, Richard Mellitz, Jeff Loyer, Martyn Gaudion, Jean Burnikell and Paul Carre, CircuiTree, July 2008.

2. "Will Electronics Follow the Sun?" Irene Sterian, Circuits Assembly, July 2008.

3. "Laser Soldering: A Turning Point," Dave Sigillo, SMT, June, 2008.

4. "Drilling of PCBs--an Overview," Todd Lizotte, Gabor Kardos and Ronald D. Schaeffer, Printed Circuit Design & FAB, June, 2008.

5. "Advanced Micro Imaging of Gold-gold MEMS Wafer Bonds," Tom Adams and Kevin Turner, Advanced Packaging, July, 2008.

7. "Process and assembly method for increased yield of PoP devices," Brian Toleno and Dan Maslyk, Global SMT & Packaging, June 2008.

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