IPC Asia President Phil Carmichael on China Trends

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Matties: One of the things I see here is that PCB bare board fabricators are looking to have smart factories. I recently interviewed Victory Giant Technology (Huizhou) Co. Ltd. (VGT) and toured their facility in South China. They expect to be at 1.5 billion in the coming years and are making a lot of investments. Dongguan Somacis Graphic PCB Co. Ltd. (DSG) is also investing right now, and as a bare board producer, they’re saying that unless they become a smart factory within two years, they will be irrelevant. Do you see more of the bare board people in China interested in smart factories?

Carmichael: Well, I think there is a difference, but it’s based on the end-use of a board you’re producing. If you’re producing a level-one board that’s going into an inexpensive smartphone or appliance, the bare board companies in China want that to be automated. So, it really depends on volume, what the board is being used for, and the level of sophistication on it.

Matties: When I conducted interviews with fabricators, the lot size in China seems to be decreasing to smaller and smaller numbers. Eventually, with the ultimate smart factory, they should be able to build a lot size of one.

Carmichael: That’s right. That would be the objective, and it changes rapidly. The other thing is that China has come a long way in 20 years, as you can see looking around this building at the people and the level of sophistication at this show.

Matties: I was going to bring that point up. In the last 15 or so years that I’ve been coming here, and you’ve been involved in the industry for the last six or seven years I think now, there have been significant changes recently. The quality of what’s being produced here has improved, and Chinese companies can clearly compete on the world market with their products.

Carmichael: As you know, approximately five years ago, the core of IPC’s business was writing standards for the industry, and we had participants from China but only on a translation basis. They were not truly participants with new ideas and technologies. Today, we have 350 committee members from China, half of whom are contributors to the next generation of the IPC-610, IPC-620, etc.

In addition, last year we had three global standards that started here in China. Within five years, that’s a big shift, and IPC is happy to be a part of it. It’s probably where it should be because China’s in the +40% range of the printed circuit board market share and production globally, so they should be taking a more leading position.

Matties: The growth in IPC Asia is well-deserved. You have definitely put in a lot of hard work, energy, and effort in this, and it’s paying off. What do you see in the coming years for IPC?

Carmichael: We talked a little about training earlier. When I first looked at joining IPC, training as a portion of revenue was 75%; last year, it was 40%, which is a good thing. We’re a lot more diversified than we used to be. Now, we’re doing significantly more technical events. In addition to this show, we’re talking about doing other types of exhibitions in China and the surrounding areas. In five years, I would hope to see that we would be doing training still, but that it would be a much more balanced portion of our portfolio. I also hope we’d still be providing such real value to our members that they would increasingly remain a part of IPC even in the event that they’re not doing training or participating in events.

A lot can happen in five years—just look at my team; they show the big shift that has happened in IPC Asia in the last five years. They’re a very professional group of people—all of whom have taken multiple IPC training and can run events. Two are Ph.D.s as well as a group with 150+ years of experience. They are the future of IPC.

Matties: That a huge shift in a short time.

Carmichael: We’ve gone from, as they say in Chinese, being somebody operating out of your pocket to somebody who the industry listens to and comes to for important information. My team is a great group.

Matties: You can see that they’re passionate about what they’re doing and have done a great job at the solder competition.

Carmichael: The event is over, and they’re still plotting their next strategy.

Matties: There’s a lot of excitement in China. And the more I look around, the more opportunity I see.

Carmichael: Definitely. And to answer your question in a slightly different way, we probably haven’t thought of our biggest product five years from now yet, but our members will push us in a direction, and that’s where we’ll be. It might have to do with IoT or something more closely aligned to IPC-1401 and corporate social responsibility (CSR), but it is this group that will come up with a new idea.

Matties: You have to have the succession plan in place and the right people there to carry it forward, so well done.

Carmichael: It’s always great to see you, Barry. I think you put on more miles than I do. You’re always a supporter of IPC, and we appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Matties: Thank you.

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