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EPTE Newsletter: The Printed Circuit Industry in China

Market data provided by the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) is very comprehensive. It includes revenue from PCB manufacturers and affiliated industries, such as copper laminates and equipment. Taiwan is the manufacturing center for electronic products. Using DigiTimes as a reference (which covers the semiconductor, electronics, computer, and communications industries in Taiwan and China and helped me analyze global electronic market trends), among other sources, we can view performance monthly and sometimes weekly.

Communication from within China is valuable. A few weeks ago, a fire broke out at a PCB factory in Taoyuan. Unfortunately, any news or data from the PCB industry in China is not easily accessible. The media is not very transparent when releasing news. Revenue and sales are not reported in a timely manner, China’s market performance and forecasting are difficult to discuss.

This makes TPCA’s information quite valuable. Recently, the TPCA provided some market data from the Chinese PCB industry.

Figure 1: A chart of the quarterly revenue of publicly traded PCB makers in China shows interesting trends.

Revenue declined considerably during the fourth quarter last year; since then, it increased every quarter during 2020. Figure 1 includes 22 companies that report quarterly data. A market analyst told me that there could be over 1,000 PCB manufacturers in China, so Figure 1 is extremely limited and does not encompass much of the industry, but this data is better than nothing.

Headlines

1. EE Times Japan (industry media in Japan) 11/9
LCD panels are still major in smartphones, but they have been moving to OLED panels quickly.

2. TPCA (Taiwan Printed Circuit Association) 11/11
October shipments from Taiwanese printed circuit manufacturers were 64.46 billion NT$, which was a 3.46% increase from the previous month, with a 0.22% increase from the same month of the previous year.

3. TDK (device manufacturer in Japan) 11/11
Rolled out a series of film capacitors “ModCap” for power modules (capacitance: ~2525 microF; size: 243 x 169.5 x 90 mm; operating temp: 90°C).

4. SWCC (cable manufacturer in Japan) 11/12
Started a field test of the super-conductive three-phase coaxial cable in the Yokohama Plant. It will reduce power loss by more than 95%.

5. Fujitsu (electronics company in Japan) 11/13
Unveiled new 3D displays with Auto Stereoscopic 3D technology. Customers can enjoy the 3D image without goggles.

6. JPCA (industry organization in Japan) 11/15

September shipments in Japan were at 409.5 billion yen, which was a 15.6% increase from the previous month and a 7.4% increase from the same month of the previous year. There were strong build-up boards but weak flex circuits.

7. Kyushu University (Japan) 11/16
Developed a set of organic EL materials combining carbazole and boron that have a sharp spectrum for a wide range of visible lights.

8. Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) 11/18
Co-developed a new manufacturing process for a single-crystal GaN substrate that is valuable for making power semiconductor substrates.

9. NIMS (R&D organization in Japan) 11/20
Developed a heat-resistant MEMS magnetic sensor on a diamond substrate. A thin film layer of Fe81Ga19 was generated on a single-crystal diamond.

Dominique K. Numakura is the managing director of DKN Research LLC. Contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information and news.