-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- pcb007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueThe Growing Industry
In this issue of PCB007 Magazine, we talk with leading economic experts, advocacy specialists in Washington, D.C., and PCB company leadership to get a well-rounded picture of what’s happening in the industry today. Don’t miss it.
The Sustainability Issue
Sustainability is one of the most widely used terms in business today, especially for electronics and manufacturing but what does it mean to you? We explore the environmental, business, and economic impacts.
The Fabricator’s Guide to IPC APEX EXPO
This issue previews many of the important events taking place at this year's show and highlights some changes and opportunities. So, buckle up. We are counting down to IPC APEX EXPO 2024.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - pcb007 Magazine
EIPC Summer Conference in Munich to Discuss PCB Supply Chain Under the EU Chips Act
May 19, 2023 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
A key attraction at EIPC’s Summer Conference, June 15-16 in Munich, will be the presentation by Stan Heltzel, Materials Engineer at the European Space Agency. Stan is responsible for qualification of Printed Circuit Board manufacturers and technology development, and is the convenor of working groups on space standardisation.
The subject of his presentation is supporting the PCB supply chain under the EU Chips Act. It will describe a white paper, recently issued by Eurospace, calling for the wide strengthening of PCB technology and its supply chain in all market segments. It focuses attention on the weak European PCB ecosystem causing unavailability in its own supply chain. Raw materials are almost exclusively manufactured outside Europe, the workforce is difficult to maintain, education institutes do not offer adequate training, and critical equipment and chemistry need to be imported, which hampers the availability of senior service personnel from these overseas companies.
Here is an abstract of Stan Heltzel’s paper:
“The number of PCB facilities in Europe has been continuously declining for several decades. Although in recent years the revenue appears to have stabilised, over a longer time span also this indicator follows a declining trend. About 60% of PCBs in Europe are imported, mostly from China. This dependency is most prevalent in volume markets, but also NewSpace equipment integrators are occasionally sourcing PCBs overseas, motivated by lower cost, shorter lead-time and in some cases a better capability. Qualification schemes and contractual conditions ensure local sourcing of PCBs in the high-reliability market segments of space and defence. For this low volume, high mix industry the most critical impact is an indirect one: the weak European PCB ecosystem causes unavailability in its own supply chain. Raw materials are almost exclusively manufactured outside Europe, the workforce is difficult to maintain, education institutes do not offer adequate training, and critical equipment and chemistry need to be imported, which hampers the availability of senior service personnel from these overseas companies.
The end of a globalised market and the consequential reshoring has been initiated by the US-Chinese trade conflict and further deepened by the supply chain disruptions during the pandemic and the Ukrainian war. There is much excitement about the development of local chips technology and its ecosystem. The European Chips Act provides development opportunities from foundry to OSAT. But the act does not analyse the ecosystem beyond back-end packaging and is not inclusive of system level packaging, i.e. PCB technology and assembly. The global electronics industry struggles with the ‘hidden reliability treat’ in microvias. Yet it remains difficult to obtain development funds. This has caused critical failure of assembled flight electronics in several ESA projects. A state-of-the-art FPGA was developed and space qualified. But the routing of this part required microvias, which appeared to be failing. Not only the malfunctioning modules were scrapped, but also other - working - modules from batches that were affected by this microvia weakness. This presentation will describe a white paper, recently issued by Eurospace, calling for the wide strengthening of PCB technology and its supply chain in all market segments.”
For full details of the EIPC Summer Conference, click here.
Suggested Items
Shane Whiteside of Summit Reflects on Today's PCB Landscape
05/08/2024 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamSummit Interconnect began as a printed circuit board manufacturing company just eight years ago and has seen impressive growth organically and through acquisition. Summit President and CEO Shane Whiteside takes a few moments to share his thoughts on the growing PCB industry in the United States.
BAE Systems and Eaton Expand Collaboration to Deliver Electric Drive Solutions for Heavy-Duty Trucks
05/08/2024 | PRNewswireBAE Systems, a leader in electric propulsion, and Eaton, a global power management company, are expanding their collaboration to include electric vehicle (EV) solutions for heavy-duty trucks.
Coherix Partners with EMU on 'Factory of the Future' Technology Program
05/08/2024 | PRNewswireMichigan-based Coherix is working with Eastern Michigan University (EMU) in Ypsilanti to develop "factory-of-the-future" manufacturing and assembly technology.
2024 Apple iPad Pro Estimated to Ship Between 4.5 to 5 Million Units
05/08/2024 | TrendForceApple’s recent product launch in May introduced a lineup of new tablets featuring advanced AMOLED screens. Notably, the Pro version boasts a dual-layer tandem structure designed to address the longstanding challenges of screen burn-in and lifespan that are common with AMOLED displays.
Simbe Partners with Plexus to Scale Manufacturing and Meet Global Retail Demand
05/08/2024 | Globe NewswireSimbe, the leading provider of Store Intelligence™ solutions that increase retailer performance through unprecedented visibility and insights, today announced a partnership with Plexus Corp. to bring its best-in-class retail robotics-as-a-service to market quickly and at global scale.