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EPTE Newsletter from Japan - Productronica 2007 (Part III)

The target audience at Productronica is primarily printed circuit board manufacturers, and the majority of the exhibition was dedicated to materials and manufacturing equipment vendors and dealers who supply this segment.  The aura at this year's exhibition seemed different compared to other major exhibitions such as the JPCA Show in Japan, the TPCA Show in Taiwan and the KPCA Show in Korea.  Something was missing.  I realized printed circuit manufacturers themselves were not represented. No major European circuit board manufacturers were in attendance.   It seems reasonable that this group did not reserve any space at the exhibition since they are the clientele; however, major circuit board manufacturers in Asian countries did participate.  They are the technological leaders in this field, and most occupied relatively large booths and displayed their leading edge technologies for printed circuit boards.  I assumed that most if the European circuit board manufacturers participate at Electronica, another exhibition arranged last year and held at the same venue for printed circuit board customers. I was a little disappointed that I could not examine any of Europe's leading circuit board technologies, and wonder if this is another reason why there are not many large circuit board manufacturers in Europe.

My expectations also fell short with the representation from major global vendors for materials and manufacturing equipment.  There were a few Taiwanese, Chinese and Japanese material suppliers, but their booths were relatively small and restrained.  Most of the major European vendors were at the show, unfortunately, they were not giants in the global circuit board industry, and their products did not stand out as leading technologies in the industry. The European circuit board industry probably is not very attractive to large global vendors.

Specialty chemical suppliers were very aggressive and displayed their newest products. They were mostly surface treatment technologies and chemicals used in fine conductors of high density circuit boards. The companies reserved large booths and manned them with many engineers to help explain and introduce their latest items (their bottles of chemical products are not visually attractive).   Some of the companies drew a lot of attention because their chemical treatment processes are becoming critical relative to maintaining high performance from circuit boards. European machine vendors for the wet processes were also featured and were very interesting. Their products embody the highest technology level used to process multi-layer rigid boards. Unfortunately, I did not come across any flexible circuits manufacturing equipment displays.

In summary, I had an opportunity to rub elbows with the industry community at Productronica 2007, and digested a lot of information.  This global prospective gives me an opportunity to communicate world wide industry trends including those in Europe.  The entire industry is promising and shows signs of continued growth.  The assembling business for electronics products is booming, especially in Eastern Europe, and they will evolve into one of the major arenas within the global electronics industry.  The printed circuit board industry in Europe is still in its slow winter season, but there are some signs of a rebound. The potential demands for circuit boards in Europe are significant, and currently, the European assembling companies import a lot of circuit boards from Asia.  We shall see if the circuit board manufacturers in Europe are capable to satisfy these demands in a quick enough time.

Dominique K. Numakura

DKN Research, www.dknresearch.com

Headlines of the week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.comfor further information of the news.)

1.      Mitsubishi Chemical (Major chemical company in Japan) 11/26

Has founded a new manufacturing company in Korea for the photo resist of the LCD manufacturing process.

2.      Tabuchi Denki (Device manufacturer in Japan) 11/26

Has been building a new subsidiary in Vietnam for the manufacturing of transformers and power supplies. R&D center will be founded together.

3.      Hitachi Maxell (Electronics material supplier in Japan) 11/26

Will commercialize the new module type hard disc drive with 250 GB memory capacity assuming the application of AV products.

4.      Sumitomo Chemical (Major chemical company in Japan) 11/27

Will invest 10 billion yens to increase the capacity of the separator films for lithium ion batteries five times larger to 25 million sq. meters per year by 2009.

5.      Asahi Kasei (Major chemical company in Japan) 11/28

Will invest 10 billion yens to increase the capacity of the separator films for lithium ion batteries 50% larger to 150 million sq. meters per year by 2009.

6.      NEC Tokin (Major component supplier in Japan) 11/28

Will commercialize the rectangular shaped lithium ion polymer base secondary battery for mobile electronics.

7.      Integral Electronics (Display device supplier in Japan) 11/28

Has developed a new small size non-volatile display "ICL-9696" with a kind of e-paper technology.

8.      Toshiba (Major electronics company in Japan) 11/28

Has started the sample supply of the new 2.5" hard disc drive with 80 GB for automobile applications.

9.      Techno System Research (Market research firm in Japan) 11/28

Expects 30% increase of the LCD panels for the flat panel TVs to 150 million units in 2008.

10.  Fujitsu (Major electronics company in Japan) 11/28

Will commercialize a new 2.5" hard disc drive "MHZ2 BH Series" with 250 GB in February 2008.

11.  Dai Nippon Screen (Major equipment supplier in Japan) 11/29

Has developed the first AOI system with a color detection capability in the industry for the solder masks of the printed circuit boards.

12.  Toppan Printing (Major printing company in Japan) 11/29

Will invest 40 billion yens to build a new manufacturing plant of color filers in Sakai-shi, Osaka for the new LCD plant of Sharp.

13.  Sharp (Major electronics company in Japan) 11/30

Will invest 22 billion yens to increase the manufacturing capacity of thin solar battery to 160 M watts per year from 15 M watts per year by October 2008.

14.  Mitsui High Tech (Major lead frame supplier in Japan) 11/30

Will open the third manufacturing plant of the IC lead frames in Shanghai, China with chemical etching process.

15.  Kaga Denshi (Electronics company in Japan) 11/29

Will commercialize a new 8 mm thick active matrix type OLED TV in February 2008. The OLED panels will be supplier by LG Philips in Korea.

Interesting literatures about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

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

3. New "The latest electronics package, Part XXXI, Cellular Phones", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, October, 2007 

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

5. New "DKN Research Develops Film Base Connector", Circuits Assembly, September, 2007.

6. "Flexible Circuit Materials", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, April, 2007

7. "Business Trends and Technology Trends of the HDI Flexible Circuits -

Roadmap for the Ultra High-Density Advanced Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, KPCA, October 31, 2006

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "20 Years of Interconnect Defects", Michael Carano, CircuiTree, November, 2007.

2. "Creating Ideal Solder Joints", Zulki Khan, Circuits Assembly, November, 2007.

3. "Low-cost Optical Interconnects in SMT", Edward Palen, SMT, October, 2007

4. "Metric Pitch BGA and Micro BGA Routing Solutions", Tom Hausherr, Printed Circuit Design & FAB, November, 2007.

5. "Automatic Optical Inspection of IC Connections", Christian FAber, Advanced Packaging, October, 2007

7. "Under the Hood, Efficiency vs. Speed", presented by EE Times and Techonline, October 8, 2007

8. "Tape Substrate Manufacturers Have Been Facing Conversion Phases", (Japanese) The Semiconductor Industry News, September 26th, 2007