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EPTE Newsletter from Japan--JPCA Show, Part IV

Materials are always a significant detail to consider in the printed circuit industry, and most of the major material suppliers reserved relatively large booths at this year's JPCA exhibition. The material manufacturers displayed their new items; unfortunately, I could not find very innovative or novel products during the show. Despite this, these companies are performing a bit better than last year. Thin is in--thinner materials was the common theme for both rigid boards and flexible materials. I cannot say who held bragging rights for having the thinnest material at the exhibition, but most of the material manufacturers, including those in rigid laminates, copper foils, flexible laminates and polyimide films, boasted that they provided the thinnest materials in the industry.

Halogen-free materials, with copper clad laminates and solder mask material, are no longer considered a new material, but some manufacturers showcased improvements with the physical performances, such as heat resistance and flammability.

Liquid crystal polymer (LCP) materials that include film and copper laminates were still featured as new materials with low dielectric constant and loss tangent. I asked the same question as last year, "Is business growing or not?" Representatives from a few different booths gave me almost the same answers they did last year, "Business is growing slowly." I read between the lines and summarized that business for LCP manufacturers still has not taken off. Panasonic displayed a new molding technology for three-dimensional wiring. An engineer explained to me the new technology can generate 70 micron lines on the surface of the molded parts. The technology sounds good; however, the density of the traces is not the major issue for molded circuits. More than 10 companies have tried to commercialize the molded circuits over the last twenty years, but successfully maintained it as a going business concern. Since Panasonic is a very serious company for practical business applications, I bet they have a new spin on an older technology concept and will make lemonade from lemons. The engineer in the booth could not tell me what this new idea involves or how the technology can be commercialized.Printable electronics is a relatively new topic for the printed circuit industry and many material manufacturers are actively introducing new printable ink or paste materials for new applications. Manufacturers are assuming the process for printing will be either ink jet or screen-printing. I found new printable conductive materials in the booths of Fujikura Kasei, Taiyo Ink, Toyobo and others, but these companies did not mention if they provide nano-paste. They did state that their new materials have better conductivities than traditional silver pastes. Ink manufacturers also displayed insulation inks as printable materials. That wraps up my material observations from the show. Stay tuned for next week's newsletter.

Correction Note: In last week's newsletter, I may have confused readers--in the last paragraph, I wrote "fiver laser" instead of "fiber laser." I chalk it up to a typical mistake of Asian English speakers.

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. Sanyo Electric (Major electronics company in Japan) 6/30The company will terminate the manufacturing operation of capacitor devices in the Philippines--production will be transferred to Japan and Indonesia.

2. Fujitsu Microelectronics (Major device manufacturer in Japan) 6/30The manufacturer will roll out new consumer FCRAM "MB81EDS256545" for system in package (SiP) applications.

3. Hitachi Display (Major display device supplier in Japan) 7/1The supplier has founded a new division for the R&D projects of OLED devices. The new division will develop small-size displays of mobile equipment in cooperation with Canon.

4. Mitsubishi Material (Major material supplier in Japan) 7/1The supplier will invest one billion yen to expand the manufacturing capacity of copper smelting in Indonesia by 9% to 300,000 tons per year.

5. Samsung SDI (Major display device supplier in Korea) 7/1The company will invest 552 billion won to increase the manufacturing capacity of OLED by 260% to 9 million units, (2" size) per month, to meet the booming demands for mobile applications.

6. JEITA (Japan) 6/30The organization reports that the total shipment of electronic materials in April was 36billion yen, a 7% increase from the same month the previous year.

7. Showa Denko (Major chemical company in Japan) 7/2The company has developed a new bright-red LED with 80 Im/W high power efficiency.

8. Mektron (The largest flexible circuit manufacturer in Japan) 7/2The manufacturer has forecasted 186 billion yen revenue for the 2008 fiscal year, a 10.7% increase from the previous year. Income will decline 22.1% to 16 billion yen. 9. NTK (Major ceramic circuit manufacturer in Japan) 7/2The company has reported 131 billion yen revenue for the 2007 fiscal year, a 15.2% decline from the previous year. The net loss for the year was 1.2 billion yen.

10. Shin-Etsu Chemical (Major chemical company in Japan) 7/3The company has developed a new silicon rubber as the stamping material for micro-contact printing for next generation printable electronics.

11. Toray (Major material supplier in Japan) 7/3The supplier has commercialized a new black matrix material for the light shielding of LCD color filters. The company also forecasts revenue of 20 billion yen in 2009.

12. Kyocera (Major electronics company in Japan) 7/4The company has completed construction of a new solar cell manufacturing plant in Mie Prefecture. Production will begin in August 2008 with 100 MW capacity.

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 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. "Measuring and Controlling Wave Height and Dwell Time," Ken Kirby, Circuits Assembly, June 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. "Flash Memory for Stacked PoP Technology," Kenneth Sean, Bertrand Wong, Goh Swee Heng and Tan Choon Leng, Advanced Packaging, May/June, 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.