Printed Circuit Boards Have Champions on Capitol Hill

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House Resolution 7677 from the 2021/22 Congressional session may have run out of time before the election cycle, but that hasn’t ended the effort to help fund the printed circuit board industry alongside the semiconductor industry. 

IPC vice president of global government relations, Chris Mitchell, shared this letter, sent to DOD on Wednesday by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Blake Moore (R-UT), which insists DOD must “leverage all available resources, including the use of Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA), to increase domestic production of PCBs and IC substrates.” 

“U.S. investments in semiconductor manufacturing will not provide greater security and resiliency without complementary initiatives to bolster the printed circuit board (PCB) and integrated circuit (IC) substrate-manufacturing base,” they stated in their letter. 

“Thanks to Reps. Anna Eshoo and Blake Moore for urging DoD to leverage the Defense Production Act and other programs to support a resurgence in U.S. production of printed circuit boards,” said Mitchell in response to this letter. He continued, “Rebuilding this base is important to U.S. defense needs and supply chain resiliency but also to achieving the goals laid out in the CHIPS and Science Act. Silicon drives changes across the electronics manufacturing industry, and thus investments in silicon must be paired with investments in other strategically important segments of the electronics industry, including printed circuit board fabrication and assembly.”