Rejuvenation of an American PCB Maker

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Editor’s Note: We are pleased to publish this first of several special contributions by Dr. Hayao Nakahara, which offers his unique perspective on a handful of companies who have contributed significantly to the PCB industry.

Introduction

North American PCB production once dominated the world with more than $12 billion of output. Today, it has shrunk to one quarter of that peak. However, several world-class North American PCB makers have not only maintained volume capability, but also produce very high levels of technology. Viasystems Group, TTM Technologies, Sanmina Corp PCB, MFLEX, etc., are such makers. This article will focus on Viasystems Group; the other makers will be discussed in future articles.

Birth

Viasystems Group ("Viasystems" hereinafter) was born in 1996, when a Texas-based investment company, Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst (HMTF) purchased Canadian PCB maker Circo Craft, which had been founded by a colorful former East German boxer, Hans Muhlegg. HMTF bought half a dozen other PCB makers after Circo Craft. The first of these, in 1996, was the PCB facility of Lucent Technology (formerly AT&T Richmond), followed in 1997 by Forward Circuit and then ISL, both of England. Mommers Print Service in the Netherlands and LM Ericsson Nørrkoping, in Sweden, came next, in December 1997. Italy’s Zincocelere was purchased in February of 1998, followed by China’s Termbray Kalex in 2000. At its peak in 2000, Viasystems had PCB revenues of $1.25 billion from nearly 20 plants, making it second in the world after Hadco, which had $1.55 billion in revenue.  

Rebirth

After the newborn stage, new management took over operation of the company. When the IT bubble burst in 2000, Viasystems shut down these plants one after another, except for two plants in China, which originated from Termbray. The company’s PCB revenue plunged to as low as $450 million. A decade later, Viasystems made two brilliant purchases in North America: Merix (originating from Tektronix) in 2009 and then DDi in 2012. At the time of purchase, Merix had four plants: Forest Grove, Oregon; San Jose, California; Huizhou and Huiyang, Guangdong Province, China. (Merix’s China plants were acquired from Eastern Pacific Circuits, which was in turn purchased by UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) from Wong Circuits.) In 2013, the Huizhou plant was closed.

DDi had seven plants scattered throughout North America: Anaheim and Milpitas, California; Sterling, Virginia; Littleton, Colorado; Cleveland and North Jackson, Ohio, and Toronto, Canada, all of which are intact. Before buying DDi, Viasystems acquired the former MFLEX building, just several hundred yards away from the DDi complex. After purchasing DDi, Viasystems poured a considerable sum into it to make the former MFLEX plant fit its future production plan, and purchased multiple pieces of new and modern equipment.

New Viasystems facility in Anaheim, California.Viasystems facility in Zhongshan, GD, China.

In 2013, Viasystems achieved sales revenue of $1.171 million, of which $1.008 million came from PCB operations, with the rest attributed to its assembly and enclosure business [1]. According to a preliminary investigation of world’s top PCB makers [2], Viasystems ranked No.12 of 3,000 in the world. The company’s total PCB revenue is now almost as high as its 2000 peak.

The building on the right in Figure 2 is Viasystems Zhongshan, a six-story plant completed at the end of 2013. Together with the old plant, shown on the left, Viasystems Zhongshan is the world’s largest PCB plant for automotive PCBs. Currently, Viasystems is the fourth-largest automotive PCB maker in the world after CMK, Meiko and Chin Poon, which are all in a similar range.

Its applications are [1]:

• Automotive: $353.4 million;
• Industrial & Instrumentation: $297.2 million;
• Telecommunications: $201.6 million;
• Computer & Data communication: $196.0 million; and
• Military & Aerospace: $122.8 million.

Technologies

As can be seen from the applications, all of the products that use Viasystems' PCBs require high quality and reliability. Viasystems was the first PCB maker in the world to produce HDI microvia boards for automotive engine controls back in 1999. Today, HDI boards for automotive applications are still an important part of Viasystems' PCB business. Thick copper boards with up to 12 oz. of copper are also one of Viasystems' specialties.

MLB with 12 oz. copper (inner layer).      Cross-section of 12 oz. copper etched.

               Seventeen bare chips are flip-chip mounted.

Viasystems is one of the world’s top ten makers of complex, high-layer count multilayer boards (MLB) up to more than 60 layers. Its $123 million military board output is No. 2 in the world after TTM Technologies. The purchase of many high-tech PCB shops and their subsequent shutdowns were a painful lesson to Viasystems, but the high technologies used today at various plants are the result.

The purchase of DDi resulted in the acquisition of several important technologies. Signal integrity capabilities and a paste technology called NextGen are examples of two such technologies.

Viasystems is able to put together a team with multi-disciplinary knowledge in the area of high-speed circuitry, and has established solid ground for design and fabrication of high-speed PCBs with signal integrity capability. Its alliance with FCI Electronics, a specialist in high-speed backplane connectors (70% of FCI's products are used by communication and data applications), enabled Viasystems to enhance its high-speed circuit capability. Viasystems manufactures not only backplanes but also backplane assemblies at its Shanghai and Juarez plants.Low-noise signal transmission.               Back-drill capability. 

Back-drill is accomplished by the use of precision drilling machines with optical alignment that can control hole position and depth.

52-layer BP with back-drilled holes.       58-layer BP (FR-4+RO-4350).

High-speed (high-frequency) components emit high heat. To reduce thermal failure, coin technology is a common solution, which Viasystems has been providing for many years and in large quantity. Laser cavities, press fit coins, and edge finger cavities are typical thermal solutions.

In addition to its signal integrity offerings, the second area of focus is in the use of high-layer count MLB with paste technology. It started out several years ago at DDi and although the base is still small, the products are growing exponentially. Typical products using this paste technology have layer counts of 30, and some products have more than 34 layers.

Although Viasystems has excellent back-drilling capability for signal integrity, this paste technology can eliminate, in some cases, the necessity to use back-drilling for noise reduction. Also, the use of NextGen technology leads to the elimination of drilling deep, small holes and extremely high aspect ratio hole plating, though Viasystems can plate 25:1 aspect ratio holes reliably.

These technologies are now transferred from the Anaheim plant to the Viasystems Forest Grove facility for mass production. Eventually, they will be transferred to facilities in China if it makes sense for very high-volume production and perhaps lower costs.

NextGen-SMVTM technology.                Process is one-shot lamination.A 30-layer “any layer” board.       Viasystems Sub-Link™ technology.

Viasystems' total HDI board shipment in North America is somewhere between $40 and 50 million, likely making it the largest in North America, and 25 to 30% of total North American HDI board production.

Viasystems PCB business went though rough times, but it is completely rejuvenated and set to grow with advanced technologies.

References:

1. 10-K Report, 2013.2. NTI-100, 2013.