Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008 - (Page 32)

PCB Fab MarkEtS of $350 million (the Phase I investment is about $200 million). It expanded chip substrate capacity in the Philippines and started an IC substrate plant in Japan that required $400 million to build. When all these capacities start to contribute, the target of $2.5 billion will be attainable in a few years. The most likely contender for Ibiden’s throne is Unimicron. It is building an IC substrate plant and a joint-venture B2it plant, both in Suzhou, with Japan’s Dainippon Printing, Unimicron continues to expand capacity in Taiwan as well, and it is determined to build new plants in Vietnam. Unimicron made 230 million pieces of “engine boards” for cell phone handsets in 2007 and is aiming at 300 million in 2008. Today, over 60% of Nippon Mektron’s output comes from overseas operations. (Its overseas subsidiaries are named Mektec.) Its total bare board output is estimated at about $1.3 billion. Nippon Mektron is the king of flex and is one of the few large flex makers to remain profitable. It has four plants in China, two in Thailand, two in Taiwan and three in Europe, in addition to four in Japan. Samsung Electro-Mechanics, known as SEMCO, is the largest fabricator in South Korea. Its largest business is IC substrate with total substrate revenue of $800 million. Its big challenge is how to serve its more-or-less parent, Samsung Electronics, which is expanding abroad and claiming to purchase PWBs from local sources. The Samsung Electronics Tiajing cell phone plant produces 75 million pieces per annum while its main plant in South Korea (Gumi) produces 80 million. SEMCO announced in February that it would build the largest plant in Vietnam to date, capable of 100 FiGurE 1. Production shares by country including overseas production values in 2007 ($51.5 billion). Simbeor 2008 ® The first electromagnetic synthesis software to design minimal-reflection and low-loss PCB/packaging interconnects operating at 6-10 Gb/s and beyond! Visit www.simberian.com for more information and to download free fully functional software. © 2008 Simberian Inc. million pieces of cell phones per annum. It will be interesting to see who supplies microvia boards to this operation. Shinko Electric Industry is probably the second or third largest supplier of flip-chip substrates to Intel. Its components business had revenue of $1.5 billion in 2007, but some came from assembly operations (camera modules and IC chip assembly). NTK is as well known for its spark plugs as it is for ceramic package substrates (NTK stands for Nippon Tokushu Togyo also known as Nippon Specialty Ceramic Co.). It has been collaborating with Nan Ya PCB on organic flip-chip package substrates for Intel. NTK’s revenue includes ceramic chip substrates. Nan Ya PCB concentrates on the IC substrate business in Taiwan and produces regular motherboards and less-challenging IC substrates at its Kunshan subsidiary. Compeq and Wus encountered a bit of a problem in 2007 due to the poor performance of Motorola, their major customer. According to Compeq, operating in China gets tougher every year, and unlike other Taiwanese fabricators aiming at Vietnam for their next potential investments, Compeq believes Vietnam will eventually encounter the same problems faced in China today. Therefore, its plan may be to invest more in Taiwan. Wus’ Kunshan plant is known as one of the most capable high layer-count MLB manufacturers in China. In 2007, its MLB (18 layers and above) production value was nearly $80 million, one of the highest volumes for this category in the world. HannStar Board and Gold Circuit Electronics (GCE) are kings of notebook motherboards. The two makers produced 63 million NB motherboards, or over 60% of the worldwide volume of 108 million units. The companies are further expanding, adding microvia versions to cope with new demand. GCE Taiwan concentrates on high layer-count MLB production, and 85% percent of the MLBs it produces in Taiwan have layer counts of 10 or higher. Foxconn Advanced Technology (FAT), a PCB-producing subsidiary of Foxconn (its Chinese name is Hon Hai) has six plants in China. It makes flex circuits, flex assemblies and rigid boards of all sorts. Since it does not reveal its finances, $550 million is a wild guess. In that sense, 3M’s figure is also a wild guess. (The author has made similar comments in the past, but 3M has never responded. Of course, it knows where it stands.) 3M shut down plants in Japan and Eau Claire, WI. SEPTEMBER 2008 32 printEd CirCuit dESign & fAB http://www.simberian.com http://www.simberian.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - August 2008 Contents Our Line Market Watch Around the World Happenings ROI Positive Plating Off the Shelf Marketplace Ad Index EMC for the Real World Final Finish Forum Design for Green: Laminates A Systematic Approach to Increasing Layer Count The NTI $100 Million Club Printable Nanocomposites BGA Bulletin

Printed Circuit Design & Fab - September 2008

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