PCB NEWS: Japanese And Korean Manufacturers Will Turn To The IC Board Field In An All-round Way

In the past few years, the position of Japanese and Korean PCB factories in the general PCB market has been gradually surpassed by the Chinese manufacturers, and the related news of consolidation or sale of PCB business is not uncommon.

Although Japanese and Korean manufacturers still hold a technological lead in some high-end products, as Taiwanese manufacturers continue to expand their lead while Chinese manufacturers invest heavily in production expansion and enter the market with a lower cost advantage, the technological lead is not enough for Japanese and Korean manufacturers to stand firm in the traditional PCB market.

From the investment action of these years, Japan and Korea manufacturers to turn to the IC board field development, may become the mainstream trend.

Japanese PCB industry used to dominate the soft board market, but later, Taiwan-based soft board factories led by Zhending occupied Apple's supply chain in an all-round way, and the volatility of consumer electronics market became stronger and stronger, so Japanese factories gradually withdrew from Apple's soft board supply chain and turned to medical treatment, automotive and other higher-order fields for development.

However, these application markets are still weak at this stage. As a result, the performance of Japanese soft board manufacturers continues to be weak. Mektron, a major manufacturer, has announced layoffs in the fourth quarter of 2020 to reduce operating burden.

Qisheng, however, quite apart from the soft board companies and car plate CMK downturn in 2020, a consortium with IC load board as main Yi Fiji electricity (Ibiden) and xinguang Electric (Shinko Electric), in the case of ABF carry hot plate market, operation has been growth in 2020, and the two companies are also keep up with the trend of the past few years greatly increase their investments in ABF loading board, mainly for CMOS and applications such as high speed computing processor can expect IC loading board in the proportion of the whole Japanese PCB market in the next few years will be more and more high, In 2020 alone, the proportion will increase by 6% to more than 30%.

And Korean manufacturers, although there is a local brand customers blessings, unlike plants in operation in the past few years has obvious recession issues, but under the cost pressure, including LG Innotek, SEMCO teacher group, and were in the past few years have announced his retirement from HDI board or soft hard couple, market, samsung and LG Innotek motor (SEMCO) has to sell the HDI production line, and a teacher is to keep the HDI factory half addition method (mSAP) process, transformation into FCBGA loading board factory, other Korean companies operating condition is not fit on the stage.

Korea factory loading board in addition to the supply chain is to continue to service in South Korea local powerful memory, for mobile phone and higher-order BT load required for the 5G transmission board is more with the ink, in 2020, samsung motors and LG Innotek in AiP load board and front-end RF module board application were big winners, operation has fairly good growth, 2 companies have in view of the high order BT with the continuous expansion of programs under load board, the future of IC loading board in the south Korean PCB market share is expected to quickly break through the thirty percent mark.

In the past, the Japanese department focused on advanced technology, while the Korean department focused on domestic brands.

Now, under the situation that the Taiwanese factories occupy the advanced market comprehensively, and the Chinese factories also start to catch up, the growth space is obviously limited. Apart from the traditional multilayer board, which has a relatively low price, even HDI, soft-hard combination board, soft board and other advanced applications, the market position is very big challenge. The last area with growth prospects and obvious competitiveness for Japanese and Korean companies is really the downloadable board field.

For Japanese and Korean companies focused on board to continue to overweight, will not only help biting and Taiwan is the competitive gap plate factory, at the same time can also set up technical threshold, further widening gap with the department in companies, although China semiconductor independent plan indeed attract many system manufacturer for IC loading board in areas heavily invest their resources, but the later start time, and compared with the traditional IC load board PCB need more technical experience accumulated for a long time, makes the system manufacturer in the field of IC loading board still only on the part of the middle and lower levels of BT load board that there was a competitive, high order products generally have at least 3 ~ 5 years or even high long technology gap.