Printed Circuit Board, also known as Printed Circuit Board, Printed Circuit Board, Printed Circuit Board. The prototype for PCBS came from telephone exchange systems in the early 20th century that used the concept of the “Circuit,” which was made by cutting metal foil into a conductor and sticking it between two sheets of wax stone paper. In the true sense of the PCB was born in the 1930 s, it USES electronic printing production, with insulating board base material, cut into a certain size, with at least one conductive graphics, and cloth have a hole (such as component hole, fastening hole, hole metallization, etc.), used instead of previous device electronic components of the chassis, and realize the connection between the electronic components, It plays the role of relay transmission, is the support body of electronic components, and is known as the “mother of electronic products”.

Classification by softness of base material:

Data source: Public data collation

Printed circuit PCB global market distribution

Since the 21st century, with the transfer of global electronic information industry from developed countries to emerging economies and emerging countries, Asia, especially China, has gradually become the world’s most important electronic information product production base. In 2016, the revenue of China’s electronic information manufacturing industry above designated scale reached 12.2 trillion yuan, up 8.4% year on year. With the migration of electronic information industry chain, PCB industry, as its basic industry, is also concentrated in Mainland China, Southeast Asia and other Asian regions. Before 2000, more than 70% of the global PCB output value was distributed in America (mainly North America), Europe and Japan. Since the 21st century, the PCB industry has been shifting its focus to Asia. At present, the output value of PCB in Asia is close to 90% of the world, especially in China and Southeast Asia. Since 2006, China has surpassed Japan to become the world’s largest PCB producer, with PCB output and output ranking first in the world. In recent years, the global economy is in a period of deep adjustment. The driving role of Europe, the United States, Japan and other major economies on the world economic growth has weakened significantly, and the PCB market in these countries has limited growth or even contracted. China is increasingly integrated with the global economy, and gradually occupies half of the global PCB market. As the largest producer of PCB industry in the world, China accounted for 50.53% of the total output value of PCB industry in 2017, up from 31.18% in 2008.

Data source: Public data collation

The big trend of industry moving east, the mainland is unique.

The focus of PCB industry is constantly shifting to Asia, and the production capacity in Asia is further shifting to the mainland, forming a new industrial pattern. Before 2000, 70% of the global PCB output value was distributed in Europe, America (mainly North America) and Japan. With the continuous transfer of production capacity, the output value of PCB in Asia is close to 90% of the world, leading the PCB in the world, while the Chinese mainland has become the region with the highest production capacity of PCB in the world. At the same time, in recent years, the production capacity in Asia has shown a trend of transferring from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to mainland China, which makes the PCB production capacity in Mainland China grow at a rate of 5%-7% higher than the global level. In 2017, China’s PCB output will reach us $28.972 billion, accounting for more than 50% of the global total.

The PCB production capacity of Europe, America and Taiwan continues to be transferred to the mainland for the following three reasons:

1. Environmental protection policies in western countries are becoming stricter, forcing the PCB industry with relatively high emissions to move.

The printed circuit board contains heavy metal pollutants, which will inevitably cause local environmental pollution in the manufacturing process. In Europe and the United States, the government’s environmental protection requirements for PCB manufacturers are higher than domestic. Under the strict environmental protection standards, enterprises need to establish a more perfect environmental protection system, which will lead to the increase of environmental protection expenses of enterprises, increase management costs and affect the level of corporate profits. Therefore, European and American manufacturers only keep the PCB business with high technology and strong confidentiality, such as military and aerospace, and small-batch fast board business, and constantly reduce the PCB business with high pollution and low gross profit. Production capacity in this part of the business has shifted to Asia, where environmental requirements are relatively loose and environmental spending is relatively low. Strict environmental policies are also hampering the release of new capacity. PCB makers typically expand capacity by expanding existing plants or opening new ones. But on the one hand, the restriction of environmental protection clause increases the difficulty of plant site selection; On the other hand, the increase of cost reduces the expected rate of return of the project, weakens the feasibility of the project and increases the difficulty of raising funds. Due to the above two reasons, European and American manufacturers invest in new projects at a slower pace than Asian manufacturers, thus releasing relatively less new capacity, and falling behind Asia in PCB capacity. Mainland market obtains price advantage with relatively low labor cost, while western manufacturers tend to be inferior in price war.The labor cost in the mainland market has the advantage of relatively low cost. Although it has gradually improved in recent years, it is still far lower than the level of developed countries in Europe and the United States, and also lower than the level of Japan and South Korea. By virtue of their advantages in environmental protection expenditure and labor costs, manufacturers in mainland China can obtain competitive advantages with lower prices than those in other regions, thus expanding market share.

2. China has become the world’s largest consumer electronics market, and the upstream and downstream industry chains are fully supporting the needs of the PCB industry.

In the past ten years, China’s electronic information industry has developed rapidly and its industrial scale has been expanding. In 2015, China’s consumer electronic information manufacturing industry achieved the main business income of 11.1 trillion yuan, ranking first in the world. As one of the carriers closest to terminal products, the demand for PCB in mainland China will continue to grow with the popularity of downstream terminal products. Accordingly, a complete industrial chain of “copper foil, glass fiber, resin, copper clad plate and PCB” has been formed at the supply end of mainland China, which can meet the growing production demand. Therefore, driven by demand, the industry’s production capacity is smoothly transferred to the mainland.

3. At present, China has formed PCB industry cluster belt with pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta as core areas.

According to China Printed Circuit Association CPCA, the number of domestic PCB industry enterprises in 2013 was about 1,500, mainly distributed in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Bohai Rim region, the Yangtze River Delta and pearl River Delta two regions accounted for about 90% of the total output value of PCB in the Chinese mainland. PCB production capacity in central and western China has also expanded rapidly in recent years. In recent years, due to the rise of labor costs, some PCB enterprises have moved their production capacity from the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta to the cities in the middle and western regions with better basic conditions, such as Huangshi in Hubei province, Guangde in Anhui Province, suining in Sichuan Province, etc. The Pearl River Delta region, the Yangtze River Delta region to take advantage of its talent, economy, industry chain, and constantly high-end products and high value-added products.