The invention and application of integrated circuit and the miniaturization and high performance of electronic products push PCB substrate material technology onto the track of high performance development. With the rapid expansion of PCB demand in the world market, the output, variety and technology of PCB substrate material products have been developed at a high speed. This stage substrate material application, appeared a broad new field – multilayer printed circuit board. At the same time, this stage substrate material in terms of structural composition, more developed its diversification.

From the beginning of the 20th century to the end of the 1940s, PCB substrate material industry was in its infancy. Its development features are mainly reflected in: during this period, a large number of resins, reinforcement materials and insulating substrates for substrate materials emerged, and the technology has been preliminary exploration. All these have created necessary conditions for the appearance and development of copper-clad plate, the most typical substrate material for printed circuit board. On the other hand, the PCB manufacturing technology, which uses the metal foil etching method (subtraction method) to manufacture circuit as the mainstream, has been initially established and developed. It plays a decisive role in determining the structural composition and characteristic conditions of copper clad plate.

Copper-clad panels were used in PCB production on a real scale and first appeared in American PCB industry in 1947. PCB substrate material industry has entered its initial stage of development. In this stage, the raw materials used in the manufacturing of substrate materials — organic resin, reinforcement materials, copper foil and other manufacturing technology progress, to the progress of substrate material industry to give a strong impetus. Because of this, substrate material manufacturing technology began to mature step by step.

In the late 1980s, portable electronic products represented by notebook computers, mobile phones, and small video cameras began to enter the market. These electronic products are rapidly developing in the direction of miniaturization, lightweight and multi-function, which greatly promotes the progress of PCB towards micro-hole and micro-wire. Under the change of PCB market demand, a new generation of multilayer board that can realize high density wiring, BUM (BUM for short) came out in the 1990s. This important technological breakthrough also makes the substrate material industry to enter a new stage of development dominated by substrate materials for high density interconnect (HDI) multilayer. In this new stage, the traditional copper-clad technology faces new challenges. There are new changes and new creation in PCB substrate materials, whether in manufacturing materials, production varieties, substrate structure, performance characteristics, or in product functions.

The development of PCB substrate materials has gone through nearly 50 years. In addition, there were about 50 years of scientific experiments and exploration on the basic raw materials used by the industry — resins and reinforcement materials, and PCB substrate materials have accumulated a history of nearly 100 years. Each stage of development of substrate material industry is driven by the innovation of electronic complete machine products, semiconductor manufacturing technology, electronic installation technology and electronic circuit manufacturing technology.