Global And China FPCB Industry Report, 2014

In 2013, FPCB industry enjoyed a high-speed growth with the market size approximating USD12.03 billion, up 16.2% from the level in 2012. The South Korean vendors developed rapidly and were excessively upbeat about the industry’s outlook, aggressively expanding capacity starting from the very beginning of 2012. As a result, most of new capacity was available in Q2 2013. However, the FPCB companies in South Korea without diversified customers, were heavily dependent on the key accounts such as Samsung and LG, thus making them less competitive during negotiations. Therefore, these vendors cut the prices steeply in Q4 2013, sending them into price war.

In 2014, price decline continued to deteriorate, which led to a sharp fall in revenue of South Korean vendors. The implications of high-speed capacity expansion are high fixed costs, which would thus result in a plunge in profit margin. It is projected that the revenue of INTERFLEX, a leading South Korean FPCB company, would tumble by 50%, and its operating margin would record a 27% loss in 2014 in contrast to no-profit-no-loss in 2013. Additionally, affected by the order shift of Apple, the company has hardly received any orders from Apple in 2014.

Another pressure for the vendors in South Korea came from the depreciated yen, and the won appreciated against the yen. However, the Japanese products have better performance; coupled with the reduced prices bought on by yen depreciation, they are more competitive.

Apple shortened the supply chain, giving more of its orders to the vendors in Taiwan, which resulted in a fall in revenue of M-Flex, at an estimated 20% drop in 2014. And as the losses expand, M-Flex’s operating margin is expected to slip from -8.4% in 2013 to -11.8%.

Despite a substantial decline in revenue of the South Korean vendors, the biggest customer of FPCB market—Apple did not bring down the purchase price. Meanwhile, the new iPhones have bigger size and therefore need more FPCBs. Consequently, the vendors in Taiwan and Japan saw a big increase in revenue, thereby filling in the vacuum. We predict that in 2014 the market size of FPCB worldwide reached USD12.608 billion, up 4.8% from 2013.

Of the Taiwanese vendors, ZDT generated the most revenue. ZDT under Hon Hai obtained more of the orders from Apple. It is forecasted that its revenue will jump by 55% to USD1.518 billion in 2014, overtaking Japan’s SEI as the world's second. In contrast, the world’s first NOK reduced the capacity in Japan, instead expanded the capacity in Thailand and Mainland China, which helped not only substantially increase its revenue but also rapidly turn out of red. At the same time, the global HDD market tends to be stable, with the shipments rising mildly from 2013. The HDD for FPCB is the main product of NOK, an Apple's leading supplier.

We project that in 2015 smartphones will present a slowing growth, tablet PCs will begin to decline, notebook computers will grow slightly or be flat. Moreover, LCD-TVs are expected to grow by a small margin. And wearable devices are very likely to rise significantly, but its application of FPCB is too small to fuel the market. In 2015, it is more than likely that LCD-TV will be the mainstay to drive the market. And after 6-8 years of popularization, LCD-TV is expected to undergo a boom of TV set replacement. And consumers will choose 4K TV with higher resolution or change the original smaller 32-37 inch television to 40-42 inch television.

We expect that it will be very hard for the South Korean vendors to reverse the downtrend when Samsung’s mobile phone shipments slow down and its LCD shipments are falling with losses. It is more likely that the South Korean vendors will suffer collapse, while the companies from Japan and China’s Taiwan will benefit from it, especially Japanese ones that had improved the competitiveness after the repeated depreciation of yen.

If you are looking for Quick turn PCB,Rapid design board,please contact us:

Shenzhen Wonderful Technology Co.,Ltd

Website: http://www.wonderfulpcb.com/

PCB Assembly Introduction

There are two process for manufacturer to do PCB assembly.
Below picture show controle base plate(PCBA) exist everywhere in our house appliances. 
Process of PCB assembly fabrication
(1) . Traditional DIP process
(2) . SMT process

Here first is the introduction of the process of DIP today.
1 . Traditional DIP process to Flexible pcb assembly means inserting the parts which with leg into the PTH hole of PCB.
2 . And then pass the PCB through tin soldering machine, to reach the purpose of soldering tin.                               

The structure of tin soldering machine

The structure of flux tank


The function of foamed pipe in flux tank
1. To air through the tiny holes on the foam tube body, causing numerous of air bubbles, with the number of air bubbles to cleave with flux, by metal accumulation, contact from the bottom of the base board and achieve the function of the flux coating, and then extra flux be strike off by air knife, and make flux distributed uniformly at the bottom of the base plate.

Method of flux coating
1. Bubble type flux coating
2. Wave type flux coating
3. Spray type flux coating

Hello I also would like to make simple introduction on flux which is used for assembly

A. The function of Flux
1. Remove the oxide on the surface of part and substrate
2.Reduce the surface tension of the solder and promote the flow of the solder
3.To protect the surface of the metal, avoid it to be oxidized under the environment of high temperature.

B. The main ingredients of flux
1.Rosin: it is refined from the grease of pine tree.
2.surfactant : Because of the gentle characteristics of rosin, it is not easy to remove the oxide, thus must add surfactant in order to enhance its effect.
3. Solvent: Dissolve and blend solid state material like rosin and surfactant, general multi-purpose isopropyl alcohol or ethylene glycol.
4. In addition, there are interface active agent, foaming agent and other ingredients

C. Variety of flux.
(1) Rosin flux :
1. R grade : Inactive rosin flux
2 . RMA : Weak activity rosin flux
3 . RA : Strong activity of rosin flux
4 . RSA : Super Strong activity of rosin flux

(2) Synthesis of active flux : This kind of flux is developed by DUPONT company, it’s advantage is can make the residue which caused after soldering can become liquid state, easily for cleaning.
Based on activity, it can be divided into: 
SR–No active synthetic flux
SMAR – Weak active synthetic flux
SSAR – Strong active synthetic flux
SAR – Super strong active synthetic flux

(3). Water-soluble flux: The flux of organic acids, performs best help on welding, but must pay attention to the cleaning situation of the base board of welding after washing. If there’s residues, it will cause corrosion of substrate material, military and aerospace industry are banning the use of water-soluble flux process of substrate

(4). Disposable flux
Rosin kind improved flux: solid content 5-20%, residues will not cause corrosion to the base plate.

Low content of solid flux: solid content at 5%,  disposable flux disposable because its residue in the residues of substrate could not cause corrosion of substrate, but solid content in about 5% of

PCBs Fabrication of Exposure---WonderfulPCB(hk)Limited

The photo resist board needs to be exposed to ultra-violet light through the artwork, using a UV exposure box.

UV exposure units can easily be made using standard fluorescent lamp ballasts and UV tubes. For small PCBs, two or four 8 watt 12" tubes will be adequate, for larger (A3) units, four 15" 15 watt tubes are ideal. To determine the tube to glass spacing, place a sheet of tracing paper on the glass and adjust the distance to get the most even light level over the surface of the paper. Even illumination is a lot easier to obtain with 4-tube units. The UV tubes you need are those sold either as replacements for UV exposure units, insect killers or 'black light' tubes for disco lighting etc. They look white or occasionally black/blue when off, and light up with a light purple, which makes fluorescent paper etc. glow brightly. DO NOT use short-wave UV lamps like EPROM eraser tubes or germicidal lamps, which have clear glass - these emit short-wave UV which can cause eye and skin damage.
A timer which switches off the UV lamps automatically is essential, and should allow exposure times from 2 to 10 minutes in 15-30 second increments. It is useful if the timer has an audible indication when the timing period has completed. A timer from a scrap microwave oven would be ideal.

Short-term eye exposure to the correct type of UV lamp is not harmful, but can cause discomfort, especially with bigger units. Use glass sheet rather than plastic for the top of the UV unit, as it will flex less and be less prone to scratches.
If you do a lot of Multilayer pcb, it may be worth making a double-sided exposure unit, where the PCB can be sandwiched between two light sources to expose both sides simultaneously.

You will need to experiment to find the required exposure time for a particular UV unit and laminate type, expose a test piece in 30 second increments from 2 to 8 minutes, develop and use the time which gave the best image. Generally speaking, overexposure is better than underexposure.

For a single-sided PCB, place the artwork with toner side up on the UV box glass, peel off the protective film from the laminate and place it sensitive side down on top of the artwork. The laminate must be pressed firmly down to ensure good contact all over the artwork, and this can be done either by placing weights on the back of the laminate, or by fitting the UV box with a hinged lid lined with foam rubber, which can be used to clamp the PCB and artwork.

Ms. Jodie Zhou
Wonderful PCB
T +86-755-86229518-807 | F  +86 755 2607 3529|  e  wonderful09@wonderfulpcb.com |
www.wonderfulpcb.com | Skype: jodiezhou0710  | MSN: wonderfulpcb06@hotmail.com
Welcome to our trading shows:
1. Booth:  L32, Expo Electronics 2013, Apr.10-12th in CROCUS EXPO, Moscow, Russia
2. Booth: 11J36, HK Global sources Apr.12-15th, 2013 Asia World-Expo, and Hong Kong 
3. Booth: 9J35, HK Global sources Oct.12-15th, 2013 Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong

Wonderful PCB Manufacturer

Common PCB surface treatment process are: hot air leveling (HASL, hot air solder leveling), organic coating (OSP), electroless nickel / immersion gold, immersion silver, immersion tin, etc.

1)HASL，hot air solder leveling
    HASL also known as hot air solder leveling, it is in the molten tin-coated surface of the PCB and use heated air leveling (blown flat) process, to form a layer of copper oxide can be both anti provide good solderability of the coating layer. HASL solder and copper usually formed with copper-tin metal compound has a thickness of about 1 ~ 2mil.

2)OSP
    Skim -> micro etch -> Pickling -> water cleaning -> organic coating -> cleaning, process control relative to other treatment processes more easily.

3)Electroless Nickel / Immersion Gold (also known as chemical gold)
    Clean off the pickling -> micro-etch -> grep -> activate -> Electroless Nickel -> chemical leaching of gold; their process of six chemical tank, involving nearly a hundred kinds of chemicals, the process is relatively complicated.

4)Immersion Silver
    Immersion Silver is a displacement reaction, it is almost sub-micron silver coating. Sometimes silver leaching process can also contain organic compounds, mainly to prevent migration of silver silver corrosion and eliminate the problem, this is very difficult to measure out a thin layer of organic matter, analysis showed less than 1% by weight of the organism.

5)Immersion Tin
Due to the current all tin-based solder is, the tin layer with any type of solder to match, from this point of view, immersion tin process is very promising. But previous PCB via solder dipping process easy after whisker, welding and tin migration over soldering shall bring reliability problems, thus limiting the immersion tin process of adoption. After immersion tin solution, the organic additive, the granular structure of the tin layer structure to overcome the previous problem, but also has good thermal stability and weldability.

Sophie Deng
_______________________________________
Wonderful Rigid-flex pcb Limited
NO.32A,Building NO.1, XianDaiC hengHuaTing,ChuangYeRoad|NanShan District,ShenZhen City 518054|  China  T +86-755-86229518-806 | F  +86 755 2607 3529|  e  wonderful08@wonderfulpcb.com |
w  www.wonderfulpcb.com  | Skype:wonderful-07   |                                                  
Welcome to our trading shows:
1.Booth: L32,Expo Electronic 2013,Apr.10-12th in CROCUS EXPO,Moscow,Russia
2.Booth: 11J36, HK Global sources  Apr.12-15th, 2013 Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong
3.Booth: 9J35, HK Global sources Oct.12-15th,2013 Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong
4.Booth: 70206, CES  2014  Jan,8th-11th in Las Vegas, USA

PCB design and PCB manufacture

In the increasing developed electronic industry, no matter manufacturing for a large multinational tech company or a small electronics company, PCB assembly can be riddled with numerous challenges. Effective assembly requires smooth collaboration between designers, fabricators and manufacturers in order to deliver a high quality circuit board to the market. Mistakes made in design can hold grave consequences to the whole organization, especially where the design failures result in substandard products reaching the market.

Design Services
The design of PCB board (PCBs) is one of the most important steps in manufacturing a quality electronic device. The functionality and efficiency of your electronics depend on the design and layout out of the board (or "brain") of the gadget, meaning that nothing can be left to chance. Through careful attention to detail, the board can be designed to meet all product specifications without wasting any space or utilizing excessive components. A truly qualified electronic design and manufacture contractor can provide you with numerous solutions throughout the design process, such as:

Prototyping - If you have an idea for a device, it can be created - as long as you have the right resources at your fingertips. The design services provided by PCB Company can help to bring your prototype to life, quickly and efficiently. The fast-turnaround will enable you to familiarize yourself with your device, so that you can explain and present it to your prospect clients for future orders. And careful, detailed planning ensures that your product will operate without a hitch.

Review - These individuals have years of industry experience, enabling them to quickly spot any flaws in your design schematics, or areas that could be improved. Ultimately, this could result in more compact, affordable boards, and a faster, more efficient device.

Reworking - In some cases, your team may be stuck on a problem with one of your boards. However, engineers could have experience to help to check and rework these problems.

Manufacturing Assembly Services

It's very important to turn your designs into a reality with skill, speed, and precision.

Skillful assembly production - A reliable electronic design and manufacture company will have a comprehensive understanding of the demands of systems assembly. Assembly Company should have the ability to provide you with a customized solution that may include services like configure/build to order, assembly at the chassis, cage, or rack level, custom cabling, documentation, etc. All of this should be handled in direct compliance with industry standards.


Troubleshoot and repair - Beyond manufacturing, your third party contractor should stand behind its electronic design and manufacture services to the point where it offers troubleshooting and repair for the devices that it produces. By taking the time to systematically seek out the underlying issue at its source, your partner company can help you to repair your boards without being forced to replace the unit entirely. This helps your business to save significantly on time and money.

PCB Common Query (2)

Thickness
1. Lay-up
In DWG, customer mentioned layer order only, but didn’t indicate the dielectric thickness between layers and Copper thickness. So, we suggest you follow the lay-up shown on attached file XX, Please confirm.

2. Mismatch between the lay-up and board thickness
According to the lay-up specified by customer, the overall board thickness will be XXX mil, not the customer nominal requirement of YYY mil. So, we suggest:
A). To follow the lay-up specified by customer and change the overall Rigid-flex pcb thickness to YYY mil +/-10%
B). To modify the lay-up as shown on attached file and control the overall board thickness to be XXX mil per customer requirement.
Please clarify which item (A or B) customer preferred.

3. Relax board thickness tolerance.
Customer required controlling the finished board thickness to be XX%, however, the standard tolerance for board thickness is +/-10%. We can achieve tighter tolerance by ordering non-standard materials; however, it will take a long lead-time and a high price to purchase this special material. So, we suggest you relax the tolerance from XX% to +/-10%. Please confirm.

Cu thickness & Pad
1. Add Cu clearance for NPTH or consider 2nd-drill
The non-plated hole located in ground plane(OR a large pad: DIAXXX), in order to facilitate in production, we suggest we shave Cu and add a 10mil clearance around non-plated holes. Please confirm.

2. Add dummy pattern
As the distribution of Cu pattern is very uneven on outer layers, in order to balance plating and improve quality, we suggest you add some dummy pattern in blank area. The dummy shape and size see attached file. Please confirm.

3. Copper close to board edge
In some locations, copper features are closer than 15mil(10mil) from the outline. This presents the risk of exposed copper at board edges. We suggest we shave copper to get sufficient spacing. Please confirm.

4. Copper extending to unit edge
In some locations, copper has extended to unit edge. If we follow master A/W to build, copper will be exposed at unit edge. So, we suggest we shave copper to get sufficient spacing. Please confirm.

5. Delete NPTH pad
For some non-plated holes(DIA: XX), their pad size(DIA: XXX) is larger than hole size. In order to facilitate in production, we suggest you delete these pads. Please confirm.

6. Distance between two pads less than 4mil
On component side/solder side, the spacing between two pads is too narrow (X mil only). As the two pads have been connected together in inner layer YY. In order to facilitate in production, we suggest we shave the pads and keep 5mil spacing. Please confirm.

7. Pad size is too small
According to master A/W the via hole pad is too small (hole size: MMM, pad size: NNN). As there isn’t enough spacing for us to enlarge these pads. In order to select a smaller drill we suggest you change the tolerance of via hole from XXXX+/-3mil to XXXX+0/-6mil. Please confirm.

8. PTH hole with elliptic pad
Per master artwork, we found some PTH holes (DIA: XXX mil) with elliptic pad (pad size: MM X NN mil) (see attached file).AS the elliptic pad was too small, thus it was ineluctable that hole will be broken on short side if we follow master artwork to proceed We suggest to enlarge the pad suitably to guarantee a 2 mil (min)annular ring on the conjoint area, please confirm.