The show expands as many new local equipment manufactures come to market with products that are more reliable, and ready to meet the global competition.

The Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) hosted its annual trade show in October at Taipei World Trade Center. TPCA Show 2007 lasted three days and included the E Assembly Expo and other related events simultaneously organized within the venue to display their latest technologies and products. Over 300 companies and organizations reserved booths, and many foreign companies partnered with major trading companies to display their goods, therefore, total exhibitors numbered over 400. The floor of the main building overflowed with exhibitors, and TPCA had to prepare another floor next to the main building to accommodate the spillover.

The TPCA Show has evolved into the largest exhibition for PCB and related support industries in Asia (excluding Japan). Many engineers and buyers from printed circuit manufacturers in Taiwan visited the exhibition. I recognized many foreign visitors from Japan, North America and Europe, and even some foreign visitors from Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and India. The TPCA Show may have more foreign visitors than the JPCA Show in Japan. The JPCA Show is still larger than the TPCA Show and holds its position as the technical leader in the industry; however, the TPCA Show could have bragging rights as the business center for the global PCB industry.

Visitor’s expectations were low relative to uncovering new technologies, but most were interested in discovering lower cost materials and manufacturing equipment. They are not loyal to Taiwanese materials and equipment manufacturers, but will shop their needs with other countries. Suppliers and manufacturers from China receive most of the business and inquiries. Colleges and institutes reserved prime spaces to display their new technologies and chronicle their technical studies and also provided a historical record for the PCB industry. Their booths were able to educate the newbies in the industry, as well as industry outsiders who wanted to learn more.

TPCA provided statistical and historical data from the global printed circuits industry in Taiwan and also from other major PCB manufacturing markets, including Mainland China. The numerical data is valuable because it lists the manufacturing amounts from China and Taiwan separately, so the data is more trustworthy. Most market research reports double count the numbest of Taiwanese manufacturers and those flagged as “made in China” from foreign companies. Industry knowledge is valuable to help understand market situations and predict future trends within the industry. This is one of the reasons I believe Taiwan will become the business center for the global PCB or electronics industry.

One unlucky bit of timing for the exhibition was the historically huge typhoon approaching the Taipei area during the week. TPCA decided to close the exhibition a half hour earlier and asked exhibitors to clean and vacate their booths before midnight. Many people returned home Friday afternoon, and attendance counts were minimal on Friday afternoon. Usually, the last day is the busiest day of the exhibition. Exhibitors began closing up after 3:00 p.m. However, many resilient Taiwanese sales people were still hustling and negotiating deals while others were breaking down their booths. The typhoon landed in Northern Taiwan Saturday afternoon bringing with it heavy rains and strong winds, and leaving serious damage to the area.

I visited a PCB manufacturer in the Taipei area for a meeting on Saturday; many employees and management worked during the typhoon. Company management guaranteed the delivery of products by the end of the week. The president of the company finally dismissed employees, asking them to travel by taxicab instead of their small motorcycles. Soon after, the sales manager loaded products into a car, and left the company in the stormy weather to deliver them to a customer in the next province; another example of Taiwanese PCB manufacturers showing their tenacity and toughness.

The Taiwan Printed Circuit Association Show 2007 needed more floor space compared to previous years to accommodate the increase in the number of vendors participating. Machine suppliers for assembly machines and test equipment reserved a significant amount of space, and many people noted that a number of Taiwanese machine manufacturers had relatively large booths to display their new products. Some foreign machine suppliers, such as Orbotech, an Israel AOI machine company and Schmid, a German wet process supplier, secured their own space at the show, but many foreign machine companies arranged to share booths with local trading companies, such as Ofuna, WKK and Daidalos.

Competition has heated up between Taiwanese and foreign machine manufacturers. Previously, the Taiwanese machines had a reputation of being sub-par with low reliability. The machines designs were actual copies from foreign manufacturers, and their structures were very similar. Unfortunately, the Taiwanese products were not as reliable. However, they have made significant improvements over the years.

There are now many reliable machine suppliers in Taiwan that can meet the needs for printed circuit manufacturing and the assembly processes, including NC drilling machines, exposure machines, wet-processing lines, heat presses, screen printers, punching presses, surface-mount technology mounting machines, soldering furnaces, board testers, etc. On the surface, the machines made in Taiwan do not appear efficient. However, productivity from them is almost equal to the foreign manufactured machines.

Automation, HDI capabilities and reliability from the Taiwanese machines still lag behind the machines from Japanese or European companies, but the technical gaps are decreasing. I observed a couple of unique machines made in Taiwan for manufacturing flexible circuits, especially for the coverlay lamination. Company representatives reported the machines are now exported to Japan and Korea.
Huge advantages the Taiwanese manufacturers have over foreign companies are their communication skills with buyers from China, which boasts the largest PCB market in the world nowadays. Most of the major manufacturers within the Chinese PCB market are Taiwanese, and their decision makers are also Taiwanese. Taiwanese machine manufacturing representative have built a strong rapport with these key people. Taiwanese machine manufacturers will be tough competitors for the Japanese and European manufacturers in the future.

I was a little bit disappointed with the representation from material suppliers and PCB manufacturers. Last year’s show included many of these suppliers; however, this year not many participated. There were major copper foil suppliers at the show but not many laminate suppliers. There were more than 10 adhesiveless flexible copper laminate suppliers at the TPCA Show last year, but only three companies this year (one of them was a new face). A friend commented that the flex business has been sluggish for the past year, and budget constraints were the reason for these companies not renting booths. On a positive note, three new flexible circuit polyimide film suppliers reserved booths at the show.

PCB manufacturers were not very aggressive promoting their new technologies, and many big Taiwanese PCB manufacturers had the smallest booths in the show. Some of them had no samples to display or representatives to promote their technologies and products. It may be true that the target customers of TPCA Show are these PCB manufacturers, so PCB manufacturers do not expect to see their customers, actual assemblers and OEM manufacturers, in Taiwan.

Anyway, I have learned a lot of information about the PCB and related industries, not only in Taiwan, but also from the Asian market during the show under a Typhoon warning. PCD&F

Dominique Numakura is president of DKN Research; dnumakura@dknresearch.com.