JIANGSU, CHINA – Production has begun at Schweizer Electronic's new EUR100 million ($100 million) printed circuit board plant here.

The Jintan plant, located in Jiangsu province about 200km east of Shanghai, has a high level of machine integration and automation, the firm said. Once complete, the Schramberg, Germany-based PCB fabricator's new site will have a capacity of over 7,000 sq. m per day, which is roughly five times that of the German plant.

"Customers who have been able to visit the plant so far were really impressed by the integrated production concept," said Alfred Pang, managing director in China, Schweizer.

Schweizer said the China location is opening up access to new markets and customers and is able to provide a complete range of PCB technologies, ranging from multilayer boards to future-oriented chip embedding technology from both production plants.

"Today, we are a recognized technology partner for the European automotive industry. China will now enable us to present our expertise to a much broader customer base. In addition to its own sales teams in Europe and China, Schweizer has also set up distribution partnerships in North America and Japan, with Korea to follow soon."