SHANGHAI - The CPCA 2008 Show was held for the second year at the Shanghai New Expo Center. It did not disappoint. Over 500 exhibitors filled three halls with products and services related exclusively to the PCB fabrication market.

Equipment dominated halls E1 and E2 as is typical for these events. Over 44 % of the booths featured equipment. From drilling machine manufactures like Timax Electronics & Machinery out of Hong Kong to laboratory measurement tools from the Fischer Asia-Pacific Group.  

The Fischer booth featured a number of measurement tools, all available in the booth for hands-on evaluations by the attendees. It was an interesting approach to exhibiting and the visitors were seen going from machine to machine, measuring the gold thickness on a PCB or using one of the hand held tools to check for lead in components to insure RoHS compliance. It took the concept of interactive exhibits to a new level.

As in previous years, the first hall was dominated by a handful of large PCB equipment suppliers. WKK, Mania, Hitachi, Schmoll and Schmid occupied over 1000 square meters of prime floor space. There was this year an increased number of local Chinese equipment manufactures as well, supplying a variety of PCB fabrication tools for cleaning, plating, etching, scrubbing and even testing. The improving quality of construction and competitive cost from some of the local manufactures has increased the utilization of this equipment in the past 12 – 18 months.  

This year 12 % of the exhibits featured products for clean water, air and improved environmental conservation. Companies like Duraflow from MA in partnership with a local company are bring state of the art environmental management solutions from water treatment to full water recycle equipment into China to meet the increasing stringent waste water treatment demands. The theme of environmentally friendly processing permeated the event, and was a carry over from the 11^th Electronics World Convention earlier in the week that also spotlighted environmental responsibility. Laminate and process chemical companies alike touted environmentally aware messages, from lead-free and halogen-free materials to semi-additive and fully additive fabrication processing.  


 
 
 
 

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