A familiar picture: Ibiden reigned (again) as the top PCB fabricator in 2006.

The aforementioned fabricators had revenues greater than $1 billion in 2006. The author would like to call them the NTI-$1 Billion Club. Many others are striving to achieve $1 billion in revenue in the near future. It will be interesting to observe which makers get there.

KB (Kingboard Chemical) PCB Group includes Elec & Eltek, Techwise (and Techwise-Shirai), Jiangmen Glory Faith and three other relatively small makers.

Multek is a subsidiary of Flextronics, the second-largest EMS maker after Foxconn. Multek operates in Brazil, Germany, U.S. and at several locations in Doumen district of Zhuhai. (After purchasing Solectron, "new Flextronics" is neck-to-neck with Foxconn.)

Dae.duck Group operates in Korea, the Philippines and Tianjin, China. It is one of the oldest Korean PCB makers and its recent emphasis is on maintaining profitability. However, it is not totally ignoring investment. Two years ago, it built an IC substrate plant, called APERIO, and its IC substrate business is growing. Its products are well balanced from single-and double-sided, MLB, microvia boards, flex, flex-rigid and IC substrates. The Tianjin plant makes single-sided boards.

Tripod is one of the most flamboyant investors in PCB industry. Its expansion in Wuxi, China, is unbelievable. Its plan is to produce about $800 million in China in 2008. When this is accomplished, there is no doubt that Tripod will be a member of NTI-$1 Billion Club.

Fujikura is the second largest flex maker, after Nippon Mektron. It has a plant in Japan (Tohoku Fujikura), a few in Thailand (PCCT) and a flex assembly plant in Shanghai. Its next expansion will be in Vietnam. About 80% of its revenue is derived from its overseas plants. During the JPCA Show this year, it exhibited embedded component flex circuits.

Hitachi Chemical has PCB plants in several locations in Japan, one in Singapore and another in Taiwan. HC's involvement in PCB industry is quite diversified. It makes laminates, dry, film (the largest in the world, with production capacity of 350 million square meters per annum), PCBs from single-sided to MLB and production equipment through its subsidiary. Its total PCB-related business amounts to about $2 billion per annum.

AT&S is the largest PCB maker in Europe. It operates in Austria, India, Korea and China. Recently, its main emphasis has been in Shanghai. The second building in Shanghai includes original Phase 2 and Phase 3. Phase 2 started production last August. It is already filled to capacity with work and Phase 3 is being equipped with production machines for expansion.

Wus recently exited from the TAB business. Its China subsidiary in Kunshan has been concentrating on high layer-count MLB in the past several years and is probably the largest high layer-count MLB maker in China at this moment.

LG Electronics sells a good portion of its products to its parent, but outside sales is also growing gradually. It makes microvia boards, IC substrates, flex and MLBs with layer counts up to 40 and with back drilling.

TTM Technologies purchased Tyco Electronics' PCB operations, including the backplane assembly business. Although it shut down the Oregon facility (originally Praegitzer Industries), its 2006 revenue was over $600 million. It has several manufacturing locations throughout the U.S. and a backplane assembly plant in Shanghai.

Young Poon PCB Group has Korea Circuit, Interflex and Young Poon FPC. Interflex and Young Poon FPC encountered severe price erosion in 2005 and 2006 that resulted in declining revenue even though the volume seems to have been sustained. Through Interflex, Young Poon PCB Group has back-end flex operations in Tianjin, China. Korea Circuit launched its IC substrate business last year.

Meiko Electronics is one of the Japanese PCB makers investing "Taiwan style." It has several plants in Japan, two in China and just broke ground in Vietnam, near Hanoi, for PCB and assembly operations. Its total investment in Vietnam will reach more than $300 million in a few years. Its global production capacity of PTH boards will reach 1 million square meters per month in a few years. Meiko also makes hole-counters and screen printing stencils.

Sanmina-SCI made a painful decision to shut its Phoenix plant. Some of the products made at the Phoenix plant will be transferred to Owego, Malaysia and Singapore. SanminaSCI is one of the very few PCB makers in the U.S. engaged in basic research and development of new technologies. Its fastest-growing plant is Malaysia, with very high layer-count and large panel capability up to 40 layers.

Viasystems Group has plants only in China. Its emphasis is on automotive boards and high layer-count MLB with large panel sizes. It transferred technologies from the U.S. and Europe to its China plants and it is beginning to see the effect of this technology transfer.

Gold Circuit Electronics operates in Taiwan and at two locations in China, one in Suzhou and the other in nearby Changshu. Its total notebook motherboard output was 17 million in 2006, second only to HannSater Boards, which made 21 million pieces. Between these two, the total notebook motherboard shipments were 38 million pieces, or 49% of the 78 million pieces shipped in 2006. GCE in Taiwan is concentrating on high layer-count MLBs. Eighty-five% of its output in Taiwan comes from MLBs of 10 layers and above.

Panasonic Electronic Devices (PED), formerly Matsushita Electronic Components, absorbed Yamanashi Matsushita Denko when its parent, Panasonic Industry, took Matsushita Denko under its wing. Yamanashi Matsushita Denko is specialized in microvia boards, particularly "filled via" type. PED is known for its ALIVH technology. ALIVH boards are manufactured at two locations in Japan and one location in Taiwan, near Taipei. In fiscal 2007, PED is expanding its ALIVH capacity both in Japan and Taiwan. It shut its single-sided operation in Thailand at the end of June this year.

Although a few licensees did not succeed, CMK is doing well with ALIVH. ALIVH production by PED was about $220 million in 2006, including the Taiwan output. It is increasing its ALIVH capacity by 15% this year in Japan and Taiwan. Over 90% of the prepregs used are glass epoxy type. Only a small portion of aramid prepregs are used.

PPT and Kinsus are engaged in IC substrates and both have grown rapidly in the past few years. HannsStar Board is a champion of notebook motherboards. Merix is finally making gains with the China plants, but is shutting down Hong Kong plant. In a sudden move, 3M shut its Japanese flex subsidiary at the end of March, and is shutting its Eau Claire, WI, facility. (3M is so secretive that the $400 million output listed on the NTI-95 is the author's best guess, based on various inputs.)

Toppan NEC is moving into high-end IC substrates as well as its traditional high layer-count MLBs. Unitech made about 105 million cellphone boards in 2006 in Taiwan and China combined. Since its main customer, Motorola, reportedly had a recent glitch that impacted orders, Unitech and Compeq performed poorly in the last few months, but their businesses are expected to recover in August, according to recent announcements.

Everyone is interested in what Foxconn is trying to do in PCBs. It is very difficult to follow Foxconn because, like 3M, it does not disclose anything about its PCB business. So the author has had to gather bits and pieces of information to come up with $360 million output (bare board only). Foxconn has two rigid and two flex plants in Shenzhen, and has been building a gigantic PCB complex in Yan Tai at the northern edge of Shang Dong Peninsula. Recently, however, something seems to have happened at Yan Tai complex. It was reported that after the completion of Plant 4, construction on the subsequent plants was stopped. It has constructed PCB plants in two or three other locations in China and will probably build a plant or two in Viemam.

The main body of Foxconn's PCB operation is called Foxconn Advanced Technology (FAT). FPC operations and Yan Tai rigid board plants belong to FAT, but two rigid board plants in Shenzhen seem to be treated separately within the Foxconn organization. Foxconn (its Chinese name is Hon Hal) is currently the world largest EMS maker and its PCB consumption is enormous. It is understandable that the intention of this gigantic project is to supply PCBs internally, but everything about Foxconn PCB is misty.

Meadville Group started modestly as Oriental Printed Circuits (OPC). It still operates the original Hong Kong plant as OPC. Under OPC, Meadville built a JV PCB plant in Dongguan, called Shenyi Electronics. Then, it built Shanghai Meadville Electronics (SME), Shanghai Meadville Technology Silicon Platform (SMTSP), Dongguang Meadville Circuits (DMC) and is now building a microvia board plant of substantial size in Guangzhou (GMC). Today, SME is engaged mainly in microvia board production. OPC, SYE and DMC are mainly involved in high layer-count MLB production. The Meadville Group had a very successful IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Meadville Group also has several laminate manufacturing plants throughout China, with an annual capacity of over 20 million square meters of glass epoxy laminates. It is striving to top the $500 million mark soon, perhaps as early as in 2007.