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

GBM (Globat Brands Manufacture) has three PCB operations: GBM Chuan Yuen (Shenzhen), GBM Yuanmao (Kunshan) and CMK-GBM (Dongguan), a JV with CMK (49%) and GBM (51%). Although owned by GBM, more than 70% of CMK-GBM output goes to Japanese OEMs operating in China. Therefore, there seems to be just a cordial relationship between CMK-GBM and other GBM plants. While rumors had Ruwel AG of Germany in talks of a possible collaboration with GBM Yuanmao, recent information reveals the talk collapsed.

Kyoden Group has several subsidiaries in Japan and one in Thailand (Toei Denshi). It started as a quickturn specialist years ago and through a series of acquisitions went into mass production as well.

Simmtech of Korea used to be called Chungbuk Electronics. As the name suggests, it started to grow as a major manufacturer of single-in-line memory module circuits. Recent growth has been driven by IC substrates.

Chin Pooh operates in Taiwan. It dissolved its JV (ACP Electronics) in Suzhou with Aspocomp in March and has been building its own plants in nearby Changshu. Since Chin Poon was a minority shareholder, no part of ACS Electronics output was counted toward its revenue. It has another operation in Thailand called Draco that is engaged mainly in single-sided manufacture. Chin Poon had a 50% share but its share has been diluted since the venture went public in the Thailand Stock Exchange. It is one of the largest manufacturers of single-sided and silver-through-hole boards in the world. It also makes double-sided, MLB and microvia boards.

Mitsubishi Gas Chemical owns Japan Circuit Industry (IC substrate) and Tai Hong Circuit Industry in Taiwan (SSB, DSB, MLB and IC substrates). Tai Hong has a subsidiary in Dongguan, China, manufacturing single-sided boards. MGC is known for its BT-based laminates. Its BT laminate production capacity was recently expanded to one million square meters per month.

DYnamic Electronics (note capital "Y") is one of the large PC motherboard makers. Earlier this year, DYnamic decided to go for microvia technology and since has been collaborating (technology transfer) with DAP of Korea. A part of extension at its Kunshan plant is allotted for microvia production.

Vertex recently announced that it would stop manufacturing PCBs in Taiwan, leaving only its China plants for PCB production. Its Chinese subsidiary, Global Flex, went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Vertex had an ill-fated SLC project in the mid 1990s.

Broadtek consists of three makers (3COM) and is a subsidiary of First International Computer. The author is not familiar with this company except that he met its VP of sales once in Japan and quoted his sales revenue figure.

Sumitomo Printed Circuit Board is a flex manufacturing subsidiary of Sumitomo Electric Industry ("Denko" in Japanese). It has plants in Japan, the Philippines ("First Sumiden"), Shenzhen and Suzhou, and a new one in Vietnam.

Micro Circuit System is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsui Metal & Smelting and is engaged in flex BGA and COF products. Hitachi Cable is similar to Micro Circuit Systems in product scope.

Fujitsu Interconnect Technology in Japan is engaged in high layer-count MLB and high-end IC substrates (flip-chip). Its Vietnam subsidiary is engaged in microvia boards with filled via structure for cellphones and high-end notebook computers. When it comes to complex MLB, the company is one of the most capable makers in the world along with Hitachi PWB Solutions (not in the list), Toppan NEC, Yamamoto Manufacturing, Sanmina-SCI, TTM Technologies, Multek, Viasystems and Merix.

Career Technology is the largest Taiwan based flex maker with plants in Taiwan, Suzhou and Kunshan. ASE, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, has plants in Taiwan and Shanghai for IC substrates.

Daisho Denshi is the largest flex-rigid board maker in Japan and just started to operate a $120 million state-of-art IC substrate plant north of Tokyo, equipped with many advanced manufacturing equipment including several LDI systems.

NTK has been making ceramic-based chip substrates for many years. Recently, it started to make organic substrates in its new $270 million plant in Japan. It is now expanding the plant. Kyocera SLC was formed by Kyocera after purchasing the PCB operations of IBM Yasu, which triggered microvia technologies with Surface Laminar Circuits (SLC). It invested approximately $170 million in a plant in Ayabe City in Kyoto for flip-chip substrate manufacturing. Kyocera SLC is one of the main suppliers of flip-chip substrates for the Sony Sony PlayStation 3.

Topsearch built a new plant in the town of Shaoguang, about three hours north of Guangzhou, and transferred low layer-count boards there. It also built a plant at Tong Liao, Inner Mongolia. It is concentrating on higher layer-count boards at its original plant in Shekou, located at the western edge of Shenzhen.

M-Flex's total output was $504 million inclusive of flex assembly. M-Flex also manufactures camera modules. It expanded its Suzhou plant in the past year. Sony Chemical is making rigid boards at Neagari Plant in Japan and flex (including assembly) in Suzhou. Shirai Denshi has several plants in Japan and a JV with Techwise, called Techwise-Shirai in Fo Gang, Guangzhou. It has applied for permission to build another plant in China, but the outcome of the application is not yet known. It also makes AOI equipment, mostly for detecting smears on gold plating and solder mask misregistration.

Hutchinson is not exactly a PCB maker. It places conductors on disk drive suspension units that are formed by an etching process that removes the unwanted metal and the resulting drives have flex-like functions. Therefore Hutchinson is listed.

Ya Hsin is in trouble. There has been a rumor that Foxconn may be interested in acquiring the company, although both sides denied it. Its Suzhou PCB plant is gigantic, with a total floor space of almost 2 million square feet. It has a few plants in Dongguan, which make a lot of six-layer controlled impedance boards for Sony PlayStation 2. The new design of the PlayStation 2 board is a four-layer structure.

Ruwei is one of the oldest PCB makers in the world and is now owned by the U.S. investment company, Bear Steams. Its intended Romanian venture was stopped by Bear Steams and now Ruwel seems to be looking to collaborate in China. Elna has two plants in Japan and one in Penang, Malaysia. Sumitomo Bakelite has a flex plant in northern part of Japan and one in Hanoi. Eighty% of its revenue is derived from its Vietnam subsidiary.

ISU-Petasys was once Namyang Precision Electronics. It is now one the largest suppliers of high layer-count MLBs to Cisco Systems. KCE is now profitable. Its major field is automotive electronics. It is the largest rigid board maker in Thailand. APCB (Advanced PCB) has a plant in Taiwan and two in China: Shenzhen and Kunshan.

Aspocomp decided to shut down its flagship plant in Salo, Finland. It acquired the remaining 49% share in ACP Electronics from Chin Poon. It has been building a microvia plant in Chennai, India, but it is said that the construction is moving at a snail's pace because of wastewater treatment issues. Aspocomp also owns a plant in Thailand, the former PCB Center.

Sumitomo Metal Electro-Device is a maker of IC substrates. It has plants in Japan and Penang. CCTC (China Circuit Technology Corporation) is the largest "Chinese" PCB maker. Wurth Electronics serves niche market with niche products. New management at DDi pushed the maker finally to profitability after traumatic several years. Plotech has a plant in Taiwan and two plants in China.

Eastern is a growing IC substrate maker specialized in very thin CSP package substrates. Shindo Denshi is a maker of COF. Shinko Manufacturing is often mistaken as Shinko Electric Industry by foreigners. Both are located in Nagano Prefecture in Japan, but when spelled in Chinese characters, these two are completely different although the same phonetically. TPT, a medium-sized Taiwanese fabricator, has grown steadily in the past several years.

Kyosh a became profitable in 2006 after shutting its money-losing Mexican plant. It operates two factories in Japan, one in China and one in Indonesia. Innovex shut all its U.S. factories and shifted its entire flex production to Thailand. Arrk PCB Group has three plants in Japan (Clover Electronics, Nippon Micron and Satosen) and acquired 30% of Korean maker, Accuris, and 100% of Mutual Tech of Taiwan last year.

Cosmotech recently launched into IC substrate manufacture. It has a single-sided manufacturing subsidiary in Dongguan. Yu Fo has plants in Taiwan and China, which seem to specialize in high frequency PCBs. MFS's majority shareholder is Wearns Industry, which also owns large chunk of M-Flex. Yamamoto Manufacturing has no debt and is doing much better than a few years ago. It has a plant in Dongguan, and is now building a second factory there. It is one of the most capable MLB makers in the world.

Samyang Electro-Mechanics, not to be confused with Samsung Electro-Mechanics, is a flex maker in Korea. Ellington is a Hong Kong-based fabricator built by Lee Lap, the original owner of Kalex PCB (Termbray Group). He built this plant with money obtained by selling two Kalex plants to Viasystems.

FCI is a French FPC and connector maker with plants in France and Singapore. Tong Jiang is a Taiwan maker but has plants only in China. It has one in Huizhou and two in Huiyang, not far from Merix. Ichia makes flex and keypads. Its main flex plant is in Suzhou.