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Quiet Optmism for European PCB Industry
November 26, 2007 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The fact that the global PCB manufacturing industry has set its sights firmly on Asia is evident in even the smallest of ways: no matter that we were in the centre of Western Europe, for the first time at Productronica, the majority of the equipment and materials suppliers I talked with handed over their business cards with the two-handed reverence so typical of the Southeast Asian business community.That said, it was heartening to hear that most exhibitors in the halls dedicated to PCB manufacture found Productronica to be above expectations, the best for years. The aisles may not have been packed, but the visitors were of the highest quality and they were intent on investing in higher throughput, better efficiencies, greater flexibility and a host of other requisites that can only serve to strengthen Europe's PCB manufacturing capabilities.For David Freeman, Director of Optical Inspection for Mania Technologie, Europe's PCB manufacturers have no other choice. "This is a technology-driven market - most of the companies who have not invested in their production processes are now out of business," he said. Filippo D'Agata, Valor's Italian Country Manager, echoed his sentiments: "Italians have long thrived on their creativity and innovation. Now these are not enough, and must be flanked by excellent technology and processes." Shoppers had plenty to choose from, even though the materials and equipment on show were predominantly the tried and tested products, albeit with added bells and whistles, of previous years. This is hardly surprising, and given the recent market climate, it is difficult to find fault with the fact that, like its customer base, the supplier industry has evidently been hunkering down, moving forward slowly and with great caution. Not to say that there was nothing new -- far from it. Among the new products unveiled for PCB manufacture, perhaps Printar's inkjet soldermask printer Greenjet was the most prominent. Inkjet was also on show on the Orbotech stand, in the shape of its Newprint legend printer, and German drill manufacturer KLG Maschinen and UK-based PTL also showed their jointly-developed JetRite inkjet legend printer for the first time. As a digital technology, inkjet is ideal for Europe's typically high-mix PCB manufacturing environments, and, many at the show believe that it has the potential to drive a major shift in the industry. Another such technology is photovoltaics, one of the hot buttons at this year's broader show. This was in the wings on the Cookson Electronics stand in the form of Heliofab(TM) DPC, a thin film material that has been designed for the production of low cost high efficiency photovoltaic cells. On its stand, Mania Technologie showed an innovative new electrical tester, the Acceler8, whose 4,000 brush-like probes sweep across the surface of a PCB, reducing testing time by a factor of 10, again designed for high mix environments, while Cemco fsl's Streamline range of surface treatment lines, with their proprietary laminar fluid delivery system and incredibly compact footprint, have been designed with factory floorspace in mind. There were also a number of new partnerships on the show floor, at first glance, perhaps not the sort of bedfellows you would expect, but scratch the surface and the synergies were clear. Thus horizontal wet processing system supplier HMS was on a brand new stand under the RENA umbrella, having been acquired by this large manufacturer of equipment for the solar, semiconductor and Microsystems technology sectors, while RBP, the US chemicals company, and its partner Kemira GrowHow, Europe's second largest fertilizer and feed phosphates company, promoted their new vertical approach to chemicals supply. All in all a very good show for PCB manufacture. The quiet optimism at Productronica was a real breath of fresh air, while the emerging technologies, still to be fully realised, and the innovative partnerships that have been formed, are testimony to the industry's irrepressible creativity and will to succeed.