PCB Tech - The history of PCB development in the world and China

2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China. Overcoming obstacles in 70 years, 70 years of ups and downs. Over the past 70 years, under the correct leadership of the Communist Party of China, New China has made achievements that have attracted worldwide attention. In the field of science and technology, generations of science and technology workers have worked hard and tirelessly, and China's scientific and technological strength has grown simultaneously with economic development, achieving a historic leap from hard-to-find to following, parallel running, and even leading. As the "mother of electronic products", the printed circuit board PCB is one of the outstanding representatives in the field of electronic technology.

Taking advantage of the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, Maiwei Technology will take you today to review the development history of my country's PCB.

The history of PCB development in the world

In 1936, Austrian Paul Eisler, the creator of printed circuit boards, first used printed circuit boards in radio devices.

In 1943, Americans mostly used this technology in military radios.

In 1947, the American Aviation Administration and the American Bureau of Standards initiated the first PCB technical seminar.

In 1948, the United States officially recognized this invention and used it for commercial purposes.

In the early 1950s, as CCL’s copper foil and laminate adhesive strength and solder resistance problems were solved, the performance was stable and reliable, and large-scale industrial production was realized. The copper foil etching method became the mainstream of PCB manufacturing technology and began to produce single panel.

In the 1960s, large-scale production of double-sided PCBs with hole metallization was realized.

In the 1970s, multi-layer PCBs developed rapidly and continued to develop in the direction of high-precision, high-density, fine-line small holes, high reliability, low cost, and automated continuous production.

In the 1980s, surface mount printed boards (SMT) gradually replaced plug-in PCBs and became the mainstream of production.

Since the 1990s, surface mounting has further developed from a flat package (QFP) to a ball grid array package (BGA).

Since the beginning of the 21st century, high-density BGA, chip-scale packaging and multi-chip module package printed boards with organic laminate materials as substrates have been rapidly developed.

History of PCB Development in China

In 1956, my country started PCB research and development.

In the 1960s, single-sided boards were produced in batches, double-sided boards were produced in small batches, and multilayer boards were developed.

In the 1970s, due to the limitations of historical conditions at that time, the development of printed board technology was slow, making the entire production technology lagging behind the advanced level of foreign countries.

In the 1980s, advanced single-sided, double-sided, and multilayer printed board production lines were introduced from abroad, which improved the production technology level of printed boards in my country

In the 1990s, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and other foreign printed board manufacturers have come to my country to set up joint ventures and wholly-owned factories, which has enabled my country's printed board output and technology to advance by leaps and bounds.

In 2002, it became the third largest PCB producer.

In 2003, PCB output value and import and export value both exceeded US$6 billion, surpassing the United States for the first time and becoming the world's second largest PCB producer. The proportion of output value increased from 8.54% in 2000 to 15.30%, nearly doubled.

In 2006, China replaced Japan as the world's largest PCB production base and the most active country in technological development.

In recent years, my country's PCB industry has maintained a high-speed growth of about 20%, which is far higher than the growth rate of the global PCB industry.

Status Quo of China's PCB Industry

Under the overall trend of the global PCB industry shifting to Asia, China, as a major electronic product manufacturing country, has attracted a large number of foreign investment and local PCB companies with its huge domestic demand market and relatively low production costs, which has promoted the emergence of China's PCB industry in just a few years. Explosive growth.

At present, China has become the world's largest PCB producer, and it is also one of the regions that can provide the largest PCB production capacity and the most complete product types in the world. From an overall point of view, despite the large number of local PCB companies, there is still a certain gap between their company scale and technical level and foreign companies that set up branches in mainland China, and their competitiveness is slightly weak. From 2008 to 2015, the output value of China's PCB industry increased from US$15.037 billion to US$26.20 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.85%, far exceeding the overall global growth rate of 2.94%. The 2008 financial crisis had a great impact on the global PCB industry, and China's PCB industry was not immune to it. However, in the context of the global PCB industry's transfer to my country, China's PCB industry has fully recovered after 2009, and the overall trend of rapid growth has been maintained.