Japanese PCB industry in 2015

According to Prismark statistics, Japanese printed circuit board industry output of global market share declined in recent years, in 2014 the region market value was $ 6.62 billion, accounting for 11.5% of total global market over the same period.

Japanese PCB manufacturers focus on producing high-end and high-price PCB products, mainly in manufacturing of FPC and rigid-flex PCB, which accounted for a total of about 47 percent of PCB production sales amount, mainly used in mobile phones and HDD. IC substrate board accounted for 30 %. The previous two types of PCB together accounted for 77% of the proportion, rigid board products accounted for only 21%, and most of them are high technical HDI boards which have big demand in cell phone and tablet.

In product application of Japanese PCB, the most widely used is IC packaging field, accounted for 30 percent, which is the reason for the high proportion of Japanese IC substrate production. In this area, Japanese manufacturer Ibiden account the highest proportion of revenue, products is mostly for FCBGA and FCCSP application, Japanese Shinko Electric is also a leader in this application field, apply to Flip Chip, P-BGA and P-CSP substrate based PCBs. Japanese PCB boards’ secondary application is mobile phones, accounted for 25% of the total production; Nippon ranked the first in the PCB industry, more than thirty percent of its PCB production are phone-related applications, among which mobile phone LCD FPC is the main product.

Ibiden PCB apply on mobile phones are mainly HDI and Anylayer HDI. Japanese PCB manufacturers in the mobile phone field, mainly focus on Apple and Sumsung, etc., smart phone market continues to grow, is also helpful to the Japanese PCB industry. Automotive related applications accounted for 13% of Japan's PCB output value, although the proportion is less than other applications, but the Japanese PCB industry in automotive PCB has been leading the global supply of such products, such as CMK, Meiko and so on.

Japan's leading PCB manufacturers are upgrading capacity to produce high-end fine line circuit boards. With the price of copper and synthetic resin on the rise, leading manufacturers now have to develop new production with line width of only around 40micron, or less than half the width of a conventional circuit board, so the board is smaller, thereby reducing the high cost of copper consumption.