Today, I watched a video that was an official promotional video from an Indian PCB factory posted on YouTube. I don’t know why YouTube recommended this video to me, but it captivated me instantly. Just to clarify, this isn’t about being captivated by a girl.
After watching the video, I slapped my thigh several times and exclaimed ‘wow’, as if I were dreaming back to ten years ago when I was etching copper-clad boards with ferric chloride and making PCB prototypes with UV light-cured solder mask in my dormitory.
Ten years ago, PCB prototyping was nowhere near as cheap and fast as it is now. Back then, the turnaround for double-sided boards was generally 4-5 days, and expedited service within 24 or 48 hours would incur significant rush fees. Generally, simple temporary test boards could be etched out using photosensitive boards and ferric chloride in just a few minutes. However, now with CNC machines, it is unnecessary to go through the hassle of exposure, development, and etching. Moreover, ferric chloride is quite polluting, and it ruined several pairs of my jeans from Metersbonwe, which I mistook for Armani… no, I mean Metersbonwe.
Now, PCB prototyping in China is very convenient, with 24-hour free rush service, and they even give you two free prototypes each month. To make matters worse, they even cover the shipping for free, and the traditional skills of etching PCBs are quickly becoming obsolete.
Now, seeing the young guy in the Indian PCB factory performing his operations, it feels almost the same as when I etched boards back in my dormitory. The only difference is that he has an automatic drilling machine. Is this… a professional PCB factory? It looks more like a small workshop. Even the PCB factories I supported ten years ago in urban villages had a much better process than this Indian PCB factory in the video. Where does the confidence to make a promotional video on YouTube come from?
I brought the video over and also included an official video from a domestic PCB factory that focuses on PCB prototyping and small batches. This factory also posted an official video on YouTube, allowing everyone to compare the differences. The upload times are quite similar, with the Indian one in 2017 and the Chinese one in 2019. For PCB manufacturing, this time gap isn’t a problem; unlike semiconductor manufacturing, where two years can lead to generational differences, PCB process improvements are relatively slow. The Chinese factory in the video isn’t even one of our top-tier factories, so the comparison is relatively fair.
I wasn’t too familiar with the PCB production capabilities in India before. I don’t know if this factory called 【indiacircuit】 is mid-level or lower-level in India, but this level would definitely be shut down in China.
Through online searches, I found that there aren’t many PCB factories in India. The top result is a factory called 【BCC Fuba】, which seems to be somewhat reputable. I browsed their homepage and found that BCC Fuba was established in 1990 and is one of the early participants in the Indian PCB market. With technical support from Fuba Hans Kolbe in Germany, they purchased machinery from Europe and the USA to set up their operations, capable of producing single-sided, double-sided, and multi-layer (up to 8 layers) PCBs. They are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, which means they have been around for 30 years, and as a public company, I estimate this should represent the top level of PCB factories in India.
Looking at the factory photos provided on their official website, it seems that our PCB factories from ten years ago located in urban villages are at a similar level. However, now due to environmental checks, most of them have been shut down.
If even a public company has such manufacturing capabilities, it seems that the overall PCB manufacturing level in India is really not that impressive.
Next, I checked a market research article on the Indian PCB market from 2019 and directly translated it using online tools and took screenshots for everyone to reference.
Through their market research articles, we can see that companies like Huawei, Xiaomi, and Foxconn have set up electronic product assembly factories in India. However, PCBA is manufactured here and then imported to India to comply with their “Make in India” initiative. This year, in 2020, India raised the import tariffs on PCBA from 10% to 20% in hopes of enhancing their domestic PCB manufacturing capabilities.
Now let’s take a look at our domestic PCB market research. Here, I will quote data from the International Electronic Business website:
In the context of negative growth in global PCB output value in recent years, China’s PCB industry is the only one that has achieved positive growth and maintains the top position in both global output value and quantity.
According to PRISMAKE data, the PCB output value in China accounted for 52.4% of the global total in 2018, which increased to 53.8% in 2019, and is projected to grow to 54.6% by 2023. By 2023, the global PCB output value will reach 77 billion USD, while China’s will reach 42.042 billion USD (approximately 300 billion RMB)!
Chinese PCB manufacturers can be divided into two categories for discussion.
One category is the small and medium-sized PCB factories mentioned earlier. They faced many challenges in 2019, including a sluggish end market, environmental inspection pressures, and inflexible business strategies. However, these challenges are not unique to 2019; news of closures and shutdowns has been frequent for two or three years, and it is commonly referred to as an “industry reshuffle”.Note: This is what I mentioned in my previous article, that the small PCB factories operating in urban villages ten years ago have basically all been shut down.
The other category consists of the major PCB companies in China, primarily the 23 A-share listed PCB manufacturing companies, which have high technology, large markets, high profits, and scale management, with excellent risk resistance.
India is still using protective policies of significantly increasing import tariffs on PCBA to promote the enhancement of their domestic PCB manufacturing capabilities, while we are already advancing towards the pinnacle of high-end PCB manufacturing relying on new technologies like 5G communication, automotive electronics, and AI. I hope that by 2025, we will have more PCB manufacturers entering the global top 20 PCB companies.