PCB Investment Strategy into the 1990s Available to Purchase

This paper will debate the issues affecting the OEM's future use of PCBs during the years leading up to 2000. It will explore the primary driving forces that will influence the PCB's future as an interconnect platform and forecast the changes in usage patterns and user demands likely to occur in the next 5–7 years. Trends in system design will be tracked and the implications for board manufacturers identified in terms of the board volume and market mix that will be demanded by the electronic system houses. The paper will also look into the board industry and give a view on the internal effects of all this change. It will look at the technology responses needed by the board shops and the impact on investment strategy and financial viability that may be engendered by these changes. The paper should give a concentrated overview of the impacts — market, technology, structural and financial — that the inexorable move towards (and past) a $1 billion world electronics industry will have on the world's board makers.