Editorial

Producing a timely and apposite editorial for a journal published every three months is a difficult task but producing it in the current economic climate is even harder. At the time of writing (early October 2001), we are now well into a period that has seen a huge downturn in nearly all sectors of the electronics industry. This has already had major implications for circuit producers in the UK, the rest of Europe and farther afield. Large and well-established key players in the circuit board industry have made significant cuts in their workforces in response to diminishing orders from their customers. The OEM's that the board makers ultimately supply have also experienced some of the most swingeing cuts in manpower. Given that, overall, the electronics industry will in the longer term experience recovery and growth, it will be interesting to see what the current cutbacks mean for the circuit board producers in the UK and the rest of Europe. Even without the current problems, we have already witnessed,for a number of years now, the migration of circuit board manufacturing to lower cost regions of the world such as China. Initially it didn't matter too much because it was the lower technology boards that moved to the Far East. More recently, and following massive investments, producers in the Far East have shown themselves capable of producing even the most sophisticated circuit boards and at costs that often cannot be approached in Europe. The huge production of relatively complex mobile telephone boards in China is a good example. Even when the upturn does come, and maybe it has started by the time you read this, it is almost certain that much of the circuit manufacturing capability of the UK and Europe will have migrated for eastwards forever.

Despite all this, there is still much innovative research and development work being carried out in Europe and the demands for circuitry to handle higher frequencies and broader bandwidths has as much relevance here as anywhere. We need to make sure that the R&D activities of the European electronics industry continue to be supported in the future as they are now. The tragedy would be to let our innovative excellence follow board manufacturing to the Far East.

Martin Goosey10th October 2001