What is circuit board?
A PCB is a printed circuit board, also known as a printed wiring board. It is used in electronics to build electronic devices. A circuit board serves two purposes in the construction of an electronic device; it is a place to mount the components and it provides the means of electrical connection between the components.
Base Material: A circuit board starts out as a thin, non-conducting sheet of material. The most common material used is a glass fiber epoxy laminate material. A thin layer of copper is then chemically deposited on each side of this material. Fiberglass: fiberglass is one of CCL raw materials, and be made from glass fiber yarn. Its cost is about 40% of the cost of CCL (thick) and 25% (thin plate) of circuit board .
Copper: Copper is the largest proportion of the cost of raw materials CCL, CCL costs accounted for 30% (thick) and 50% (thin), so copper CCL prices foil prices is the main driving force. Copper prices closely reflect changes in copper price, but the bargaining power is weak. with the steadily rising copper prices, copper foil manufacturers are struggling, many companies were forced to close or merge, even if copper prices CCL manufacturers to accept the Copper foil manufacturers still in widespread loss. As the price gap appeared, it likely be a price raise in first quarter in 2006, which may be driven by CCL prices.
CCL: A laminate material is very thin, its thickness is normally under 0.025″, it consists of glass epoxy substrate with copper on both sides. Laminate is cut into the optimum panel size to accommodate the size of the particular circuit board , and then its surface will be cleaned for the upcoming series of inner layer process. Inner layer process: is to form inner layer circuitry of circuit boards, which involves a series of process, like dry film resist coat, exposure, resist developing, etching, stripping resist, automatic optical inspection, oxide coating and lamination.
In 2013, as the cost of copper declining, the upstream industry like copper clad laminate manufacturers can directly benefit from the decrease of cost of copper. For downstream industry like circuit board manufacturers, can also reap a little less profit from it. But the increasing cost of components will directly influence PCBA industries. Therefore, the prospect of the whole circuit board industries may not be defined as flourishing or not up to now.