Package Dealings

Printed-circuit boards, the foundation of the electronics industry, are often overlooked. But at last month's Technology and Marketing Research Council (TMRC) annual meeting, many in the board industry examined the changes in both the technology and the market. Things are currently booming, and that's causing the industry to move to advanced technologies a bit quicker than it might otherwise.

Most changes in circuit-board technology occur at a glacial pace, but the multilayer board segment is changing fairly swiftly, particularly for very-high-density boards. Maybe there's some synergy going on between the technology and the market.

Last year, the sales value of boards with more than nine layers jumped to 30 percent of the market, according to the TMRC (Northbrook, Ill.). That's a sharp jump from 24 percent in 1995 and just 18 percent in 1994. The corresponding downturn in usage comes from the three-to-four- and five-to-six-layer segments, which comprised 27 percent and 25 percent last year.

Somewhat surprisingly, boards with seven or eight layers have been quite stable through the 1990s, staying between 17 percent and 19 percent from 1991 to 1996. Apparently, if you can't get everything jammed into six layers, you've got so many lines that you're going to need to use at least nine. A bit of a caveat in these figures: they don't account for the enormous single- and double-sided board market, looking only at multilayers.

Another fairly quick advance is coming in flexible circuit boards. Growth in U.S. production has increased at between 17 and 19.2 percent the past three years, after minimal growth during the early 1990s. Flexible-board usage flattened along with the defense industry in 1988, but usage is picking up now that new applications have replaced military usage.

Computer designers, particularly notebook vendors, need the thin circuits. So do makers of cell phones and other portable gear. An exciting area for flex-board vendors is in semiconductor packages, where flex circuits can serve as substrates for ball-grid arrays. This market may exist mainly in Japan, which currently consumes 40 percent of the world's flex circuits.

A note of caution may be in order after all the optimism of prognosticators at the TMRC meetings. Market projections for the rest of the decade looked nice and stable, with about 7 percent yearly growth taking industry revenue to $9.6 billion by the year 2000. Only a skeptic would look at the dip that occurred from 1989 to 1991, since there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument for a flattening market.

But even those who plan with skepticism will need to pay heed to other trends involving smaller, denser products. The challenge is clear; those who can't make multilayer boards with small holes may find themselves reliving that slump, watching the rest of the industry revel in growth.

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By Terry Costlow