The turbulent trade market has prompted the PCB makers Unimicron and Nan Ya PCB to thrive with regard to ABF carrier boards due to supply shortages, instead surprising the market.

Shortages in ABF carrier boards have forced Unimicron to increase prices, which has helped the company to improve its business operation by significantly enhancing the supply and demand situation of ABF carrier boards this year. The prices of some Unimicron products have risen smoothly, thus improving its operation. Although the demand for smartphones has been sluggish and is likely to suppress the performance of HDI shipments, a representative expects Q4 revenue to increase slightly from the previous quarter.

In 2019, meeting the requirements of 5G Netcom equipment for PCBs and IC carrier boards in a larger size and at a higher technical level of multi-layer and complicated circuit designs made production capacity hard to accomplish, but the market in 2019 is still optimistic. Amidst limited production capacity, the price increase trend is expected to continue.

Affected by the oversupply of carrier boards in recent years, Nan Ya PCB has continued to suffer losses as the industry has not expanded its capacity for a long time due to weak industrial demand. However, the requirements for upgraded Netcom-related products in recent years have urged an increase in the size and number of layers of carrier boards. The supply and demand gap of ABF carrier boards is expected to continue to soar from 2019 to 2020, driven by the demand for Netcom-related products. Nan Ya PCB is expected to increase the production capacity of new products starting from Q2 of 2019, thus significantly improving its operation.

Nan Ya PCB will benefit from the 5G business transfer in 2019 due to the rapid development of the application of artificial intelligence and high-efficiency computing. In addition to driving product sales, the demand for high-value products such as SiP carrier boards and vehicle PCBs will continue to rise. Affected by the continuously hot demand for ABF carrier boards and other PCBs, the company will also rework the processing flow and production conditions in the process area and replace old equipment with automatic machines to enhance process capability, productivity, and production efficiency in order to pursue various business benefits. (News source: Commercial Times)