Dominique Numakura's Newsletter from Japan

TPCA Show in Taiwan

TPCA Show 2004 was held from Nov. 11 for three days in the Convention Hall of the Taipei World Trade Center. The size of the show was about one third compared to JPCA show. The floor was occupied with over 220 companies. Several trading companies introduced multiple manufacturers, therefore more than 250 companies displayed their latest products. The visitors made long lines before the opening time of the exhibition, and they stayed after the closing time to complete the discussions.

There were all kinds of products to manufacture the circuit boards and assembling components along with materials and test equipment. Most of the major vendors of Japan, United States and Europe had big booths to display their products. An interesting thing is that there were domestic vendors displaying all kinds of products including basic materials. A number of the domestic suppliers are relatively new companies that do not have long experience and the major customers do not trust their quality right now. However they will make remarkable contribution for the market in the next few years utilizing their tight relations with the local manufacturers in the great China market.

People on the floor were talking about the concern regarding the slow down of the business in the last few months, but most of the people were optimistic for the recovery of the demands. They believe the demands will come back in the second half of the next year, or they will generate new demands by themselves.

Flex & Chips, the joint conference of IPC and TPCA was held at the same location two days prior. It was the first flex conference of IPC held outside of the U.S. During the two day conference, the global industry leaders provided 18 exciting papers for the new technologies. All of the prepared seats were occupied by local and foreign attendees. Most of the people did not leave before the close of the conference. People were very active in their discussion of the new technologies presented. The main topics were the roll-to-roll process for the high density double side flex circuits and their application technologies.  There are several surprising technologies, but the best two were the roll to roll NC drilling provided Mr. Ohtani of Hitachi Via Mechanics and the ultra high speed laser abrasion process for the tape circuits provided by Dr. Meiyer of LPKF.

People were been very impressed by the movies of the new technologies.  

Dominique Numakura

Headline News,   

Fuji Film (Major photo film supplier in Japan)
Will invest 100 billion Yens for the new plant of the protection film of the polarization sheets of the LCD devices.

Toppan Printing (Major printing company  in Japan)
Had a R&D alliance with Tokyo University for the coating technologies of electronics packaging.

NICT (Research NGO in Japan)
Has developed a new manufacturing wiring technologies of the organic nano wires for the nano size devices.

ASE (Major IC packaging company in Taiwan)
Increased the net revenue 51.6% to 22 billion NT$ for the third quarter of 2004 from the same period of 2003.

Epson (Major electronics company in Japan)
Developed a new ink jet process to generate 110 micron pitch traces for a 20 layer board.

Sumitomo 3M (Electronic material company in Japan)
Will invest 2.5 billion Yens to build a new plant of the optical films for the LCD devices.
 
Hitachi Cable (Major COF manufacturer in Japan)
Will increase the manufacturing capacity of COF substrates 50% by September 2005 to cover the growing demands of fine packaging.

Hitachi Seiko (Fine machining company in Japan)
Has developed a series of mechanical part units for the micro size disc drives with 3.3 mm thick.

Shin-Nisseki Chemical (Polymer resin supplier in Japan)
Has been expanding the market share of the liquid crystal polymer in the thin TV game applications.

North Corporation (R&D of the packaging in Japan)
Co-developed a new plating process to generate the micro bump array for the NMBI-II process of multi-layer boards and flex circuits.

All original news items were written in Japanese.  Volunteers are choosing the topics and translating to English for free delivery.  We are not responsible for the accuracy of the news. Quick news is the first priority of the headlines, therefore, we can not eliminate all of the mistakes in the translations.