Taiwan PCB makers ramping up capacity

Ingrid Lee, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Monday 19 November 2012]

A number of new production lines run by Taiwan-based PCB companies in China and Thailand will come online by the end of 2012 or in the first half of 2013, according to industry sources.

The new plant of Global Brands Manufacture (GBM) in Chongqing, China is scheduled to begin volume production at a rate of 600,000 square feet of PCBs a month before year-end 2012, and the company plans to ramp up the plant's production capacity to 1.2 million square feet a month in 2013.

The first-phase expansion project of Taiwan PCB Techvest's (TPT's ) plant in Suining in the Chinese province of Sichuan will also start commercial runs at the end of 2012 with an initial production of 600,000 square feet a month, according to industry sources.

TPT is currently a major PCB supplier for notebook ODMs including Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Pegatron and will add Winstron to its client list in first-quarter 2013, said the sources.

TPT plans to jack up the capacity of the new production lines to 1.5 million square feet in 2013, the sources added.

Tripod Technoogy's new production capacity of one million square feet of PCBs in Hubei, China will also come online in November-December 2012, according to the company.

Meanwhile, Apex Circuit International is building a new plant in Thailand with the first-phase construction slated for completion in mid-2013, according to company CEO Bill Chou.

The new plant will begin trial production in June and commercial operations in July with a monthly capacity of 500,000 square feet initially, Chou added.