Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1166358
76 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2019 In Part 1 of this column series, I introduced background information and data from chang- es in military certification to MIL-PRF-31032 from 2003 to 2018. In this column, I will pro- vide an overview of six of the possible related factors to what could have caused the reduc- tion in certified companies, including: 1. A decline in the total military market 2. The cost of certification 3. The number of military boards now built to industry standards (IPC-6012 & 6018) 4. A reduction of profit margin on military specification boards 5. Consolidation of the PWB industry 6. The general loss of US PWB manufacturing sites. An in-depth analysis of these factors will be left to an expert in each market segment. 1. Effect of the U.S. Military Spending and Associated PWB Market U.S. military spending drives the total related PWB demand year to year. Furthermore, as the use of electronics grows in military hardware as it has done in automotive and everything else in our lives, the percent of that spending for PWBs rises even faster. The military spending for the last 15 years (2003–2018) is shown in Figure 1. In those 15 years, it has increased by 36% from $563 bil- lion to $766 billion. Obviously, this positive spending increase logically should have driven an increase in military-certified companies and not less. How does this U.S. defense spending in- crease translate to the total PWB market? On The Past 15 Years: Changes to MIL-PRF-31032 Certification, Part 2 From the Hill Feature Column by Mike Hill, MIL-Q-CONSULTING LLC Figure 1: Annual military budget of the U.S. (2003–December 2018, Billion$). (Source: Wikipedia)