Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1456062
MARCH 2022 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 31 specific product, and that the term "printed circuit board" is actually a misnomer, "because making one is not as simple as printing a piece of paper. PCB manufacturing requires multiple types of costly capital equipment, plus well- trained workers, and anywhere from 50 to 100- plus steps in the manufacturing process. Many high-speed, miniaturized PCBs are manufac- tured in cleanrooms under tightly controlled conditions." Contrar y to common perception, O'Neil says, PCBs are not off-the-shelf compo- nents. "e PCB has a one-to-one relation- ship between design and use; the semiconduc- tor has a one-to-many relationship in which one chip can be utilized in thousands of prod- uct designs. Without the custom PCB, there is no product, no system, no application. is means that any interruptions in global trade could present a real risk that the United States could lose the ability to produce many kinds of electronics." While much of this regional specialization has been driven by pressure from OEMs to dis- count prices, that wasn't the only cause. e "Just in Time" delivery processes are thought to play a major part in this situation as well. While these JIT disciplines succeeded in driv- ing down the prices on finished electronic goods, and optimized many manufacturing processes by reducing or eliminating the pool- ing of excess incoming inventory, in some cases, key supporting functions in the chain were simply optimized down to one or two global providers. In the U.S., for example, many semiconduc- tor companies avoided the staggering costs of building their own semiconductor fab by going "fabless," contracting out their work to large overseas semiconductor fabs hungry for a steady flow of work to keep the factory oper- ating. On paper, this plan made financial sense, in that an innovative semiconductor technol- ogy startup could be brought to market with a much smaller amount of venture capital invest- ment. But its dark side was that it siphoned off manufacturing capacity. O'Neil's report shares this data as a mea- sure to this dynamic in action. "From a global competitive perspective, the United States and China have a comparable share of global semi- conductor production, at 12% and 11%, respec-