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48 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2024 Article by Alex Stepinski Editor's note: Investing in a new printed cir- cuit board fabrication startup is not for the faint of heart or the light of wallet. Standing up a new "high-tech" PCB fab facility capable of becoming qualified for aerospace and defense work typically takes a minimum investment of $50 million. However, Alex Stepinski says entering the defense and aerospace markets with a new PCB fabrication start-up facility far under this cost benchmark is possible when good partnerships, innovation, and sound engineer- ing design enter om the beginning. In this arti- cle, Alex Stepinski outlines just how this can be achieved. While industrial policies will hopefully result in a more competitive landscape for defense procurement by copying established processes from East Asia, they do very little to promote actual value innovation (i.e., commu- nism didn't create Silicon Valley). e best we can hope for are products at a 3-10x premium over what East Asia can do because this is the achievable equilibrium of just taking overseas process equipment while not accepting the cultural and organizational aspects that drive cost efficiency there. We have also found that investors are more focused on de-risking by copying rather A Less Expensive PCB Fab Startup