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74 The PCB Magazine • September 2015 Since 2008, the automotive industry in Chi- na has been the largest in the world, as mea- sured by automobile unit production [1] . Since 2009, annual production of automobiles in China exceeds that of the European Union and of the United States and Japan combined—and it keeps booming. China also leads with the localization rate of parts and components: 20 years ago, when cars were built in China, 95% of the parts were imported; now about 15% or parts are imported, with 85% made in China. Recently, I-Connect007 Editor Edy Yu spoke with Jack Dong, executive director at Shengyi Technology Co. Ltd., about PCBs in the auto- motive industry. Edy Yu: How big is the current automobile mar- ket, locally and globally? Jack Dong: The automobile market is a contin- uously increasing market. Especially with the smart car concept, the automobile will become a new moving terminal. It will bring higher technology requirements than the smartphone. Currently, the global automobile market de- mand is 12 billion dollars and the Chinese market occupies around 35%. The whole global market is still increasing by 6–9% annually. Yu: What are the challenges for the PCB fabrica- tor in this market? Dong: The biggest challenge is how to seize the future automobile technology development trend and how to integrate the whole automo- tive supply chain. Then we can integrate the product design, raw material supply, manufac- turing, and guaranteed quality. We will establish a new technology corpora- tive alliance for industries and products among the relevant downstream enterprises simulta- neously. Intelligent automobile is the trend in the future automobile industry. However, 4G and 5G technology standards must be set in the communication industry. In addition, since many Internet companies and non-traditional automobile manufacturers are attempting to enter into the intelligent automobile industry, the relevant product and industry standards are disordered and inconsistent. All these defects result in the threat against the safety of auto- mobile and cost of R&D and manufacturing. The Impact of Automotive Trends on China's PCB Supply Chain FEAturE IntErvIEw