Electronica 88

Abstract

It is reputed that PCBs worth approximately £83 billion were produced worldwide by about 7,000 manufacturers with 200,000 employees in 1987. The United States accounted for about 33% of the market and Japan 28%. Well down the list in third place was West Germany with 77%, but by comparison they produced more PCBs than the UK, France and Italy together. However, there is a shift of production facilities for complete PCBs from the high wage‐earning European countries to low‐wage earning South East Asia, i.e., Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea, where substantial capacity is under construction.