Barry Matties talks with Daniel Chan, executive director of the HKPCA, about the organization’s expanded global outreach. They discuss what attendees can expect from this South China trade show that has become one of the biggest and most important shows in the PCB industry.
Barry Matties: Daniel, we were talking about the HKPCA show and how this year might be one of the biggest ever. Tell me a little bit about why that is.
Daniel Chan: I think very simply because we are located in the Southern China region, which is also one of the biggest PCB markets for Japan. What’s very interesting today is the way the region is not just popular for PCBs, but also for R&D. There is a lot of innovation and new technologies, particular in telecom, taking place in this region. That makes it very good from an infrastructure standpoint, material standpoint, and also a machine standpoint—it’s all here. That's why we are also creating a global coalition. The people like it and it’s become the biggest commercial PCB show ever.
I really believe that the show must always create value for the people. The value is most important to them and they trust us that the show will provide that. This is a very important element in making it so successful.
Matties: That, and also the fact that you joined up with IPC ; I think that was a big boost for the show, too.
Chan: Definitely. I think the IPC gives us a lot of opportunity to see things from a global view. It makes the show more global and people know this is where they can get the best in the world, not just in China, to make them successful.
Matties: When someone comes to this show, what should their expectations be?
Chan: As I mentioned, it's a global coalition. They should come here to look at the machinery, the supply market, and to talk with people from around the world to find out what's happening globally in 2015 and then 2016 and beyond. We hope the show will help them plan for 2016 and beyond in terms of their marketing plans, investment plans, and also technological events.
Matties: There's a lot of talk about the bad economy in China. How has that impacted the show this year?
Chan: I think, as I shared to some of the people around here, that the economy coming down may not be such a bad thing because it lets the people think about what should be moving forward. When they think about what should be moving forward, coming to a show like this is very important to look for new opportunities and get information on what to plan for, and that's why this is an important platform. Particularly when the economy down a little bit, or maybe down a lot, this is a good way to build off that and move forward to a new level.
Matties: I haven't looked at your conference program yet in great detail, but it looks like it's expanded and the quality of your speakers is very good this year. Is that the case?
Chan: It is. I personally love the invitational speakers, they appreciate the show a lot and you meet a lot of good people. We also have a good theme this year. The first day is more about the supply market and the balance of the supply market situation—from semiconductors to the global economy and then from a regional perspective all the way down to an educational point of view. So we might get Porsche, from an automobile standpoint, maybe Huawei from a telecom standpoint and IBM from an infrastructure standpoint. A lot of telecom companies have research centers here, like Huawei, and we're helping them a lot. The whole day will provide a very complete view for the supply market and look at what's happening in 2015 and beyond.
The second day we'll review and highlight a very important subject in green technology and how to be environmentally friendly and make the world better, much like the environmental protection talks taking place in Paris at the moment. We’ll discuss how to reduce the use of energy, how to reduce the wastes of the etching process, and things like that. At the same time, at the other end we’ll be addressing the most important subject, smart automation.
This is really important in China because the labor cost has become more expensive and you must look at being smart automated and the Industry 4.0 evolution to keep up and be one of the guys moving forward toward. This is very important because the technology on display here is already working and driving smart automation. Most companies have to transition to smart automation because, like Apple, they are talking about a 34.5 micron time of line beam. If you don't use smart automation, you cannot manage it! China is a very strange market, and PCBs are so huge here it is something very much like a commodity. They look at the smart automation to import productivity and replace the labor, but at the same time, in terms of the technology leaders, they must switch to very diverse technologies to overcome a lot of challenges for sophisticated PCBs.
This is why we have a very importation section on smart automation with some people very knowledgeable in Industry 4.0. For instance there are people from Siemens, who are very good guys in Germany doing all the smart automation and smart robotics for BMW and Mercedes Benz, to help people understand how to make these processes all automated.
We also like to have people like the robotics society talk on how to use robots to replace people and Camtek will also be there to discuss the best AOI technology being used by PCB automation. They’ll talk about their AOI, how they are moving forward with AVI, and how the future of automatic inspection systems will help reduce labor and make even better quality.
The last day we’ll be talking about the South China PCB industry and looking forward to developing ceramic PCBs and rigid-flex. We‘ll talk about the market, the technology trends, and then we have people from companies like DuPont talking about how to manufacture the rigid flexible in terms of high-speed CNC drills. Last but not least are representatives from Chung Si University on the future for high frequency microwave PCBs. That will be another very interesting session for people to look into on how to develop emerging technology in the coming three to five years.
Matties: Good. It sounds like we're in for an exciting week here at HKPCA.
Chan: I think it will be very interesting. You can see around the hall there's so much good stuff and so much information available with a lot of people really willing to not only invest money but also their intelligence and knowledge into something very interesting. The whole show will definitely help the PCB industry to move forward globally, in particular for South China to move up and support a lot of emerging technology. So we are very excited and looking forward to having a very good three days and for the show to be one of the best in the world. Hopefully in the future when people think about PCB shows, this is the cool show they have to attend.
Matties: Daniel, thank you so much for stopping in and sharing this. We'll check in later in the week and see how it all turned out.
Chan: Thank you very much.
