The era of computing power has arrived; which of the three leading domestic PCB manufacturers will emerge victorious?
In the electronics manufacturing supply chain, PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) are the indispensable foundation for all electronic hardware. For decades, most companies in the industry have focused on the low-to-mid-end general-purpose board market, producing products that only meet the needs of basic electrical appliances and ordinary digital devices. Their functions are limited to fixing electronic components and connecting basic circuits, with simple manufacturing processes, fierce industry competition, and continuously squeezed profit margins, preventing them from shedding their traditional manufacturing label.
However, the tide of the times has driven industrial transformation. The strong rise of the artificial intelligence industry has completely disrupted the inherent development pattern of the PCB industry. Currently, high-end hardware equipment such as high-end AI servers, supercomputing centers, high-speed optical modules, and intelligent vehicle computing platforms are rapidly becoming widespread. High-performance computing chips are constantly iterating and upgrading, leading to stringent technical requirements such as 224Gbps ultra-high-speed signal transmission, 78-layer ultra-high-density board wiring, and low-loss high-speed transmission.
Traditional ordinary PCB boards suffer from high losses, low wiring density, and severe signal interference, making them fundamentally unsuitable for the operational needs of high-end chips. From this point on, PCBs completely shed their supporting role in the electronics industry, becoming deeply integrated with high-end computing chips. They upgraded from basic supporting components to an indispensable core part of the computing hardware system, and the entire industry officially transformed from labor-intensive traditional manufacturing to technology-intensive high-precision manufacturing.
In terms of market price, the unit price of a traditional PCB used in a conventional AI server is about $200, while the unit price of a high-end high-speed PCB equipped with CoWoS advanced packaging technology and achieving semiconductor upgrades directly soars to $600, tripling the product value and significantly improving the industry's profit margins.
From the perspective of industry market size, the high-end high-speed PCB sector has tremendous growth potential. Industry institutions predict that the global market size for high-end computing-specific PCBs will exceed $600 million in 2027 and will soar to over $2 billion in 2028, fully opening up the industry's growth space and ensuring continued upward momentum.
The core driving force supporting the PCB industry's transformation towards high-end and semiconductor technologies comes from the dual upgrades in both processes and materials, which have also created extremely high barriers to entry, completely eliminating small and medium-sized low-end production capacity.
Core Process Upgrades: Current high-end computing PCB production requires two cutting-edge processes: high-density HDI interconnects and modified mSAP semi-additive process. These enable the fabrication of ultra-fine lines at the 10-micron level, facilitating multi-level blind via stacking and arbitrary layer interconnect designs. They meet the routing requirements of 78-layer ultra-high-density boards, precisely adapting to the dense component layouts and multi-layer signal transmission within high-end servers. The development cycle for these advanced processes is long, and mass production is challenging, making mass production difficult for small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises.
High-End Material Upgrades: In ultra-high-speed signal transmission scenarios, ordinary copper-clad laminates suffer excessive signal loss, easily leading to signal delays and transmission distortion. The industry is gradually adopting M9-level ultra-low-loss high-end copper-clad laminates. These boards are manufactured using special resin formulas and high-end fiberglass cloth composites, possessing advantages such as low dielectric constant, low dielectric loss, high temperature resistance, and high stability. They are the core foundation for achieving stable 224Gbps high-speed signal transmission on 78-layer high-density boards. The development and mass production processes of high-end board formulas have extremely high barriers to entry, firmly securing core upstream production capacity.
In this wave of high-end transformation in the PCB industry, three leading domestic companies have precisely positioned themselves in the core tracks of the industrial chain, respectively focusing on upstream core materials, midstream high-precision manufacturing, and automotive-grade and AI dual-application tracks. They are comprehensively seizing the industry's development dividends and becoming the backbone of driving the breakthrough of domestically produced high-end PCBs into the global market.
ShengYi Technology, a leading upstream materials company and the absolute leader in China's copper-clad laminate (CCL) industry, firmly controls the core resources at the source of the high-end PCB industry. M9-level ultra-low loss CCL is a core raw material for semiconductor PCBs and a key foundation for AI computing servers to achieve ultra-high-speed signal transmission. ShengYi Technology has been deeply involved in the high-end CCL field for many years, possessing profound technological R&D reserves. It is also one of the few domestic companies that has mastered the core technologies of high-end resin formulation and high-end glass fiber composite molding. In the wave of PCBs moving towards semiconductorization, ShengYi Technology remains firmly at the upstream of the industrial chain, providing core raw materials for the production of high-end boards across the industry and fully enjoying the benefits of industry material upgrades.
In the midstream high-end manufacturing sector, Shanghai Electric Group Co., Ltd. (沪电股份) firmly holds a leading position in China's high-speed, high-end PCB industry. Its main products are high-multilayer, high-frequency, and high-speed boards for AI servers and high-speed switches, deeply integrated into the global leading computing power supply chain. NVIDIA's GB200 DGX series flagship AI servers and core high-speed PCBs for high-end computing equipment from overseas cloud vendors all utilize Shanghai Electric Group's products in large quantities. The company has already mastered a complete set of top-tier production processes for high-end HDI and mSAP, capable of mass-producing 10-micron-level fine circuit boards, perfectly matching the packaging needs of high-end chips. Leveraging upstream high-end copper-clad laminate raw materials, Shanghai Electric Group can quickly mass-produce high-end PCB products that meet semiconductor standards, deeply binding itself with top global clients such as NVIDIA and overseas cloud computing giants, securing its position as a core global supplier of high-end computing power PCBs.
World Circuit Technology Co., Ltd. (世运电子), a leader in a dual-track strategy, has made a strong breakthrough with its solid automotive-grade PCB manufacturing capabilities, while simultaneously rapidly entering the golden track of AI computing power. The company is a core strategic PCB supplier for Tesla, deeply supplying Tesla's intelligent in-vehicle hardware, Dojo supercomputer, humanoid robots, and other core products, with Tesla-related orders accounting for nearly 40% of its business. Automotive-grade PCBs have stringent requirements for product stability, high-temperature resistance, and anti-interference. Long-term focus on the automotive-grade market has enabled companies to accumulate extremely strong precision manufacturing and quality control capabilities. Today, Worldway Circuits has successfully entered the mainstream AI server supply chain of NVIDIA and AMD, mastering mass production technology for 28-layer AI server high-frequency boards and chip-embedded PCBs. While rooted in the high-growth new energy vehicle sector, it is also seizing the opportunities presented by the explosive growth of the AI computing power industry. This dual-track approach fuels its strong growth momentum.
The development landscape of the PCB industry is inseparable from three core competitive advantages. First, there are significant technological barriers. Semiconductor-based high-end PCBs involve multiple hurdles, including materials research and development, precision manufacturing, and high-end mass production. These three companies, through years of technological accumulation, have already completed their core technology layout, widening the gap with smaller manufacturers. Second, there are high-quality global core customer resources. These companies have partnered with industry leaders such as NVIDIA, Tesla, and global cloud providers, ensuring ample and stable orders and strong support for revenue growth. Finally, there is a precise industry positioning. Each company focuses on its specific area, covering upstream raw materials, midstream high-end manufacturing, and downstream dual application scenarios, fully connecting the core industrial chain of domestic high-end PCBs.
Looking ahead, with the continuous investment in AI computing infrastructure, the constant iteration of global high-end chips, and the upgrading of computing power in intelligent vehicles, the high-end and semiconductor-based development of the PCB industry is an irreversible long-term trend. The low-end board market is gradually shrinking, while the demand for high-end, high-speed, low-loss, and high-density PCB products continues to explode, and industry profits will continue to concentrate on upstream leaders.
