PCB UPdate logo
facebook      twitter      linkedin      linkedin     
September 25th, 2026
News and Resources for PCB Design, Fab and Assembly Professionals Subscribe •  Advertise •  PCD&F •  Circuits Assembly •  Tell A Friend
THE LEAD

Thailand’s first semiconductor roadmap sets an $80B investment target by 2050 as the country moves to expand. AI infrastructure demand helped push TTM Technologies’ quarterly sales to a record $1B as its data center and networking business.

TECH NEWS

The University of Tulsa is investing more than $120,000 to upgrade its electrical and computer engineering labs, giving students more hands-on experience in circuit design, testing and troubleshooting.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has created an AI Cabinet to advise the state on AI risks, incident response and safeguards for public infrastructure.

Researchers developed a wireless power system that tolerates movement and deformation in soft implants.

Keiron Printing Technologies is positioning its HF2 LiFT digital solder paste printer for the denser PCB designs and faster changeovers associated with AI hardware production.

A developer says they used Claude Opus 5.5 to build a real-time path-tracing demo for two Nvidia RTX 5090 GPUs in about an hour.

PCEA announced 11 free technical sessions and a keynote for PCB West 2026, covering topics including AI, PCB design, signal integrity, flex, UHDI, fabrication and assembly on Sept. 30 in Santa Clara, CA.

PCB West 2026 will feature a panel examining AI, interposers, high-speed and high-current design, and optical interconnects shaping PCB design through the end of the decade.

PCEA announced two fall webinars covering the role of the PCB designer and signal routing for controlling energy, signal integrity and EMI in digital PCBs.

PCB West 2026 will feature 11 presentations on electronics assembly processes, including a half-day solder paste qualification workshop and sessions covering SMT printing, stencil design, reflow soldering and more.

PCEA will host a 3.5-hour webinar on Nov. 4 led by Susy Webb covering signal routing techniques to improve signal integrity and EMI performance.

CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY is accepting entries for the 20th annual New Product Introduction Awards, with submissions for electronics assembly products due Dec. 14.

Looking for networking opportunities? Join the PCEA Discord server, bringing together engineers and designers from around the world on a private channel for discussing technical questions and career opportunities.

ROI
When the Government Stops Checking
As the US government stresses the importance of quality and cybersecurity, changes to independent certification and auditing requirements raise questions about whether its actions match its warnings.

PETER BIGELOW

Peter Bigelow





















BUSINESS NEWS

Thailand has approved its first semiconductor roadmap, targeting $80B in investment by 2050 to expand chip design, manufacturing and advanced packaging.

TTM Technologies reported second-quarter revenue of $1B, up 37 percent year over year.

Bright LED Electronics reported 20 percent revenue growth and an 81 percent increase in operating income for the first half of 2026 as its PCBA business recovered.

Qualitel announced the acquisition of Fusion EMS, an electronics manufacturing services provider based in Hillsboro, OR.

Taiwan’s PCB output is expected to top $1 trillion on AI boom.

Site preparation is advancing at Bambu Lab’s planned 3D printing manufacturing headquarters in Shenzhen, where the company intends to create production capacity for more than 3M 3D printers per year.

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories plans to invest $150M in a Post Falls, Idaho, manufacturing facility that is expected to open in 2027 and initially create about 250 jobs.

IMARC Group estimates that setting up a copper cable manufacturing plant in India costs approximately $520,000 to $5M.

TCL has signed a multiyear partnership with the Green Bay Packers.

ViTrox named Rafael Matute service manager.

Spartronics named Kristie Kersey buyer II.

SEEING IS BELIEVING
Old Man, Round Two, Not Half Bad
My father owned a printed circuit fabrication company. I apprenticed at that company as a teenager, learning a trade I could always fall back on should more glamorous options vaporize. As an apprentice, I attended many meetings. My job was to listen and learn. My father used to employ an old management trick in those meetings.

ROBERT BOGUSKI

Robert Boguski






















TECHNICAL ARTICLES

Heat Staking vs. Ultrasonic Welding for PCB Assemblies
PCD&F/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY


Programmable Spinning of Integrated Circuit Fibres
Nature Electronics


Vision-Based PCB Defect Detection Using YOLOv5 and MobileNetV2 with Grad-CAM
Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Intelligence

 


EVENTS

Sept. 28-Oct. 2: Certified Printed Circuit Design Training, Santa Clara, CA
Sept. 29: PCEA Annual Meeting, Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center
Sept. 29: CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY Service Excellence Awards Ceremony, Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center
Sept. 29-Oct. 2: PCB West 2026, Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center
Oct. 16, 23, 30, Nov. 6, 13: Certified Printed Circuit Design Training, online
Oct. 20, 2026: PCEA webinar: Coin-Style PCB Heat Sinks, online
Oct. 20-22, 2026: TPCA Show, Taipei
Oct. 21, 2026: PCEA webinar: How to be a Great PCB Designer, online
Nov. 4, 2026: PCEA webinar: Designing the Signal Routing to Control Energy in Digital PCBs, online
Nov. 17, 2026: PCEA webinar: Sourcing PCBs Globally, online
Feb. 17-19, 2027: Nepcon Japan, Tokyo
Apr. 27-30, 2027: PCB East, DCU Center, Worcester, MA


 

BOOK-TO-BILLS/MARKET TRENDS
             July Trend
EMS 1.29 Down
Semiconductors          135%        Up
PCBs                                      1.46 Down
Component Sales Sentiment 141.6 Down
Changes are year-over-year.    

Brought to you by the Printed Circuit Engineering Association
PCEA logo
ABOUT

PCB Update is a digital newsletter for PCB design, fabrication and assembly professionals, brought to you by Printed Circuit Engineering Association™. E-mail industry press releases or links to the editors of CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY or PCD&F: pr@pcea.net.


Subscribe •  Advertise •  PCD&F •  Circuits Assembly •  Tell A Friend •  About     twitter  linkedin  linkedin

ISSN 1555-7936, Copyright© 2026 Printed Circuit Engineering Association®, PO Box 237 Portsmouth, NH 03802. All rights reserved.
This newsletter contains copyrighted material that cannot be reproduced without permission. Printed Circuit Engineering Association® Privacy Policy