It’s nice to hide away in our little corner of the internet and talk tech, safely away from the turmoil of world events. Sometimes though, geopolitics intrude even into our space, and Reuters are here reporting on a new concern that will probably affect many Hackaday readers. Conflict in the Gulf of Arabia, and in particular raids on Saudi petrochemical plants, is threatening PCB production far away in China.
Most of us probably have a mental image of tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz laden with Gulf crude, off to be processed by refineries somewhere else in the world. Certainly a load of oil takes just that route, but for the Saudis and other oil-producing nations in the region, it also makes economic sense to site petrochemical industries at source. They export the much more valuable refined products, among which is the polymer resin used in PCB production. The Reuters report says that consequent to this and a rise in copper prices, the cost of a PCB in China has risen by 40%. Naturally this doesn’t sound like good news.
Here at Hackaday, when it comes to component shortages this isn’t our first rodeo. We’re in the middle of a memory shortage due to AI companies, and the COVID-era chip shortage is still fresh in our minds. Unfortunately, this type of thing as been a regular of the technology world for decades. Here we are with another one, and should we be worried? In the short term it’s certainly a concern as the Gulf conflict is still searching for an end to its uneasy stalemate, but remembering previous shortages we think that global industry will adapt and expand other sources where necessary. Just as with the similar IC encapsulation resin shortage back in the ’90s, it may eventually be the panic more than the shortage which becomes responsible for the price hikes.
We’ve taken an abstract look at global electronic supply chains before.
Header image: Gabriela P., CC BY 4.0.
Time for another square inch PCB contest on hackaday.io then!
Or a dead-bug contest!
There you go!
I second this motion.
There’s one on the floor under my desk right now, can I enter it?
Go metric already, with modern parts and PCB feature sizes, a square centimeter contest would be much more challenging!
35um worth of copper on slim as heck 1mm to 1.6mm FR4 board is 40% more expensive? I don’t buy it, the usage is minuscule, I don’t believe a shortage could have this big of an effect. Plus most PCB fabs actually recycle the copper that they etch away (I may be wrong though)
But come on guys, this is the only job I kinda like and it pays my bills. And its my hobby too. Show some mercy.
What?
The sharp rise in PCB prices was also driven by a shortage of other key materials, including glass fiber and copper foil, according to one source. Copper foil prices have surged as much as 30% so far this year, with the rally gaining momentum in March, the source added.
From the article….
They are? Can you point me to a source of information which reveals PCBs being made from plastic? Copper being a metal, I can presume you are not referring to the copper portion of a PCB (nor any plating for that matter). So are you referring to: substrate, prepeg, solder mask, or silkscreen?
What is embarrassing is thinking printed circuit boards are made from plastic and have no copper. They are predominately resin and glass fiber mat for the fr4, or in the case of phenolic boards a paper material impregnated with resin. In either case they are laminated with copper foil for the actual conductive traces. So no, pcb’s are not and never were “plastic”.
Many people consider epoxy resin to be a thermoset plastic material
Are PCBs “plastic”?
Not in any meaningful engineering sense.
When someone says “plastic,” they almost always mean thermoplastic — polyethylene, ABS, polypropylene, nylon, etc. Materials that:
melt when heated
can be injection‑moulded
can be remelted and reshaped
soften under soldering temperatures
PCBs are not that.
Yea thermoplastic is one type of plastic not all types. Any polymer material can be and often is referred to as a plastic. They come in a lot of subtypes, epoxy, thermoset, thermoforming, elastomer, and more.
Many people also consider the earth to be flat.
What’s your point, genius?
The article clearly states that the primary driver is AI server demand and that material shortages are being exacerbated by Iran war, specifically it names polyphenylene ether (PPE) resin shortages. For the record, resin is a type of plastic so, yes, PCBs are made of glass, copper, and plastic.
I’m a EE working in product development and I can confirm the cost increases. How much of it is supply driven and how much of it is just gouging is always impossible to determine.
Would you not characterize a thermoset polymer as ‘plastic’?
PCBs are definitely usually composites, except at least some of the flex ones, and not typically thermoplastic; but thermoset polymers with a fair amount of crosslinking are usually considered plastics as well. Potentially even the original plastics, given Bakelite’s role.
No argument on them containing copper; though I assume somebody has tried a version with aluminum that makes you real glad for copper clad.
A thermoset is not a plastic. It has no plasticity therefore it isn’t plastic.
wrong. Thermoset is a type of plastic. And all solids have some plasticity.
If Nylon is a playtic, so is resin.
The resins for Epoxy and fiberglass and all the plastics that end in ‘ene’ like polyethylene, rely on ethane or ethylene as the feed stock. Ethane is a byproduct of natural gas production and the US exports a great deal of it. Chinese manufacturing gets half of their ethane from the US and they can get more if they need it.
If the shortage is due to ethane it should be short lived. Iran produces large amounts for export in the South Pars facilities on the Gulf, so ships are blockaded at the moment, though ships loaded at ports in Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE are free to move – if they can brave the pirates across the Persian Gulf who think they own the place. And the Iran occupiers are such a regional PITA that there is work on making pipelines across the UAE to Oman and skip the straits all together. China has been cozy with Iran for a while now. Fearless Leader wants them in the Silk Road thing but might be realizing they are not rational. They are fully bent on atomic weapons so they can hurry up the end-times by fulfilling a prophesy that involves the total destruction of Israel. Research “12th Imam Shia”.
Meanwhile I suspect a shortage of ethane is about the scheduling of the ships that can handle it to get to other suppliers. Maybe 30 to 60 days? Steaming Shanghai to the US is about 16 days direct and the same for Hong Kong to Oman.
Not as embarrassing as missing this sentence:
The Reuters report says that consequent to this and a rise in copper prices,
The global oil supply was only restricted by 20%, yet oil prices doubled.
A small lack of supply can trigger a much larger price increase.
We don’t need PCBs.. Manhattan building now….
I dont care. I prefer to just enjoy the life
Meanwhile in Japan “Shares in Japanese toilet maker Toto soar on AI-related pivot”
https://www.ft.com/content/38969e97-92e4-4066-a554-27274d32d545?syn-25a6b1a6=1
this is indeed the dumbest timeline
Chips, PCBs – guess I better prepare for the solder shortage or whatever in another 5 years.
We’ve also had an MLCC shortage a few years back, and at one point there was a shortage of power transistors because the packages and leadframes were in short supply for whatever reason.
Instead of a solder shortage, I’ll bet we’ll get a flux shortage soon, or maybe kapton tape.
Solder already happened in 2019 ish for regulated industry. I worked in automotive back then as an ee/test engineer.
There for a while just about no one could get specific solder paste that could meet the requirements. One night I get a call saying come in immediately!
Some one in procurement decided that an alternative was available, one of our customers (magna … like one of the top 3 automotive suppliers) called up asking where we got it from cause no one else on the planet could get it.
They got half way across the country (usa) that day and I got called in at 9pm .. spent the next 40 hours non stop infront of an xray machine and writing reports that was a long shift after already putting in a normal 12+ day job as an engineer lol
There will be “shortages” for the next few years, in an Enron kinda way. Prepare to be squeezed daily. Did someone say “could be a shortage”? Make it so….
that’s fine. I look forward to the dozens of youtube videos this year on using various rocks and other things found in a backyard in place of PCB. Thought Emporium will run a video on engineering plants to act as PCBs and demonstrate sustainable power generation and transmission of 20W over the main stem by simply cutting the top of the modified plant, then attaching some magic interface goop and a resistive load + wattmeter. they’ll think about doing a follow-up using engineered animals, but thankfully chicken out.
meanwhile on etsy, the granddaughters of Raytheon’s little old ladies will bring back professional wire-wrapping services to handle all circuit board fabrication needs — heck, bring back core rope memory, too. running out of electricity, so we’ll get swole cranking our computers; every rotation of the crank provides 100 compute cycles. Adam Savage will show us how to build a simple 20-foot-diameter flywheel from a sequoia once the federal forest service is done away with so we can run the computer even while we’re sleeping. everything is fine; we’ll be so self-sufficient and decoupled from measured economic activity that we won’t notice when US federal debt’s downgraded to junk. I’d write more, but I need to check on my doomer garden; fava bean plants are HUGE!
We can always go back to wire wrap 🙂
Great, you woke up my ww tool. Now he wants to me to play with him and stuff. Thanks a lot.
Lucky you. I always wanted the battery powered ones.
Last 2 years the only reason I saw PCB prices raise was the elimination of deminimis exception and tariffs. The cost of shipping has also increased. A small portion of the cost has been raw material cost increase. Overall PCB service cost has risen about 2…3x as compared to before Trump 2.0 … Shame .. tried to source locally but that was still 2x more expensive.. lack of competition will increase the cost even more.
I think shortage is a funny thing to call artifical supply chain manipulation. The entire notion of monetizing GPU/CPU just burning cycles on hashing algorithms or tokens is behind this. The tech industry at large is being led blindly by AI evangelism. Evangelism is annoying, but PC components being priced to keep consumer grade products from being affordable will result in generations of youth who are not able to access digital tools. This is unacceptable to me, education subsidy made the tech industry in part.
Except the chicken still suffers (although possibly re-harvested for culinary use) and you may be a threat given the Silence of the Lambs tip off. Besides (re)watch Idiocracy to see how eventually education is more about a manageable, properly indoctrinated society. Given widespread low literacy scores the master plan is well along already. Remember, it’s only important if it has electrolytes.
Day’m! That reply should have been to yida above.
“education subsidy made the tech industry in part” in Great Britain maybe, with Acorn and Raspberry Pi being subsidized and tax-free “education projects” that dumped into various markets then went commercial to capitalize on the adopters. The problem starts much earlier today, at least in the US union run school systems. The ability to read has been abandoned, and comprehension of what one has read is even lower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxnqPyZSHmQ
How is the price of shellac (resin secreted by the female lac bug) these days ?
Organic PCB’s for the win!
Coming soon: The shortages shortage, with expected global prices hike.
eating french fries and thinking back to the raspberry pi 3gb of ram article where a dude was havin’ a normal time losing his mind about how had articles and commenters need to stop being so political
People only say that when they disagree with the politics
How about a gerber of pcb pearls to clutch? lol