In the last 30 years, EU PCB fabrication decreased from 25% worldwide market share to 2.5% only. This trend resulted from an interest in leveraging Asia's lower wages for manufacturing, and increasing regulatory demand and costs for toxic waste treatment. As a result, much know-how in PCB production was lost in the EU. The PCB assembly industry, which is responsible for adding components to a PCB, has also decreased in the past 30 years. However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, we observe a rebound in this industry, driven by interest in reducing dependency on the Asian supply chain.
In this presentation we will discuss how additive manufacturing via simple printing of copper ink enable PCB production eliminating polluting chemical etching and can enable rebound of local PCB manufacturing in EU and US.
