Remtec is pleased to be have been featured in yesterday’s article in the Boston Globe (by Hiawatha Bray) — echoing the “Chips Don’t Float” message we and our colleagues and peer-companies in the Printed Circuit Board Association have been emphasizing recently!
We will continue these efforts to draw attention to the importance of a robust, US-centered electronics ecosystem AND the Protecting Circuit Boards & Substrates Act being debated in Congress.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Printed circuit boards, the panels found in virtually every electronic device, were once a cornerstone of high-tech manufacturing in New England. Massachusetts alone was home to 17 companies churning out printed circuit boards, or PCBs, in communities along the state’s tech corridors.
“You could drive up [Route] 128 and you could hit a printed circuit board maker with a golf ball from pretty much anywhere,” said William Gately, sales manager at Mass Design, an electronics manufacturer in Nashua, N.H.
Today, only four companies make printed circuit boards in Massachusetts after two decades of production moving overseas and low-cost foreign competitors grabbing market share, according to industry veteran Gene Weiner, founder of the consulting firm Weiner International Associates. And that has become a problem not only for state, but also for the US as it tries to protect its technological dominance and national security.
The sharp decline in printed circuit board manufacturing here and across the country threatens to undermine efforts to reduce the nation’s reliance of foreign manufacturers for critical technology. For all the money that the Biden administration is spending to revive US computer chip manufacturing — some $52 billion under the 2022 CHIPS Act — it may have limited impact without a similar revival in PCB manufacturing.
Read the complete article here (a subscription may be required).