Zhen Ding Subsidiary Avary Acquires Majority Stake in Wuxi Huayang

TAIPEI – Zhen Ding Technology said its subsidiary, Avary Holding, will acquire a 54% stake in China’s Wuxi Huayang Technology for $50 million, expanding the group further into automotive electronics.

Huayang will become a consolidated subsidiary of Avary following the transaction, supporting Zhen Ding’s strategy to grow its offerings in AI-enabled driving systems and advanced automotive modules. Huayang develops sensors, modules and smart components used in robotics, industrial control, medical equipment and vehicle platforms, handling production from materials through finished chips.

Zhen Ding chairman Shen Chang-fang said Huayang’s sensing and module technologies complement the group’s PCB capabilities, broadening its R&D base and strengthening customer reach. Huayang’s current management team will remain in place, with integration of R&D and manufacturing resources expected to improve efficiency and speed product development.

Solstice Advanced Materials Completes Spinoff from Honeywell

MORRIS PLAINS, NJ – Solstice Advanced Materials, a producer of etchants, solvents and cleaning chemistries for electronics and other applications, began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SOLS on Oct. 30 following its separation from Honeywell, creating an independently operated specialty materials company. The newly formed firm includes roughly 4,000 employees, 24 manufacturing sites and four R&D centers serving more than 3,000 customers across 120 countries.

Solstice said operating independently positions it to expand across cooling, building systems, advanced computing, energy, safety and healthcare markets. The spinoff gives the company more flexibility to invest in specialty materials growth initiatives.

AGY to Expand Specialty Glass Fiber Capacity in South Carolina

AIKEN, SC – AGY will invest $12.1 million to expand its specialty glass fiber operations in Aiken County, adding 80 jobs and increasing US production of low-Dk and low-Df fibers used in PCB laminates, semiconductor packaging, high-performance electronics and telecom systems.

The firm said the operations upgrades are expected to come online in early 2026, supported by a $200,000 state renovation grant.

Thai Kun Circuit Expands PCB Manufacturing with New Factory

PRACHINBURI, THAILAND – Thai Kun Circuit has begun construction on a new factory at the 304 Industrial Park as part of a broader plan to expand PCB manufacturing capacity and strengthen its role in the global electronics supply chain.

The facility will support increasing demand for double-sided and multilayer PCBs used in automotive electronics, industrial and safety control systems, consumer electronics and communications. The investment reinforces the company’s focus on technology upgrades, higher product quality and expanded R&D capability.

Concord Control Systems Acquires 50% Stake in Fusion Electronics

LUCKNOW, INDIA – Concord Control Systems has acquired a 50% equity stake in Fusion Electronics, marking the company’s entry into the flex PCB manufacturing market and designating Fusion as an associate company.

Fusion Electronics operates India’s largest flex PCB facility, with an annual capacity of 200,000 m² and EBITDA margins above 20%. The plant supplies major automotive customers, including Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Magneti Marelli and Hella. Concord said the investment positions the company to diversify beyond its core railway systems business into broader electronics and industrial markets.

The company’s three-year roadmap includes plans to double production capacity, add surface-mount and box-build capabilities, and build a standalone EMS platform supporting strategic industries. Leadership changes accompanied the transaction, with former promoter Sameer Mehan stepping down from Fusion’s board on October 29. Newly appointed directors include Gaurav Lath, Nitin Jain, Pankhuri Lath and Mahima Jain.

Wipro Electronics to Open $60M PCB Manufacturing Plant in Bengaluru

BENGALURU, INDIA – Wipro Electronics said it will begin production at its $60 million printed circuit board manufacturing facility in Doddaballapura within nine months, marking a major step toward strengthening India’s domestic PCB supply chain.

Construction of the plant is expected to finish in six months, with manufacturing operations ramping shortly afterward, CEO Neeraj Pandit said at the Bengaluru Tech Summit. The move comes as India continues to import roughly 85% of its PCB demand despite a domestic market valued at about $600 million.

The facility is positioned to support India’s effort to build a competitive PCB ecosystem amid rapidly rising global demand. PCBs represent a $280 billion industry projected to exceed $2 trillion by 2030. Industry leaders at the summit emphasized the need to expand both design and fabrication capabilities to reduce long-standing dependence on foreign suppliers.

PE Firm Acquires NeoTech, Eyes Turnaround

STAMFORD, CT – Top 50 EMS company NeoTech was acquired by Arkview Capital, a private equity firm specializing in working with corporate turnarounds, on Nov. 14. No financial terms were disclosed.

The acquisition was financed in part by Crestline, Canyon Partners and PNC Bank.

In a statement, Arkview said it would accelerate investment in next-generation manufacturing, strengthen NeoTech’s balance sheet and expand capabilities across key end-markets.

Bezos-Led Startup Hopes to Overhaul Manufacturing with AI

SILICON VALLEY – Billions of dollars have been raised to support Jeff Bezos’ latest project, an AI startup called Project Prometheus, which hopes to bring AI to revolutionize industrial manufacturing.

According to published reports, Prometheus will focus on “AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in a number of fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles.”

The company has reportedly raised more than $6 billion in funding, and has hired more than 100 employees, some from the so-called Magnificent Seven, which include such blue chip companies as Amazon, Meta and Alphabet.

Scanfil Says MB Elettronica Deal Now Expected to Close in January

HELSINKI – Scanfil said its planned acquisition of Italy-based MB Elettronica is now expected to close in January after a brief delay, with the company reporting that a recent facility fire has not caused major operational disruption.

The EMS provider said all regulatory approvals have been secured and that the remaining closing conditions are on track to be completed. The deal was first announced on Jul. 13, 2025, but the timeline shifted after an Oct. 17 fire at one of MB’s Cortona sites. Scanfil said MB’s management has confirmed that production continues without significant interruption.

The company said it expects the transaction to move forward once final requirements are met in early 2026.

Kitron Moves to Acquire DeltaNordic

OSLO – Kitron has agreed to acquire Sweden-based DeltaNordic, advancing its expansion in defense and high-reliability electronics as both companies prepare for a rapidly growing market.

The transaction values DeltaNordic at $114 million on a debt-free basis and will give Kitron full ownership of the company, which supplies advanced electronics and electrical systems for defense, mining, construction, and infrastructure applications. About half of DeltaNordic’s projected 2026 revenue of $74 million is expected to come from defense customers.

Kitron said the acquisition will strengthen its position in the Defence & Aerospace segment and expand its footprint in Sweden, pending approvals from the Swedish Competition Authority and the Swedish Inspectorate of Strategic Products. Closing is anticipated in late December 2025 or early January.

Coherix Expands Ann Arbor Operations

ANN ARBOR, MI – Coherix is expanding its North American manufacturing and product development footprint with a nearly $1 million investment to meet growing demand for its AI-driven dispensing-inspection and quality-control systems used in automotive and electronics assembly.

The company will relocate its headquarters and production to a 25,000-sq.-ft. facility at 1168 Oak Valley Drive by the end of 2025, increasing manufacturing capacity and adding new engineering labs. The move will support the creation of 10 to 15 engineering and product-development roles over the next year.

L&T in Talks with Tamil Nadu Government for 200-Acre Electronics Manufacturing Hub

CHENNAI – Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is in early discussions with the Tamil Nadu government to secure roughly 200 acres near Chennai for a large-scale electronics manufacturing campus, signaling a potential expansion into the EMS sector.

Reports indicate the site would support an integrated, end-to-end electronics facility spanning industrial electronics, automotive modules, aerospace systems and IoT hardware rather than consumer devices. The initiative would represent a strategic move for L&T as it diversifies beyond heavy engineering and infrastructure.

The proposed development aligns with India’s national electronics and semiconductor manufacturing goals and Tamil Nadu’s push to strengthen its position as a major electronics hub. If finalized, the project would support regional investment and could add significant capacity to India’s growing EMS ecosystem.

Source Engineering Expands into SMT with Acquisition of AimTek

PLYMOUTH, MN – Source Engineering & Manufacturing has acquired AimTek, expanding its operations into surface mount technology and strengthening its component packaging and assembly capabilities. The deal adds tape & reel packaging, lead forming and trimming for semiconductor and electronic components, as well as contract assembly support.

The company will now provide tape & reel services covering forming, trimming, labeling and delivery under EIA standards in a facility operating to ANSI/ESD S20.20 requirements. Automated systems support tape widths from 8mm to 152mm with both heat-activated and pressure-sensitive materials.

With these additions, Source Engineering broadens its role in precision electronics manufacturing and supports SMT component handling, production readiness and downstream assembly needs.

Panel Level Packaging Demand Growing, But Imbalances in Supply and Demand Noted

AUSTIN, TX – Demand for flip chip continues to increase in a wide variety of products from consumer to AI data centers, according to a new market research report.

And while Taiwan accounts for the largest share of the solder and Cu pillar market, companies in China have added significant capacity, pushing global utilization down to 61% this year.

The findings are part of TechSearch International’s “2025 Flip Chip and WLP: Trends and Market Forecasts” report, which examines supply and demand for flip-chip, fan-in wafer-level packages (WLPs), and fanout WLPs (FO-WLP), including panels. (more)

A Novel Synthesis Approach for Simplifying PCB Design

Optimizing interconnects, fanouts and signal structures before schematic capture.
by George Toms, Ph.D.

As printed circuit boards (PCBs) grow denser, faster and more power-constrained, designers face mounting challenges maintaining signal integrity, power efficiency and manufacturability. Traditionally, most optimization occurs after schematic capture – during placement and routing – when it’s often too late to remove structural inefficiencies.

A new logic-level approach directly impacts board-level performance and complexity. By optimizing interconnects, fanouts and signal structures before schematic capture, a new gate-level synthesis technology enables PCB designers to start with a cleaner, more efficient foundation.

As modern PCBs continue to scale, wire area and wire delay have become dominant factors in overall circuit performance – often more critical than the logic gates themselves. Both wire quantity and wire length contribute significantly to propagation delay, crosstalk risk and power loss.

Hybrid vs. Single Material Stackup in PCB Design

Good engineering isn’t just about power; it’s about knowing where not to over-engineer.
by Akber Roy

As modern electronic devices combine RF, high-speed digital and power circuitry on a single PCB, the demand for tailored electrical performance continues to increase. A hybrid material stackup is often adopted to meet such mixed-signal requirements, especially in RF applications where signal integrity, controlled impedance and low dielectric loss are crucial.

In RF or microwave systems, high-frequency materials significantly reduce insertion loss and signal degradation. Using these premium materials across the entire board, however, can be expensive and unnecessary for sections that carry low-speed or low-power signals.

Designers often choose hybrid configurations because they permit use of high-performance laminates only where they are truly needed, such as in critical layers hosting RF signals. These specialty materials are ideal for handling high-frequency signals. For other layers, such as those used for power or control functions, less-expensive materials, including FR-4, can be used instead. This combination helps rein in costs while ensuring performance (Figure 1). It also enables both the digital and RF parts of a circuit to work together efficiently. That is why hybrid stackups are common in advanced technologies like radar systems, 5G networks, satellite communication equipment and modern automotive electronics.

5 Things That Will Haunt Your Plating Tanks

And practical steps to exorcise the chemistry demons.
by Kevin VanNattan

Each fall brings ghosts, goblins and, if you’re not careful, a few monsters lurking right inside your plating tanks. They won’t knock on your door or ring a bell, but they will hide in your agitation systems, anodes and cables. If ignored, they can turn a good product into scrap before you even notice.

Here are five things that tend to haunt plating tanks, and how to exorcise them before they ruin your yield:

1. Agitation and oscillation. Agitation directly affects deposit uniformity and surface quality. Too little flow permits the diffusion layer near the part to thicken, leading to dull deposits, pitting and low current density areas. Too much flow can cause turbulence, gas entrapment and rough deposits.

Building Relationships with Technology

Treating technology as a human replacement strategy is a recipe for failure. Here’s the questions you should be asking.
by Sean Patterson

I have good news: Your board just approved hiring a chief of staff for every single employee in your organization.

This person never sleeps. They learn instantly from every interaction and get better with use. They have encyclopedic knowledge across all human domains, from circuit design to supply chain optimization to regulatory compliance. And the cost? As little as $20 per month per employee.

There’s just one catch: They succeed only if you become their coach and manager.

I’m talking about AI, but not the way you’ve been hearing about it. This isn’t another conversation about implementing AI technology or buying AI software. This is about building relationships with technology. It’s about transforming your operations by developing AI capabilities with your whole team, not deploying solutions onto your team.

The Victory Plan Reborn: How the DoW is Mobilizing the Electronics Industrial Base

Innovation gets applause, manufacturing gets contracts.
by Ed Dodd

We’re almost out of time. That is the message underlying US Department of War Secretary Peter Hegseth’s “Arsenal of Freedom” speech on acquisition reform last month.¹ We’ve spent a long time chasing “perfect,” with successful programs creating low volumes of some of the most exquisite military systems in the world. These military systems have allowed us to dominate non-peer adversaries with little attrition. Recently, the war in Ukraine and threats in the Indo-Pacific have resurrected the threat of near-peer conflict. They have shown us what to expect from modern battlefields and have exposed a fundamental flaw in the DoW’s acquisition approach: slowness.

The DoW and Secretary Hegseth address this issue head-on. His opening remarks were borrowed from former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, describing a system plagued by gridlock and institutional inertia, declaring that the Pentagon bureaucracy is “an adversary that poses a … very serious threat to the United States of America.” In response to this threat, he announced a transformation of the government acquisition system, one that prioritizes speed and delivery.

From Boards to Assemblies: Precision PCB’s Journey to In-House Manufacturing

How a longtime PCB supplier became a contract manufacturer.
by Mike Buetow

More than a handful of US-based printed circuit board fabricators offer some degree of assembly in order to meet customer demand. Often, these companies are flex circuit manufacturers which add in-house SMT as a strategic advantage so they can offer a one-stop supply model.

Recently, however, a Chicago-area supplier of bare PCBs took a different approach: It acquired, of all things, a full-service EMS company.

As reported in this space last month, Precision Technologies, Inc. in August purchased the assets of MicroPlace, an electronics manufacturing services company located in Elgin, IL, located about 25 miles northwest of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Beyond the Gerbers: How Unstructured Data Drives PCB Cost and Lead Time

The real bottleneck isn’t the layout; it’s decoding those half-hidden specs stuffed into a PDF.
by Sam Mason

Every electronics engineer and PCB designer knows the feeling: the design is done, the data package is zipped, and the request for quote (RFQ) is sent. And then … you wait.

This is the quoting “black box.” A project’s momentum comes to a halt, sometimes for days, as you wait for a price. When the quote finally arrives, it might come with design for manufacturability (DfM) queries, unexpected costs or lead times that jeopardize the entire schedule.

In an age of digital transformation, why is this critical handoff still so slow, manual and opaque?

Nexperia Crisis Exposes Hidden Fragility in the PCB Supply Chain

Just when the industry thought the shortage saga was over, the parts giant hit refresh on the chaos.
by Marc Schwanbeck

The global electronics industry faces another shortage situation. What began as a governance dispute between the Dutch government and the Chinese ownership of Nexperia has morphed into a geopolitical crisis with wide-ranging impacts on the printed circuit board assembly industry.

Nexperia manufactures discrete semiconductors, including diodes, Mosfets, GaN FETs, IGBTs and analog and logic ICs. These are foundational components that populate virtually every PCB in applications ranging from automotive and home appliances to industrial equipment. The company operates assembly facilities in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, with final testing and packaging performed in China.

The trouble began in October when Nexperia, headquartered in Nijmegen, Netherlands, invoked the Goods Availability Act to seize control of the firm from its Chinese parent, Wingtech Technology, which acquired the company in 2018. In retaliation, the Chinese government implemented export restrictions on Nexperia’s plant in Dongguan, China, blocking shipments of chips abroad without export licenses. Following these actions, Nexperia Netherlands halted wafer supply to its Chinese arm, citing compliance issues.

In Case You Missed It

PCB Inspection

“MSA-DETR: Multi-scale Alignment Detection Transformer for PCB Defect Detection with Enhanced Cross-scale Feature Fusion”

Authors: Renjie Zhang, Yanjue Gong, Fu Zhao and Jinkai Fan

Abstract: Printed circuit board defects are challenging to detect due to their small size, sparse features and high similarity to background textures. Existing deep learning approaches suffer from limited feature extraction, insufficient multi-scale fusion, and inadequate spatial alignment for small defects. To address these challenges, this paper proposes MSA-DETR, a multi-scale alignment object detection framework. First, an adaptive multi-scale residual (AMSR) block is designed for the backbone network, which enhances cross-regional modeling capability and preserves high-frequency detail information through large selective kernel mechanisms and multi-level residual connections. Second, a small-object alignment and frequency-enhanced pyramid (SAFE-P) is constructed to achieve effective multi-scale feature alignment through spatial feature redistribution and cross-scale multi-directional receptive field fusion. Finally, a context-aware spatial calibration (CASC) mechanism is designed to realize collaborative calibration of semantics and geometry via global context retrieval and learnable deformation alignment. Experimental results on two benchmarking datasets demonstrate significant improvements. On DsPCBSD+, MSA-DETR achieves 86.1% mAP0.5 and 52.4% mAP0.5:0.95, improving 2.6% and 2.7%, respectively, over RT-DETR baseline, while on HRIPCB it reaches 98.4% mAP0.5 and 55.8% mAP0.5:0.95, improving 2.3% and 1.8%, respectively. The model uses 7% fewer parameters than the baseline. These results validate the effectiveness of the multi-scale alignment strategy in improving small object detection accuracy, providing a robust solution for industrial PCB microscopic defect inspection. (Measurement Science and Technology, Nov. 19, 2025, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6501/ae2152)