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Printed Circuit Board Price is About to Rise

cafecat

cafecat

Member

Short summary

The main message:
PCB material supply is becoming a strategic bottleneck for electronics manufacturing, driven by AI infrastructure demand, geopolitical risks, logistics problems, and raw material constraints.
Click to expand...
  1. AI boom is consuming PCB capacity
    • AI servers require:
      • higher-layer-count PCBs
      • high-frequency/high-speed laminates
      • better thermal performance materials
  2. PCB material lead times are increasing: A delay in laminate → PCB factory delay → motherboard delay → final product delay.
  3. Supply chain problems are no longer temporary
    • Geopolitical instability:
      • Middle East tensions
      • shipping risks
      • higher logistics costs
    • Raw material constraints:
      • copper foil
      • resin systems
      • fiberglass cloth
      • specialty chemicals
  4. Manufacturers are changing procurement strategy
    • Buy materials before production starts.
    • Maintain strategic stock.
    • Get early warnings about shortages.
    • Use approved substitute laminates when possible.
Industry impact: AI is creating a "capacity squeeze" across electronics：AI GPU → HBM (memory chip) → substrate → PCB laminate → power components → cooling，PCB materials are becoming another strategic resource (Analyst estimate price will be stable and stop rising after 2028). Next rise of price: power supply and cooling?

Price is about to rise 20%~30% for all kinds of PCB in July (high demanding high-end server PCB already rise up 300%+) and leading PCB companies announce to rise another 10%~15% in August. So alongside the ram and ssd, the PCB will also cause a bit of rise of BOM for most consumer electronics, this may limit the production flexibility of these consumer electronics. OEMs may limit entry-level product produce, turn most its resource to high-profit high-end laptop, downgrade 8-layer PCB to 6-layer or less PCB, console manufacturer will limit its production and provide less direct on sale for consoles. (less direct on sale: no price cut on hardware, replaced with 3-month sub or a bundle of game)
 
Based on the current trends in the PC and consumer electronics industry, do you think monitors, power supply units (PSUs), PC cases and e.t.c. are also bound to see price hikes in the future?
 
again, AI as bad factor, once again...
seriously, AI is more and more annoying and affect anything that supposed to be normal back in the day.
 
200.gif
 
cafecat said:
Based on the current trends in the PC and consumer electronics industry, do you think monitors, power supply units (PSUs), PC cases and e.t.c. are also bound to see price hikes in the future?
Click to expand...
If this is increasing cost of PCB laminate materials then everything on the electronics side will increase in cost. Basically 95% of the modern life products.
Fun times ahead.
 
cafecat said:

Short summary

The main message:

  1. AI boom is consuming PCB capacity
    • AI servers require:
      • higher-layer-count PCBs
      • high-frequency/high-speed laminates
      • better thermal performance materials
  2. PCB material lead times are increasing: A delay in laminate → PCB factory delay → motherboard delay → final product delay.
  3. Supply chain problems are no longer temporary
    • Geopolitical instability:
      • Middle East tensions
      • shipping risks
      • higher logistics costs
    • Raw material constraints:
      • copper foil
      • resin systems
      • fiberglass cloth
      • specialty chemicals
  4. Manufacturers are changing procurement strategy
    • Buy materials before production starts.
    • Maintain strategic stock.
    • Get early warnings about shortages.
    • Use approved substitute laminates when possible.
Industry impact: AI is creating a "capacity squeeze" across electronics：AI GPU → HBM (memory chip) → substrate → PCB laminate → power components → cooling，PCB materials are becoming another strategic resource (Analyst estimate price will be stable and stop rising after 2028). Next rise of price: power supply and cooling?

Price is about to rise 20%~30% for all kinds of PCB in July (high demanding high-end server PCB already rise up 300%+) and leading PCB companies announce to rise another 10%~15% in August. So alongside the ram and ssd, the PCB will also cause a bit of rise of BOM for most consumer electronics, this may limit the production flexibility of these consumer electronics. OEMs may limit entry-level product produce, turn most its resource to high-profit high-end laptop, downgrade 8-layer PCB to 6-layer or less PCB, console manufacturer will limit its production and provide less direct on sale for consoles. (less direct on sale: no price cut on hardware, replaced with 3-month sub or a bundle of game)
Click to expand...
This sucks man.

Btw, why did you have to include an AI summary? The article in the link is almost as short as the summary.
 
Everyone insure your Miyoo Mini Plus and start hoarding boards from the 90s when the apocalypse hits that's going to be currency

Also your gay
 
Gonna be laughing so hard when this all hits its natural limit.

Markets are now rewarding hyperscalers based on how much capex they commit to, no matter if its actually needed in the short to medium term. The moment those trends go even slightly downwards you'll see those shares being sold at lightspeed. Machine learning might be a novel, interesting and useful technology, but the "business" of it makes the Dutch Tulip bubble look like level-headed common sense.
 
Last edited:
RCX said:
Gonna be laughing so hard when this all hits its natural limit.

Markets are now rewarding hyperscalers based on how much capex they commit to, no matter if its actually needed in the short to medium term. The moment those trends go even slightly downwards you'll see those shares being sold at lightspeed. Machine learning might be a novel, interesting and useful technology, but the "business" of it makes the Dutch Tulip bubble look like level-headed common sense.
Click to expand...
Yeah but the question is what's the natural limit?

Investors don't seem to care even if it will bomb as long as they manage to get out in time
 
cafecat said:
Based on the current trends in the PC and consumer electronics industry, do you think monitors, power supply units (PSUs), PC cases and e.t.c. are also bound to see price hikes in the future?
Click to expand...
For sure. It's a domino effect, and in the end we will be crushed
 
I think the advancement in video game development is ultimately going to be hindered by all this. Devs are going to be held back by a stagnant technology base of gamers who can no longer afford to keep upgrading. This generation of consoles isn't going away any time soon.
 
Topher said:
I think the advancement in video game development is ultimately going to be hindered by all this. Devs are going to be held back by a stagnant technology base of gamers who can no longer afford to keep upgrading. This generation of consoles isn't going away any time soon.
Click to expand...
Which us a good thing. The tech advancement has been one of the reasons why games are getting worse every year.
 
cafecat said:
Based on the current trends in the PC and consumer electronics industry, do you think monitors, power supply units (PSUs), PC cases and e.t.c. are also bound to see price hikes in the future?
Click to expand...
Yes everything will use this excuse now. Companies are greedy and want to raise prices and would love to use this excuse to avoid public backlash.
 
Topher said:
I think the advancement in video game development is ultimately going to be hindered by all this. Devs are going to be held back by a stagnant technology base of gamers who can no longer afford to keep upgrading. This generation of consoles isn't going away any time soon.
Click to expand...
To be fair current high end pc's could be relevant for 10+ years without any improvements in hardware. We need developers and tools that are better optimized. Consoles won't be able to match existing pc 5090 for two more generations of 5-7 years each!
 
Honestly, it's beginning to sound to me that every single industry has its suits sitting in rooms cooking up excuses on why their prices should rise as opposed to how or why they should increase sales by making better products.

Just wait, sooner or later, flour suppliers and water bottling companies would come up with their own excuse too.
 
Topher said:
I think the advancement in video game development is ultimately going to be hindered by all this. Devs are going to be held back by a stagnant technology base of gamers who can no longer afford to keep upgrading. This generation of consoles isn't going away any time soon.
Click to expand...
The key players will use it as their excuse to pivot to cloud streaming and lock you into a subscription forever.
 
Hadoukens said:
Yeah but the question is what's the natural limit?

Investors don't seem to care even if it will bomb as long as they manage to get out in time
Click to expand...
Yep that's the million (or billion) dollar question.

Plenty of hints tho that it may be close. A lot of capex in terms of components being bought up and stored for some later, expected demand that has yet to materialize. The data center building, while appearing to be huge, isnt occuring at the scale that was initially predicted and so the hardware demand for those stored components isn't happening at the pace it's owners needed.

There's a lot of people who made big bets and find themselves holding very hot potatoes. Time isn't on their side.
 
Last edited:
PCB Way will have to slow down on their advertising.
Or increase it.

edit-It might be a good time to get a new Motherboard. I want one with more than 2 M.2 slots.
 
Last edited:
Topher said:
I think the advancement in video game development is ultimately going to be hindered by all this. Devs are going to be held back by a stagnant technology base of gamers who can no longer afford to keep upgrading. This generation of consoles isn't going away any time soon.
Click to expand...
I am sure the big publishers and dev houses will respond by pouring resources into better optimization and switching from SlopEngine 5 to efficient custom built in-house engines?

10.gif
 
Topher said:
Maybe for consoles, but that won't work for gamers who are not beholden to any one corporation for their gaming needs.
Click to expand...
Sad part is, publishers are beholden to those ecosystems. PC will go back into the rut if those pillars shall fail.

Then again, that might be a good thing with slop gone and creative passion projects to emerge again.
 
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Developers should begin optimizing games for 8–10GB of VRAM and 16GB of RAM. 16 gigabytes of RAM is plenty for creating most games over the next five years. Let it be PCB or memory we dont have to buy new immediately.
 
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