Technavio’s latest market research report on the global substrate-like PCB market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2018-2022. Technavio predicts an emerging trend as a major factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

The global substrate-like PCB market will grow at a CAGR of over 7% during the forecast period, according to Technavio analysts. A key factor driving the market’s growth is the need for miniaturization and more efficient interconnect solutions. In the recent years, the size of electronic packages has decreased to reduce power consumption and increase the functionality and the number of embedded components. The size of mobile phone PCBs decreased by over 75% between 2004 and 2017, with the inclusion of a growing number of sensors and processors.

In this report, Technavio highlights the increasing outsourcing of activities in the semiconductor industry as one of the key emerging trends in the global substrate-like PCB market:

Increasing outsourcing of activities in the semiconductor industry

Previously, the semiconductor industry was characterized by the presence of companies that designed, fabricated, packaged, and tested ICs in-house. But, at present, most semiconductor companies are going fabless by only designing chips while outsourcing fabrication, packaging, and testing to other companies. An increasing number of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing companies are outsourcing their manufacturing processes to foundries and (semiconductor and testing services) SATS providers.

“Semiconductor vendors that do not own fabrication facilities outsource the expensive process of semiconductor manufacturing to dedicated third-party manufacturers that have large-scale manufacturing plants, thereby cutting down on capital investments, operational costs, and complexity,” says a senior analyst at Technavio for research on semiconductor equipment.

Global substrate-like PCB market segmentation

This market research report segments the global substrate-like PCB market into the following applications (communication and IoT) and key regions (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA).

The communication segment held the largest market share in 2017, accounting for more than 73% of the market. This application segment is expected to demonstrate steady growth during the forecast period.

APAC was the leading region for the global substrate-like PCB market in 2017, accounting for a market share of approximately 85%. The market share of this region is anticipated to increase significantly during the period 2018-2022.