Hitachi Chemical Enhances Production Capacity of Printed Wiring Boards in Singapore

Hitachi Chemical (Singapore) Pte Ltd, a consolidated subsidiary of Hitachi Chemical Co Ltd, has recently invested approximately 3 billion yen to build a new production facility of printed wiring boards (PWBs) with a gross floor area of about 19,000 sqm. The facility will be situated in the Loyang Plant and will undertake inner layer processing. The purpose is to expand its business by securing the market for high-density, high-layer PWBs, which are widely used for information and communication equipment such as servers and routers, portable music players, and notebook personal computers.

Hitachi Chemical Singapore has been operating two production sites, which mainly produce standard multilayer PWBs for automotive and communication market: Loyang Plant (mainly outer layer processing), and Bedok Plant (mainly inner layer processing). Due to the recent decline in product prices and the continuous rise in the price of raw materials including copper, the company said it has become necessary to shift the focus of production to more value-added, high-density PWBs and high-layer PWBs, whose market is expected to expand. Under such circumstances, in order to promote more sophisticated products, which is the company’s policy, it has been decided to build a new plant to carry out inner layer processing on the premise of Loyang Plant, where outer layer processing has been performed.

The Hitachi Chemical Group restructured and consolidated the domestic PWB business on April 1. The Sales Division, Operation Division, and Development Division are combined to form Hitachi Chemical so that the overall business strategy is unified and customer service is integrated. Production is integrated into Hitachi AIC Inc to further improve production efficiency. In the overseas PWB business also, it is intended to provide products promptly that meet customers’ requirements through cooperation and segregation of products between Hitachi Chemical Singapore and Hitachi Chemical Co (Taiwan) Ltd, which is a subsidiary of the Hitachi Chemical that produces PWBs mainly used for automobiles and digital consumer appliances.

www.hitach-chem.co.jp