The printed circuit board (PCB) industry worldwide will reap the rewards of the growing electronics sectors it serves, but still faces many challenges in keeping pace with rapid evolution within these same industries, a new report finds.

"The PCB industry is closely tied to the electronics and semiconductor equipment markets and is easily influenced by competition as well as fluctuations in market demand," said report author Kaustubha Parkhi. "Now it also has to meet additional technical challenges created by innovation within the industries it serves."

"Challenges are inherent to designing and manufacturing even more miniature and complex boards and meeting the escalating demands from the increasing number of pins in a chip, the growth in high speed serial data streaming technologies, and the use of bussed interfaces and clock rates higher than 400 MHZ, among other particulars. However, PCB manufacturers will keep pace and see global revenues for PCBs grow from over $50 billion in 2007 to over $76 billion in 2012."

Global revenues for PCBs are given for a multitude of categories such as those through 2012 for HDI/Microvia PCBs, for single, double and multi-layer PCBs, rigid, flex or rigid-flex PCBs, PCBs by end-product sector and for PCBs using substrates such as Alumina, FR4, and Beryllium Oxide, among others.

According to the report, the Asia-Pacific region will continue to expand in PCB production as PCB revenues for the region will increase by over 60% from 2007 to 2012. "Printed Circuit Board: World Outlook," also gives PCB revenues and expenditures for North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific Region, and the rest of the world through 2012.