Chicago’s EMS companies place an emphasis on responsiveness.

While major manufacturing centers in Mexico, plus the more than 250 EMS companies in the Silicon Valley, draw much of the attention when it comes to electronics assembly, the greater Chicagoland area is alive and well.

CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY visited a trio of EMS companies last fall, each of which specializes in different niches. The firms, which include Imagineering, BEST and BESTProto, have taken different paths to success, but they have a common recognition of the need for responsiveness in a demanding customer environment.

Mitigation techniques to eliminate wire breakage failures.

Wirebond technology has long been used in semiconductor manufacturing because of its inherent flexibility, considered a major advantage as an interconnect method. With wirebonding, electrical interconnections or wirebonds are created between the silicon die and its leadframe or substrate using fine bonding wires made of gold, aluminum, copper, silver alloys or palladium-coated copper composites. These wirebonds are delicate though flexible, and in semiconductors, are usually encapsulated by buffer materials such as resin or mold compounds, giving them a measure of durability and the ability to resist damage from vibration. That measure of durability is lost in open-air applications, however, including EV battery packs where there is no molding or encapsulation material to protect the wirebond from the effects of vibration.

An emphasis on speed – same day turns! – keeps Green Circuits’ customers coming back.

When we last visited Green Circuits, in late 2018, the company was just coming off its merger with Power Design Services. As we reported at the time, it was a $50 million entity with over 200 staff, and had just doubled its SMT capacity.

Much has changed in the ensuing five years: size (bigger), staffing (smaller), management (new). What hasn’t, however, is the emphasis on speed and high-complexity board assembly. Indeed, the EMS has leaned into those challenges and is now perhaps as good as anyone in North America in that regard.

PCBAA's executive director lauds recent funding wins but says the heavy lifting remains.

Year-end is typically not the time when big announcements are made, but the news came fast and furious in November as TTM Technologies and Calumet Electronics both announced plans for new factories. Coupled with the opening of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories' new fab in Idaho and the not-so-secret plant Starlink is building in Austin, one would have to return to early 2001 to see this level of PCB construction in the US.

All this new activity happily coincides with the efforts of the Printed Circuit Board Association of America. The fledgling trade group, which was founded in 2021 to advance US domestic production of PCBs and base materials, has been rallying federal legislators for attention – and funding – to ensure an onshore supply chain for domestic electronics.

We spoke with PCBAA executive director David Schild in late November on the PCB Chat podcast on the latest legislative and industry developments. Excerpts: