In late July, rain poured down heavily in Sanjiao Town. Inside the dust-free workshop of Guangdong Yidun Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yidun Electronics"), automated guided vehicles (AGVs) shuttled back and forth carrying semi-finished PCBs, while the robotic arms worked non-stop.
"In recent months, we have been receiving orders that exceed our production capacity by over 200,000 feet every month, resulting in a surge of orders," said Li Hongxin, General Manager of the Second Business Department of Yidun Electronics, outside the workshop, revealing this "sweet trouble". What keeps him even busier is the on-site final inspection and verification of overseas leading automotive parts enterprises that are currently in the process of being connected.
The PCB produced by Eton Electronics serves as the "nerve center" for smartphones, autonomous vehicles, and servers. The confidence behind the "instant opening" of smartphones, the "intuition" of automatic obstacle avoidance in cars, and the stable operation of computing clusters all rely on this small circuit board.
Since the beginning of this year, the global PCB industry chain has been experiencing a round of turbulence: upstream copper-clad laminate (CCL) leaders have repeatedly raised prices during the year, with copper foil and fiberglass cloth following suit across the board; downstream demand for computing power has surged, leading to extended delivery cycles for many high-end PCBs to 8 to 12 weeks, and the gap between supply and demand continues to widen.
When the industry was caught in the dual anxieties of "price hikes" and "delivery difficulties", Yidun Electronics calmly accepted orders and expanded production. This confidence stems from a technological transformation journey that lasted for more than four years and involved significant investment.

Upon entering the workshop of Eton Electronics, the first impression is one of "emptiness". There are hardly any clusters of operators on the production line, with only AGV robots autonomously navigating along the almost invisible magnetic strips on the ground, delivering production materials to the next process.
 "Previously, it took 1,200 people to produce the entire product, but now it takes over 900 people, and the efficiency has increased by 70% to 80%," said Li Hongxin. By introducing the Vertical Continuous Plating (VCP) line and Laser Direct Imaging (LDI) equipment, and establishing a full-process digital control system, the company's production cycle has been significantly compressed: the traditional double-sided board production from cutting to shipment takes 6 days, which is now shortened to 2 days; the multi-layer board proofing is shortened from the industry-wide 4 days to 48 hours, or even 24 hours.
In today's PCB industry, delivery speed is the key to competitiveness, especially in the current situation where products are in short supply.
The leap in capability underpins the advancement in speed. Li Hongxin casually picked up a freshly produced 8-layer board and said, "This is used in the autonomous driving domain controller of a well-known domestic new energy vehicle company. The precision requirement is 0.05 millimeters, which is equivalent to one-third of the diameter of a human hair." He pointed to a roaring equipment and said, "This laser drill costs 4 million yuan per unit. In the past, we couldn't produce high-density interconnect (HDI) boards with a 0.1 millimeter aperture. Now, we dare to accept high-end orders.". ”
The data confirms the confidence behind "daring to take on": Last year, Eton Electronics achieved an output value of 430 million yuan at full capacity each month. After undergoing technological transformation, this figure jumped to 460 million yuan this year. The average number of layers in products has increased from 6 to 8. The higher the number of layers, the higher the added value, and the technological threshold also increases exponentially.
"We are not simply replacing equipment; we aim to reshape the entire manufacturing logic through technological transformation," said Jiang Maosheng, Deputy General Manager of Operations at Yidun Electronics. Technological transformation has not only resulted in a 10% reduction in unit energy consumption, a 20% reduction in labor costs, and a product yield stability of over 95%, but more importantly, amidst the global surge in raw material prices, Yidun Electronics has gained a "cushion" - relying on efficiency to absorb costs and maintain stability in delivery and price competitiveness for customers.
The explosion in computing power demand is reshaping the value logic of the PCB industry. Traditional servers use 6 to 10-layer boards, while servers generally adopt high-level multi-layer boards with more than 20 layers, increasing the value of a single PCB by 3 to 5 times. The delivery cycle for high-end products has been extended to 8 to 12 weeks, and the gap between supply and demand continues to widen. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released two drafts for public comment, namely the "Regulatory Conditions for the Printed Circuit Board Industry (2025 Edition)" and the "Administrative Measures for the Announcement of Regulatory Conditions for the Printed Circuit Board Industry (2025 Edition)", which also clearly direct new production capacity towards high-level multi-layer, HDI, IC carrier boards, and other high-end fields.
High-end PCBs are currently in high demand. After more than four years of technological transformation, Yidun Electronics is looking forward to catching up with this wave of opportunities. According to reports, in the first half of this year, Yidun Electronics invested 160 million yuan in technological transformation, with a clear direction: to focus on high-level multi-layer boards, high-end HDI boards for computing power, high-performance computing, and satellite communications. In addition, the company plans to continue to increase investment in technological transformation in the coming years.
"Traditional automotive boards are through-hole boards, while the PCBs used for intelligent driving in new energy vehicles are more than 10 times that of traditional cars. When it comes to servers, a single motherboard can have 24 or 28 layers, and its value is dozens of times that of an ordinary board," said Li Hongxin. PCBs are an indispensable core carrier for computing hardware, running through the entire operation process of the server and supporting the operational requirements of high computing power, high transmission, and high stability.