Editing by Greg Gao

Suzhou and Kunshan in eastern China's Jiangsu Province – two key PCB manufacturing bases – are experiencing electricity rationing and shortages, along with materials shortfalls, raising concern on the stability of the electronics industry supply chain, reported cnyes.com.

Some PCB manufacturers said that the last wave of power rationing lasted from September 26 to 30, and the power supply was still not fully restored to normal in early October. Several PCB manufacturers located in Suzhou and Kunshan are still required to cut production capacity and reduce electricity consumption, constraining the electronics industry supply chain.

China's efforts to curb energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions, along with surging coal prices, are leading to power outages across many of China's manufacturing centers, according to a report from Financial Times.

The current delivery period of PCB products from manufacturers is usually one month. In the case of power shortages, the manufacturers have to optimize internal production and reduce power consumption. However, the biggest problem is that the power crunch affects companies on the upstream and downstream supply chain. 

They include upstream raw material copper-clad laminate(CCL) suppliers, downstream surface mount technology(SMT) component factories, and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies, increasing the lead time of PCB products. These challenges, coupled with material shortage issues, threaten to disrupt PCB supply chains further, the cnyes.com report said. 

Apple's newly released iPhone13 is supposed to bear the brunt of the PCB supply chain disruption. But according to the latest PCB factory order information, Apple's main supply chain orders delivery is still normal, it remains to be seen if China's power crunch and material shortages will have impacts on the consumer electronics giant.