Global PCB material supply tightening: What the market is experiencing today

Author: Raymond Goh, COO, Confidee

The global raw material supply continues to pressure the electronic industry and not least the PCB manufacturing sector. What initially affected a narrow range of high-frequency materials has now evolved into a broader scope, impacting both advanced laminates and standard FR-4 materials.

The key driver behind this broader scope is the continuous and rapid global expansion of AI infrastructure and data centres. AI hardware requires a significant demand for high-performance PCB materials, including low-loss laminates, complex glass fabrics, and thick copper-clad laminates (CCL). As demand accelerates at an unprecedented pace, material availability across the supply chain is becoming increasingly constrained.

The impact is most visible upstream, particularly among laminate and glass fabric manufacturers. Historically, many high-frequency materials were readily available from stock, enabling PCB manufacturers to respond quickly to shift in demand. Today, suppliers are operating with minimal inventory-sometimes only days, or even zero days, of stock-shipping material immediately upon completion. Similar conditions are now emerging in the standard FR-4 segment, where the key global PCB manufacturers are now experiencing reduced inventory levels and extended lead times.

At the same time, laminate manufacturers are implementing allocation programs and purchasing restrictions based on their customers previous years purchasing volume. This procedure has been developed to ensure that all the laminate customers receive their respective share of laminates, however their demand is already higher than their last years demand. In previous years, PCB manufacturers could build material buffers to support future demand. In today’s market, purchasing volumes are often capped to ensure more balanced distribution across customers and industries. As a result, both availability and pricing have become more volatile.

In an environment defined by material constraints, allocation systems, and extended delivery horizons, predictability is reduced. Holding pricing over longer periods is increasingly challenging and further restriction in the supply chain, along with price increases, is likely to be a consequence.

This has resulted in reduced validity time of quotations from most PCB manufacturers. Material costs are now commonly determined at the point when laminates are delivered to the PCB manufacturer, rather than when the laminate order is placed. This is why, for orders with a requested delivery date exceeding the quoted lead time, the final price will be confirmed when the manufacturer has received the laminate.  

This is not driven by uncertainty alone, but by the need to manage risk responsibly in a market where material availability, lead times, and raw material costs can fluctuate.

At Confidee, transparency and early communication remain critical. Navigating today’s market volatility requires proactive planning, realistic forecasting, and close collaboration across the entire supply chain.

Raymond Goh, COO

The Backdrop

During 2025, lead time for raw materials for laminate production has increased and this increase has continued in 2026. Glass fibres used in PCB laminates generally fall into two categories:

• E-Glass – Standard FR-4 materials for general electrical insulation and widely applied in industrial and commercial PCBs.
• T-Glass – High-performance glass fibres with low Dk, low loss, and low CTE characteristics. These materials are primarily used in AI servers, high-power CPUs, and high-speed networking equipment.

How to prepare

In a market where material constraints are beyond our direct control, our goal is to provide transparency and predictability through proactive planning and early order placement.

•  Allow for equivalent laminates
•  Allow for equivalent pre-preg
•  Dual sourcing for key articles
•  Release orders early
•  Orders can be cancelled according to the cancellation window