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Elementary, Mr. Watson: The Rise and Fall of Europe's PCB Design Community

One of the most famous lines associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor was attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. After the horrific attack of Dec. 7, 1941, he was reported to declare, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant." That image has endured because it captured the moment when something enormous, and perhaps underestimated, began to move.

Today, another giant is awakening in Europe, and it may not be what or where you expect. It’s not from one country, company, or organization, but from an entire region that has built a deep engineering heritage and a long history in electronics. At the center is Europe’s PCB design community.

A few years ago, EIPC released an excellent, detailed report about the challenges facing the European PCB industry.¹ It warned that Europe's PCB industry had declined sharply, and manufacturing capacity and its supporting materials supply chain were shifting to Asia. This growing dependence, combined with high energy costs and limited domestic capacity, posed increasing risks to Europe's industrial, aerospace, and defense sectors.

The report stated that in 2000, Europe accounted for about 16% of worldwide PCB production. By 2022, that share had fallen to just 2.3%, while the number of European PCB manufacturers dropped from 555 to fewer than 200.

This decline reflects a broader trend across several key industries in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, where significant portions of manufacturing have shifted overseas. Those are not small changes. EIPC reported that Europe's share of global PCB production fell by roughly 86%, while more than 60% of its PCB manufacturers disappeared, consolidated, or left the market entirely.

But although the industry in Europe shifted, it didn't stop designing electronics. Far from it. Europe has remained a major force in automotive, aerospace, industrial electronics, medical systems, telecommunications, defense, and advanced technology. True, the manufacturing footprint may have shrunk, but the engineering capability remained.

So, why would I be bold enough to say we are awakening a giant? Because I’ve been personally involved with the European PCB design community for the past 10 years. It started with productronica, the Altium Live conferences, and now the Pan-European Electronic Design Conference (PEDC). I’ve interacted with FED, TechWorks, and IMEC, and as a technical advisor to the Delft Hyperloop team in the Netherlands.

Along the way, I’ve met many great designers, fabricators, suppliers, and engineers. It’s always been obvious that Europe has the expertise. There are world-class engineers, strong universities, major technology companies, and some of the most demanding electronics industries. The challenge, as in the United States, is ensuring there are enough skilled designers to carry the work forward.

Another challenge is how that talent is organized. For years, much of Europe's PCB design strength existed in separate regional pockets. For example:

• Germany developed deep proficiency in automotive, industrial electronics, and manufacturing
• France built strength in aerospace, defense, and telecommunications
• The UK developed strong semiconductor, embedded-system, and hardware-design communities
• Scandinavia became closely associated with communications, wireless technology, and advanced electronics
• The Benelux region built a powerful semiconductor, research, and technology ecosystem
• Italy and Central and Eastern Europe continued to build strong PCB and electronics manufacturing capabilities of their own

Different languages, national organizations, conferences, industries, and engineering cultures naturally kept many designers focused within their own countries or regions. A PCB designer in Germany could be solving many of the same problems as a designer in France, Italy, Sweden, or Poland without necessarily feeling part of one larger European design community.

I fully believe that is changing as designers are connecting more effectively across borders, technical conferences are becoming more international, and industry organizations are placing greater emphasis on design. Suppliers, fabricators, educators, researchers, and designers are showing up in the same rooms and having the same conversations.

PEDC, for example, deliberately brings together Europe's electronics design and research communities rather than focusing on a single country or part of the electronics supply chain.

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has also steadily increased its focus on electronics and semiconductor capability. The European Chips Act entered into force in September 2023, aiming to strengthen Europe's semiconductor research, manufacturing, and supply-chain resilience. In April 2025, the EU launched its AI Continent Action Plan, followed by major investments in AI factories and computing infrastructure across Europe.

Then, in June 2026, the European Commission proposed Chips Act 2.0, aimed at further reducing strategic dependencies and expanding both advanced and mainstream chip design and production within Europe.

At the same time, Europe has been increasing its focus on defense manufacturing. The EU introduced its first European Defense Industrial Strategy in March 2024, with longer-term goals tied to European defense readiness through 2030.

These initiatives show that Europe's renewed emphasis on electronics did not appear overnight. Since 2023, the pace has clearly accelerated, with semiconductors, AI, defense, advanced manufacturing, and supply-chain security being treated as strategic capabilities.

This creates an interesting situation because while Europe's PCB manufacturing base has shrunk dramatically over the past two decades, the need has grown for more sophisticated electronics.

On both sides of the pond, as they say, we are recognizing that allowing large portions of Europe’s electronics manufacturing capability to migrate elsewhere has come with major consequences. But rebuilding an industry takes much more than factories. It takes people who know how to turn complex technology into something that can be built. Processors, memory, sensors, RF devices, power systems, connectors, advanced packages, and thousands of other components still must come together somewhere. That somewhere is the PCB, brought together by the PCB designer.

So, when I call Europe's PCB design community an awakening giant, I am not suggesting that the capability suddenly appeared. The capability, experience, and engineering strength were already there. The connection between those communities, the investment surrounding them, their growing visibility, and the recognition that PCB design will play a critical role in Europe's technological future is what has changed.

That future is getting more exciting by the day. I believe the push for a stronger European electronics supply chain will demand more capable designers, closer collaboration, and an entirely new generation of PCB professionals.

The giant is not being created; it is waking up. As Europe's designers begin to connect, collaborate, and recognize their collective strength, we may be seeing only the beginning of what this community can become.

References

1. “Challenges Facing the European PCB Industry,” EIPC, March 2024.

This column originally appeared in the September 2026 issue of I-Connect007 Magazine.