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Taiwanese suppliers have confirmed that flexible printed circuits used in recordable DVD drives are in short supply. But they were not willing to confirm rumors of rising prices.

As flexible printed circuits are an important component in recordable DVD drives, the shortage has reportedly affected shipments by Taiwanese recordable DVD drive manufacturers, some of whom have begun contract manufacturing for Japanese brand vendors.

Earlier, a shortage of pick-up heads (PUHs), another key component in optical storage drives, had been reported.

Flexible printed circuits have long not been able to command high prices or profits, so suppliers had been conservative about expanding capacity. Current capacity expansion is not expected to alleviate the shortage before until the end of the third quarter.

Especially due to recent rush orders, capacity utilization has been high.

Flexible printed circuits used in digital still cameras (DSCs) and DVD players as well as other types of optical storage drives are also said to be in short supply.

Taiwanese suppliers since the second half of 2002 have become increasingly important suppliers of flexible printed circuits for all of these products. Among local suppliers, Kaohsiung-based Mektec is the largest, followed by Taipei-based Career Technology. Mektec is the affiliate of a Japanese company.

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Source: DigiTimes