Summary of Thoughts on PTFE vs. HC ✍️ PTFE hybrid still the most likely PCB solution for Nvidia’s VR300 NVL576 switch board • We est. HC hybrid (HC + ABF/M9) recently passed SI testing and is ~3 months behind PTFE hybrid in the qualification — has not yet entered PCB MP testing • Final material decision expected by end-26. We think Leading Chinese PCB player has already achieved meaningful yields on the PTFE hybrid • Remain constructive on PTFE for high-end/high-speed AI PCBs; any HC adoption would likely be transitional #PCB# #PTFE#

PCB: Content Upside & PTFE Adoption Following our very early PTFE note on June 2, we provide update: • Nvidia Rubin platform a major catalyst for PCB content expansion
GB300 → ~US$440/GPU
VR200 → ~US$750/GPU
VR300 → US$1,000–1,500/GPU • Drivers: higher-end CCL materials, rising layer counts, and potential PTFE adoption into Rubin Ultra • VR200 upgrades
Compute tray: M8 + M6 CCL
Switch tray + new 44L midplane: M8.5 (Low-DK2/HVLP4)
→ Content rises to ~US$750 per GPU • VR300 further upside: M8.5 + M6 hybrid compute + M9 (Q-glass) switch/midplane → ~US$1,000/GPU
Oberon NVL576: hybrid PTFE switch boards (16+16L) under evaluation
If PTFE adopted → content could exceed US$1,500 per GPU • Stock preference
PCB: ZDT (4958 TT Buy) – new position in VR200 compute tray
PTFE CCL: Leading Chinese player primary; Taiflex (8039 TT) as potential second source #PCB# #PTFE# #EMC# #TAIFLEX# #CCL#

Non-stick cookware coated with PTFE releases perfluorocarbon compounds when heated above 500 degrees Fahrenheit. A pan on high heat reaches that temperature in minutes. These compounds are linked to thyroid disruption, immune dysfunction, and developmental issues in children. They accumulate in tissue and have a half-life in the human body of four to eight years. Cast iron, stainless steel, and carbon steel are the alternatives. They require more attention but introduce zero synthetic compounds into your food.

Market capital has a funny blind spot: many assumed PTFE-related designs would phase out glass fabrics entirely. The ground reality? We are seeing more and more next-gen designs migrating back to fabric-based solutions. ​Right now, the winning playbook for high-layer AI architectures is a co-existence scheme: leveraging Q-glass paired with CH resin Prepregs (PP). This isn't a temporary workaround; it is the blueprint for the next wave of hyperscale networking infrastructure. ​ ​#PCB# #AI# #Hardware# #SupplyChain# #Semiconductor#

The Q-glass vs. PTFE debate is still raging, but the ground truth is clear: ultra-high layer count AI boards are locked in for the M9 + Q-glass setup. 🧵👇 PTFE materials cause severe processing bottlenecks in drilling and lamination. It’s so problematic that even Shengyi Tech had to alter its PP formulations. Looking into 2027, the volume ramp-up of next-gen LPUs (featuring massive 52-layer designs) will trigger a massive surge in Q-glass demand. PTFE will remain strictly confined to low-layer topologies. #PCB# #Semiconductor# #AI# #SupplyChain# #Hardware#

Earlier, I noted that unreinforced PTFE (glass-free) is theoretically an engineering nightmare for stable PCB mass production. Looking at the latest architectural roadmap, here is how the split is actually playing out: 1️⃣ With GPU/Switch Silicon: Must stick to traditional fabric-reinforced solutions to meet strict mechanical & assembly requirements. 2️⃣ Pure Signal Transmission (e.g., Backplanes): Driven purely by electrical performance, designs can adopt unreinforced (glass-free) schemes, deviating from conventional PCB rules. End customers are definitively breaking away from legacy design logic. The supply chain has no choice but to adapt and execute. Time to move. 🚀 #PCB# #AI# #Hardware# #SupplyChain# #Semiconductor# #Materials#

Our U.S. Tour and OCP Global Summit 2026 Takeaways ☕️OCP – System-level inflection
• Decisive shift toward full-stack co-design across hyperscalers
• Nvidia extended networking roadmap new USFP pluggable standard (co-developed with Cisco). Enables 12.8 Tb/s modules
• Showcased PTFE for NVLink Board (inline with our PCB Spec view for 2H27 on Oct 5)
• Microsoft emphasized AI scaling as a system-engineering challenge
• MSFT Unveiled multi-GW Maia 300 deployments from 2027
• Meta maintained pragmatic stance on optics, piloting near-packaged solutions in scale-out domains and Retaining copper for high-density scale-up fabrics ☕️OCP – Optical scale-up and power integration
• Broadcom and OpenAI advanced OCI-MSA multi-rack optical scale-up, highlighted hybrid topologies: high-bandwidth copper for tensor parallelism + optical links for expert parallelism
• GEN2 and GEN3 timelines: 400G in 2027, 800G in early 2030s 
• Google shifted focus to power, positioning datacenters as grid-integrated resources
• 1 GW demand-response capacity with U.S. utilities
• LVDC roadmap: from ±400 VDC Mt Diablo racks to native 800 VDC distribution
• Power engineering now dictates deployment velocity as much as silicon performance
• AMD reinforced CPU-dense trajectory of agentic AI
• Announced Helion CPU racks reaching 32,768 EPYC cores
 🚌 U.S. Tour — Supply Chain and Compute Economics
• No near- to mid-term power-supply risk, Supported by gas-based generation and remote locations 
• Liquid-cooling infrastructure is the bottleneck
• Rack pricing continues to rise (GB300 US$5.5–6.5m; VR200 US$8m), reflecting strong compute demand
• Some believe Inference economics challenging: GPU utilization 20–30%, memory and cooling costs rising
• For agentic AI, model shifts CPU-to-accelerator ratios from 1:4–1:8 to 1:1 → doubling CPU TAM #OCP# #AI# #MSFT# #GOOG# #NVDA# #VR200#

My latest supply chain checks indicate that Nvidia has begun testing glass-free copper-clad laminate (CCL) based primarily on hydrocarbon (HC) resin as a replacement for glass-free PTFE-based CCL tested previously, paired with glass-free HC-based PP. The goal is to determine whether this material combination can meet the switch tray PCB requirements for Rubin Ultra NVL576, an eight-rack interconnected solution expected to enter mass production in 2H27. Preliminary tests conducted as part of efforts to improve PCB manufacturability show that glass-free HC CCL meets the switch tray’s high-frequency electrical requirements. Its electrical performance trails that of the original PTFE solution but exceeds that of M9-class solutions and even surpasses M10’s stated specifications. These results do not represent a final material selection, but they indicate that NVIDIA continues to seek higher PCB manufacturing yields and greater production efficiency while meeting electrical requirements. 1. Key Takeaways and Analysis (1) Previous NVL576 switch tray tests used glass-free PTFE CCL paired with glass-free HC PP. The latest round replaces the PTFE CCL with glass-free HC CCL while retaining the same HC PP part number. (2) Shengyi Technology is currently the leading supplier in the NVL576 switch tray material evaluations. The materials involved are SG5300N (glass-free PTFE CCL), SG1030N (glass-free HC CCL), and SIF09 (glass-free HC PP). (3) The primary objective of testing glass-free HC CCL as a replacement for glass-free PTFE CCL is to determine whether PCB manufacturing yields and production efficiency can be improved while still meeting high-frequency electrical requirements. (4) To further improve PCB manufacturability, subsequent tests may also evaluate replacing glass-free HC PP with woven-glass-reinforced HC PP. The challenge is whether the glass-reinforced material can still meet signal integrity and 0.4 dB/in loss requirements. (5) Notably, both SG1030N and SIF09 still contain small amount of PTFE, although HC is the primary material. These tests therefore do not represent a complete shift away from PTFE. Rather, they involve adjusting the primary resin system and material combination to balance high-frequency electrical performance with PCB manufacturability. 2. Conclusions (1) The long-term trend toward broader use of PTFE in advanced PCB materials, including CCL and PP, remains clear. However, the pace of shipment growth over the next two years remains uncertain. Key variables include NVL576 switch tray PCB’s final material selection, NVL576 adoption rate, and development progress on Kyber-like rack designs that use orthogonal backplanes. (2) HC use in advanced CCL and PP continues to expand. Beyond NVL576 switch trays, near-term growth drivers include the production ramp of M9-class materials beginning in 4Q26, followed by the adoption of M10-class materials. (3) Once specifications are finalized and mass production begins, it's expected that Shengyi Technology to accelerate sourcing from Chinese HC suppliers. These include existing suppliers such as Dongcai and Shengquan, as well as potential ones such as GCH Technology. This should help alleviate supply shortages and optimize its cost structure.