1950s
In 1955, Yates, an engineer who had developed and designed electrolytic copper foil equipment in Anaconda, and Dr. Adler left the company and independently established Circuitfoil (CFC, later known as Yates). Yates also established factories for producing electrolytic copper foil in New Jersey, California, and the United Kingdom. In 1957, Clevite and Gould were derived from Anaconda. They also began to produce electrolytic copper foil for printed circuit boards. Later, Gould established electrolytic copper foil factories in Germany (then West Germany), Hong Kong, Ohio, Arizona, and the United Kingdom to supply the production of copper-clad boards and PCBs. In the late 1950s, Gould had become the world's largest electrolytic copper foil manufacturer.
In 1958, Japan's Hitachi Chemical Industries and Sumitomo Bakelite (both companies are major CCL manufacturers in Japan) jointly established Japan Electrolytic Corporation. Afterwards, Japan's Fukuda Metal Foil Powder Industry Co., Ltd. (referred to as Fukuda), Furukawa Electric Industry Co., Ltd. (referred to as Furukawa Electric), and Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co., Ltd. (referred to as Mitsui) established electrolytic copper foil production plants. The electrolytic copper foil industry for PCB in Japan was established. At that time, the copper foil factories in Japan adopted the intermittent electrolysis method: using electroforming technology, cyanide copper plating bath, polar rollers made of stainless steel, and electrolytic copper as soluble positive. This low-efficiency production method can produce several thousand meters of thin copper sheets per month throughout Japan.
