Foshan intelligent automobile industry drives the rapid growth of FPC flexible circuit board

I. Definition and classification of flexible circuit board manufacturing industry

Flexible circuit board, also known as soft printed PCB circuit board, belongs to printed PCB circuit board (PCB), is an important electronic device interconnection component of electronic equipment. Flexible circuit board has incomparable advantages of other kinds of PCB, in the current use of electronic equipment, the probability of being replaced is low.

The flexible circuit board can be divided into polyimide (PI), polyester (PET) and PEN according to the type of plastic film. Among them, polyimide flexible circuit board is the most common type of soft board, such raw materials with high temperature resistance, good specifications and reliability, and both mechanical equipment maintenance and excellent electrical equipment dielectric strength of the protective film according to the suppression of the final goods.

According to the number of stacking layers, the flexible circuit board can be classified as single-sided flexible circuit board, two-layer flexible circuit board and double-layer flexible circuit board. The related production technology is based on the FPC production technology of single-sided flexible circuit board and is maintained according to the lamination technology. Details are as follows:

Ii. Development trend analysis report of flexible circuit board manufacturing industry

The upstream and downstream key of flexible circuit board (FPC) is FCLL (flexible copper-clad plate). FCLL key is composed of three kinds of raw materials, that is, insulating layer base film raw material, metal material electric conductor foil and adhesive. At the present stage, the most common materials used for insulating layer base film of flexible copper clad plate are polyester film (PET plastic film) and polyimide film (PI plastic film). Metal material electric conductor foil mainly consists of electrolytic copper (ED) and calendered copper foil (RA), in which calendered copper foil (RA) is the more critical commodity. Adhesives are the key components of double layer flexible coppers, acrylate adhesives and epoxy resin adhesives are more critical commodities.

In 2015, the global sales market of flexible circuit boards was about 11.84 billion DOLLARS, accounting for 20.6% of PCB. The value of PCBS worldwide in 2017 is estimated to be us $65.7 billion, of which FPCBS are estimated to be US $15.7 billion annually. It is estimated that the annual output value of FPC worldwide will reach usd 16.5 billion in 2018.

In 2018, Korea accounted for about half of the world's FPC production. Data show that in 2018, the output of flexible circuit board (FPC) was 93.072 million square meters, which was 16.3% higher than that of 80.03 million square meters in 2017.

Iii.FPC manufacturing industry demand analysis report

1. Automobile manufacturing

Flexible circuit board because it can be bent, light weight and other characteristics, in recent years as the connecting parts are widely used in car ECU (electronic device control module), such as table board, speakers, screen display information has high data signals and the high trust regulation of machinery and equipment, according to the survey, each car the car of the flexible circuit board usage for more than 100 or so.

In 2018, the sales volume of cars around the world reached 95,634,600, with the continuous improvement of the level of intelligent car system. The intelligent living car needs to be equipped with many body controllers and monitors, and the electronic equipment is far more than the general car. From 2012 to 2020, the total number of on-board display configuration will increase by 233%, exceeding the total production of cars in 2020, more than 100 million/year. The import substitution of vehicle display screen, the development trend of engineering and the improvement of total business scale, the total number and quality of flexible circuit board for vehicle display screen clearly put forward higher provisions.

2. Smart wearable devices

With the popularity of AR/VR/ wearable sales market around the world, international large and medium-sized electronic product manufacturers such as Google, Microsoft, iPhone, Samsung and SONY are competing to increase their efforts and product research and development. Leading enterprises in China, such as Baidu Search, Tencent, Qihoo 360 and Xiaomi mobile phone, are also competing to rationally layout the smart wearable device industry.

In 2018, the worldwide sales volume of smart wearable devices exceeded 172.15 million units. In the first half of 2019, the sales volume of smart wearable devices reached 83.8 million units. It is estimated that the sales volume of smart wearable devices will exceed 252 million units by 2021. Flexible circuit board has the characteristics of lightness and bendability. It has the greatest fit with intelligent wearable devices and is the preferred connecting component of intelligent wearable devices. The manufacturing industry of flexible circuit board will become one of the vested interests in the rapid development of intelligent wearable device sales market.

Four. Flexible circuit board manufacturing industry market competition layout analysis

Because of the late development of China's flexible circuit board manufacturing industry, foreign companies with the advantage of the first, such as The Flag of Japan, Japan Fujicang, China's Taiwan Zhen Ding, Taiwan County, China and other downstream customers have more closely related business process collaboration, occupy China's flexible circuit board sales market dominance. Although the difference between the technology and quality of domestic flexible circuit board products and foreign companies becomes significantly smaller, its production capacity and operation scale is still lagging behind foreign companies, so it is in the disadvantage of influence when competing for middle and downstream large and medium-sized high-quality customers.

With the overall strength of China's local electronic equipment well-known brands further improved in recent years in China's local flexible circuit board manufacturers make great efforts to reasonably layout the flexible circuit board industry chain.

In order to promote the development trend of intelligent system in China's processing industry, in December 2016, the country implemented the 13th Five-Year Overall Plan for Intelligent Manufacturing System in China, which clearly puts forward that by 2020, the traditional manufacturing industry in China will be updated with intelligence, and in 2025, top priority companies will maintain the transformation and development of intelligent system. Intelligent manufacturing system has become a key driving force for the transformation and development of China's processing industry and the promotion of competitiveness. Especially in the FPC flexible circuit board labor-intensive enterprise transformation and upgrading requirements are great, in China's intelligent manufacturing system manufacturing industry has a broad future.