PCB Tech - Main development trends of PCB circuit board industry

1. The "large-scale and centralized" trend of PCB industry enterprises is gradually emerging

In terms of quantity, there are currently more than two thousand PCB manufacturers in the world, the industry structure is scattered, and there are many small factories. At the same time, the trend of "large-scale and centralized" PCB manufacturers has become increasingly obvious. In recent years, the world's major PCB manufacturers have experienced a new round of expansion in their revenue scale. The market share of the world's largest PCB manufacturer has grown from 11% in 2006 to 24% in 2018. The development trend of "large-scale and centralized" PCB industry enterprises is determined by the large capital needs of the industry, high technical requirements and fierce competition in the industry, and on the other hand, it is also affected by the acceleration of the upgrading of downstream terminal products and the * concentration. The increasing impact. Correspondingly, large-scale PCB manufacturers with excellent product design and R&D capabilities, excellent large-volume supply capabilities and good products* can continuously satisfy large-scale* customers for supplier technology research and development, quality control,

and large-scale timely supply. The demanding requirements of SMEs; however, small and medium-sized enterprises have highlighted their deficiencies in this type of competition, leading to an increasing gap between them and large PCB manufacturers. Large-scale PCB manufacturers continue to accumulate competitive advantages, expand their scale of operations, build higher industry thresholds, and continue to increase their profitability. They will increasingly occupy a dominant position in the competition, making the industry increasingly present a "large-scale and centralized" situation.

2. The development of downstream applications drives the development of the PCB industry

The manufacturing quality of PCB not only directly affects the reliability of electronic products, but also affects the overall competitiveness of downstream products. In terms of downstream applications, communications electronics, consumer electronics and computers have become the three major application areas of PCB. In the 21st century, the popularity of personal computers has driven the development of PCB products in the computer field. Since 2008, smart phones have gradually become the main driving force for the development of the printed circuit board industry. 22.18% increased to 31.3% in 2018, becoming a fast-growing area for PCB applications. In the future, with the emergence of emerging demands in downstream fields such as automotive electronics, wearable devices, industrial control, and medical equipment, the PCB industry will usher in new growth points.

3. SLP will become a battleground for large PCB manufacturers

Technological progress has promoted the continuous development of 3C electronic devices such as smart phones in the direction of lightness, thinness, miniaturization and mobility. In order to achieve the goal of less space, faster speed, and more security, the The requirements of "small" are constantly improving. Especially as the functions of smart electronic terminals such as mobile phones continue to increase, the number of I/Os has also increased, and the line width and line spacing must be further reduced; however, traditional HDI is limited by the manufacturing process and cannot meet the requirements, and the number of stacked layers is more., SLP technology with smaller line width and line spacing and capable of carrying more functional modules has become an inevitable choice to solve this problem. SLP (substrate-like PCB) refers to high-level HDI, mainly using semi-additive technology, which is a PCB pattern production technology between subtractive and full additive. The production process is more advanced than that of full additive. It is mature, and the degree of graphic refinement and reliability can meet the needs of high-end products, and it can be mass-produced. The semi-additive process is suitable for making fine line spacing between 10/10-50/50μm. As an optimized product that can meet mobile phone space and signal transmission requirements at the same time, the gradual mass production and promotion of SLP will break the industry ecology. Some companies with first-mover advantages are expected to take this opportunity to further expand* their advantages. The SLP market size is expected to be in the near three There will be explosive growth during the year. Since 2017, many *smart phone manufacturers plan to gradually introduce SLP in their terminal products.