With 5G coming, PCB, the mother of electronic products, is facing new challenges.
In 2019, the news of 5G will be heard all the time, either operators start large-scale testing, or terminal manufacturers release 5G mobile phones. Recently, the public-oriented 5G service officially launched in Korea announced the opening of the 5G commercial opening. 5G commerce brings unlimited market opportunities to upstream and downstream industries.
As a key interconnect for assembling electronic components, how will PCB (printed circuit board) share in the 5G market? Is the technical requirement of 5G for PCB unattainable? Can domestic PCB enterprises take the opportunity of 5G to overtake?
5G provides a huge market for PCB
PCB is known as the "mother of electronic products". It not only provides electrical connection for electronic components, but also carries the digital and analog signal transmission, power supply and radio frequency and microwave signal transmission and reception of electronic devices. Most electronic devices and products need PCB.
It is understood that every 1 yuan of PCB can support the development of 30 yuan terminal products. The 5G era has provided a huge market and opportunity for the PCB industry. According to estimates, the direct output economic benefits of 5G in 2020, 2025 and 2030 are 484 billion yuan, 3.3 trillion yuan and 6.3 trillion yuan respectively. The economic benefits of output were 1.2 trillion yuan, 6.3 trillion yuan and 10.6 trillion yuan respectively.
From the construction of communication networks, to terminals, to derivative applications, 5G has put a lot of demand on PCBs.
Yang Zhicheng, chairman of Shennan Circuit Co., Ltd., told China Electronics News that the application of PCB hardware in 5G wireless base station, bearer network, transmission network and core network hardware facilities will increase substantially, such as 5G radio frequency board, backplane, high-speed network board, server motherboard, microwave board, power board, etc. Qu Dingshi, marketing manager of Chongda Circuit Technology Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, also said that with the upgrading of communication technology, from 4G to 5G, the price and quantity of PCB needed in communication base stations have risen simultaneously. Because of the high frequency microwave characteristics of 5G, the base station density is higher than that of 4G base station. At the same time, the processing frequency, data transmission and processing speed of all kinds of devices are much higher than those of the 4G era. These core main equipment, transmission equipment, antenna/RF equipment put forward a very high demand for high-frequency and high-speed board, the unit price is higher than the PCB of 4G base station. It is estimated that in a single base station, the demand for PCB for 5G base station is twice that for 4G base station. In addition, 5G terminal devices, such as mobile phones, smart watches and so on, also need to be updated synchronously with communication technology. This part of the PCB needs much more than the infrastructure part.
It is predicted that the total value of the PCB of the 4G macro base station is about 5492 yuan. The market space of PCB for 4G base stations in the world is about 5 billion yuan per year to 9 billion yuan per year, corresponding to CCL (copper foil substrate) about 1 billion yuan per year to 2 billion yuan per year. The PCB value of 5G macro base station is about 1514 yuan per station. In peak year, PCB demand brought by 5G base station construction is about 21 billion yuan per year to 24 billion yuan per year, corresponding to CCL market space is about 8 billion yuan.
5G requires PCB technology to be upgraded in an all-round way
While 5G brings opportunities to PCB industry, it also puts forward higher and stricter requirements for technology. Its indexes in speed, integration, heat dissipation, frequency and multi-layer are much higher than those of 4G.
Yang Zhicheng told China Electronic News that full spectrum intervention, large-scale antenna array (Massive MIMO) and ultra-dense network will be the technical core of realizing 5G network. Accordingly, PCB is also facing technical challenges.
Firstly, the structure and function of radio frequency unit and antenna of base station have changed greatly, which mainly shows that the number of channels of radio frequency unit increases (8 channels rise to 64 channels), corresponding to the increase of PCB area.
The structure of RRU plus antenna unit of 4 G base station equipment is changed to 5 G AAU structure, which integrates RRU and antenna functions, and corresponds to higher integration degree of PCB.
Secondly, in order to achieve ultra-dense network coverage, in addition to spectrum applications below 6GHz in 5G spectrum, 28G and 39G millimeter-wave spectrum resources for hot spot coverage and high-speed transmission with large capacity will be widely used. Therefore, the demand for high-frequency PCB used in high-frequency microwave base stations will increase.
Finally, in order to meet the technical requirements of high-speed transmission, PCBs for data transmission devices such as baseband units, mesh panels, backplanes and servers will use higher-level high-speed copper clad laminates under the 5G network architecture.
"These technical challenges require domestic PCB enterprises to keep abreast of technology and market trends and take a differentiated road in order to build unique competitiveness." Yang Zhicheng said.
In addition, thermal management of PCB products may be particularly important in the future.
"There are not only reasons to adapt to high frequency devices, but also heat dissipation requirements brought about by high power and high power density. With the application of new high thermal conductivity materials, there will be a special demand for PCB with heat dissipation structure. Chen Xingnong, chairman of Shenzhen Mutailai Circuit Technology Co., Ltd., said.
"Large data, cloud computing and other servers need high-level, high-reliability multi-layer board; Internet of Things, intelligent manufacturing, automatic driving and other new technology areas, there will be some special structure, special technical requirements of PCB requirements, may need to use special materials, but also may be different from the traditional PCB special structure. Or a PCB that requires far more precision than the general level.
Deeply Understanding Customer Demands and Taking the Way of Differentiation
With the rapid development of the electronic information industry, the PCB industry continues to grow. The global output of PCB has increased from more than 40 billion US dollars in 2008 to 60 billion US dollars in 2018. The global share of China's PCB industry has also changed dramatically, from less than 10% in 2000 to 30% in 2018 and more than 50% in 2018.
Yang Zhicheng told China Electronic News that in the past 10 years, the focus of PCB industry has been shifting to Asia, and China has become the largest industrial base of PCB in the world. "Nevertheless, in terms of technology level, especially high-end PCB products, there is still a certain gap between domestic PCB enterprises and foreign companies. 5G is a rare opportunity, seize this opportunity, domestic PCB enterprises can catch up with and surpass international large factories in scale, technology, management and other aspects. Zhai Dingshi told reporters.
On January 2 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology formulated the "Standard Conditions for the Printed Circuit Board Industry" and "Interim Measures for the Management of the Standard Announcement of the Printed Circuit Board Industry", which mentioned that PCB enterprises should be encouraged to strengthen top-level design, promote the upgrading of automation equipment, promote the improvement of automation level, and integrate automation, informationization and intellectualization. Wear in all aspects of design, production, management and service.
Encourage enterprises to actively carry out intelligent manufacturing, reduce operating costs, shorten product production cycle and improve production efficiency.
In the 5G era, PCB enterprises in particular should keep pace with the times. "Improve internal efforts in R&D, production and management, increase research and investment in product technology, and constantly meet new requirements of customers and products." Yang Zhicheng said.
Unlike the OEM of standard products, PCB belongs to the customized products serving downstream customers. It is a highly customized product. It needs to have a deeper understanding of the needs of customers.
Zhai Dingshi said that 5G is a technology that develops and innovates from time to time. If we can't keep up with customers'needs and make more thorough and detailed research on products at the same time with customers, it will be difficult to achieve the same progress with the market.
He also emphasized that technical communication with raw material enterprises should be strengthened. Many products in 5G era have high requirements for raw materials and production processes. Only by establishing a good raw material supply system in China, can we steadily and rapidly do a bigger and stronger job in 5G PCB field.
Su Xinhong, deputy director of PCB Research Institute of Zhuhai Founder Printed Circuit Board Development Co., Ltd., cited as an example that enterprises that make printed circuit boards for communication equipment need to study the application of high-speed materials, signal integrity and signal simulation. At the same time, it is necessary to study the high-speed material technology and upgrade the corresponding equipment to meet the requirements of improving the processing accuracy of circuit boards.
