PCB News - Automotive PCB Industry: Smart Electric Drives Towards a Bright Future

Automotive PCB Industry: Smart Electric Drives Towards a Bright Future

Automotive PCB demand is increasing year by year

Automobiles are the fourth largest downstream application of PCBs. In 2018, the global output value of PCBs for automobiles was approximately US$7.6 billion. With consumers’ increasing requirements for automotive functionality and safety, and the increasing degree of automotive electronics, the automotive PCB market has benefited. In the past ten years, the demand for automotive PCBs has increased from 3.8% to 12.2%, achieving a high level. The average growth rate of the PCB industry.
Electrification + intelligence accelerates automotive electronics, and the automotive PCB market is expected to double in seven years
New energy vehicles and smart cars are the new blue ocean of automotive electronics, opening up a broad room for growth in both volume and price for the automotive PCB market. Compared with traditional vehicles, the new energy vehicle power system has newly added electronic components such as on-board chargers, battery management systems (BMS), voltage conversion systems (DC-DC, inverters, etc.), high-voltage and low-voltage devices, and the degree of electronicization is greatly The improvement drives the increase in the amount of PCB used in vehicles. In addition, with the widespread application of intelligent assisted driving and the future of unmanned driving, although the era of unmanned driving is far away, PCBs in automotive active safety systems have a bright future. We estimate that by 2025, the global automotive electronics PCB market will reach 100 billion yuan, nearly doubling from 2018.

Moving towards the new, grasping Tesla's supply chain
The technical difficulty of automotive-grade products, coupled with the stable characteristics of the automotive supply chain, is a high barrier for manufacturers to enter the automotive supply chain. Once they enter, they will have a demonstration effect. Therefore, they are the first PCB manufacturers to enter the supply chain of leading automotive companies. Worthy of attention.
Risk warning: The auto industry's boom is less than expected; the sales volume of new energy vehicles is lower than expected; the progress of automobile intelligence is lower than expected; exchange rate risks.
1. Automotive electronics is one of the important needs of the PCB market
In recent years, innovation in the automotive industry has mainly focused on automotive electronics. On the one hand, European and American regulations on environmental protection and safety have promoted the assembly of automotive electronics. On the other hand, the rise of consumer electronics has prompted consumers to become more interested in in-vehicle communications and entertainment. Increased demand for functions has continuously increased the penetration rate of automotive electronics. In addition, the advent of the new four modernizations of automobiles, especially electrification and intelligence, will further strengthen the trend of automotive electronics, and the automotive electronics PCB industry will usher in a development opportunity for both volume and price.
1.1 The mother of electronic products-PCB
Printed Circuit Board(PCB), also known as printed circuit board, printed circuit board, is an electronic printing method, which is etched on the surface of the insulating and non-flexible copper clad laminate, leaving a small mesh Lines make various electronic components form a predetermined circuit connection, and achieve the relay transmission between electronic components and electronic components.
PCB is a substrate for assembling electronic parts, a key interconnection of electronic products, and a provider of electrical connections for electronic components. Most electronic equipment and products are required to be equipped and are called the "mother of electronic products." The manufacturing quality of PCB not only directly affects the reliability of electronic products, but also affects the overall competitiveness of system products. The development level of its industry can reflect the development speed and technical level of a country or region's electronic information industry to a certain extent.
There are many types of PCB products, generally divided into rigid circuit boards, flexible boards and rigid-flex boards. In automotive circuit boards, traditional single-layer PCBs, double-layer PCBs and multilayer PCBs are widely used. In recent years, the wide application of HDI has also become the first choice for automotive electronic products.
The PCB industry is mainly distributed in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, China, Taiwan and other regions. Before 2000, the three major regions of America, Europe, and Japan accounted for more than 70% of global PCB production. However, in the past ten years, due to the advantages of labor, resources, policies, and industrial agglomeration, the global electronics manufacturing Asian regions such as Taiwan and South Korea moved. In 2006, China surpassed Japan to become the largest production base in the global PCB industry. In 2018, China's PCB output value was 32.6 billion U.S. dollars, and the global PCB output value was 63.5 billion U.S. dollars. my country's market share accounted for 51.3%.
The most important upstream raw material of PCB is copper clad laminate, which is widely used downstream. From the perspective of the industry as a whole, the cost of raw materials accounts for more than half of the cost of PCB production, of which copper clad laminate is the most important raw material, and other raw materials include copper foil, copper balls, prepreg, gold salt, ink, dry film and other chemical materials, etc. . PCB downstream applications are extensive, so the cyclical fluctuations in demand are relatively weak. The downstream industries mainly include computers, communication equipment, industrial control, automotive electronics, consumer electronics, and aerospace.
1.2 The automotive supply chain has high thresholds and strong stability, strengthening the first-mover advantage of supporting enterprises
The reliability and safety requirements of automobiles are higher, so the threshold for entering the automobile supply chain is higher. Due to the special working environment, safety and high current requirements of the car, it has very strict requirements on the reliability and environmental adaptability of the PCB. If a supplier wants to enter the automotive supply chain, it must pass a series of verification tests, such as ISO/TS16949 certification, and the certification cycle generally takes 1-2 years.
1.3 The proportion of PCB demand from automobiles has increased year by year
Automobiles are the fourth largest downstream application of PCBs. In 2018, about 12% of global PCB demand came from automobiles. According to Prismark statistics, in 2009, the output value of automotive PCB products accounted for 3.8% of the overall PCB output value. By 2018, the proportion has increased significantly to 12.0%, with an output value of approximately US$7.6 billion. Benefiting from the rapid growth of downstream automotive electronics demand, the annual growth rate of automotive electronics PCB is faster than the overall industry level. In 2018, the output value of automotive electronics PCB achieved a year-on-year growth rate of 8.4%, which was higher than the 6% growth of the PCB industry.
Automotive electronics have diversified requirements for PCBs, with high-volume and low-price products coexisting with high-reliability/safety requirements. In the dashboard, car audio, driving computer and other application environments, a large number of hard boards are used; in the engine room, due to the high temperature environment and the heat dissipation requirements of LED light sources, the proportion of heat dissipation substrates is relatively high; in high-frequency transmission and wireless radar detection In the test, low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) are widely used.
The automotive supply chain has strong stability and leading supporting enterprises have first-mover advantages. Due to the high barriers to entry for automotive PCBs, car manufacturers generally do not change certified suppliers at will. Therefore, once manufacturers can smoothly enter the supply chain of major international manufacturers, they will not only bring long-term stable orders to the company, but the high-threshold industrial characteristics will strengthen the company's first-mover advantage.