PCB News - PCB industry celebrities ask 5G to discuss the future opportunities and challenges of the industry

In the “Ask about 5G” section of the conference, CPCA was specially invited by the chairman of Lei, Mr. Liu Shufeng, Chairman of Shengyi Technology, Mr. Liu Zhe, Chief Engineer of ZTE Corporation, Dr. Jiang Xugao, Partner of Prismark, and Mr. Sun Rui, Dean of Founder PCB Research Institute. Honourable guests shared their insights on hot issues in the 5G era, which became a highlight of this conference! This session was hosted by Ms. Liu Wei, general manager of PCB Information Network.

The following is a compilation of the exciting content of this session:

CPCA Chairman from Lei said that since the beginning of this year, we have made it clear that the PCB industry in the 5G era is a growth industry that is worth looking forward to. At the same time, some supporting industries have experienced growth in varying degrees. Under this circumstance, many companies in our industry are actively expanding their production capacity. For example, Founder PCB and many electronic circuit companies in Guangdong Province are the first representatives to devote themselves to the field of Chinese communications. These companies may start from 2G. Up to the present 5G, they have accumulated a lot of experience and experience in the development along the way. In the face of the advent of the 5G era, they may have an advantage in grasping this opportunity.

He also reminded everyone that it is not only necessary to pay attention to the needs of operators, but also to pay more attention to the needs brought by some application scenarios based on the popularization of the future, and this market demand is broader. He suggested that everyone better integrate technology, trends, and future production capacity with the actual needs of customers, instead of mismatching some products.

He believes that we can open up our thinking a little bit more, pay more attention to our market segments, and strive to become a leader in the market segments, so that we can better respond to the arrival of the 5G era.

Mr. Liu Shufeng, Chairman of Shengyi Technology, put forward his analysis and insights on the new requirements and challenges that the 5G era has put forward to material vendors.
He said that from the perspective of our materials, we divide the 5G material into narrow and broad terms. The narrow meaning is the materials mainly used for the construction of macro base stations; the broad meaning is that when our 5G basic station construction is completed, there will be a large number of application scenarios. At that time, 5G will continue to provide our industry with a large number of opportunities and market.

Afterwards, he focused on sharing narrow 5G materials. He said that base station antennas, power amplifiers, radio frequency and other fields require the use of higher frequency and higher transmission speed electronic substrates. With the increase of antennas, the increase in frequency bands and the increase in frequency, 5G base stations have a high frequency and high speed copper clad laminate (CCL) Demand has increased substantially. However, Shengyi Technology has made long-term research and preparations for this, and has developed related products and is fortunate to be recognized by customers.

He also pointed out that in the research and development process, we must first consider factors such as the signal integrity and loss of the terminal product, so the selection of materials is relatively special. For example, higher requirements are put forward in aspects such as processability, which will increase the difficulty in the process of PCB processing related 5G materials.

He said that since 5G materials need to pursue signal integrity and other requirements, a lot of effort is needed in raw materials and process control. He also pointed out that 5G materials consume a lot of energy due to changes in performance, and put forward higher requirements for the stability of product quality.

He believes that how to ensure the stability of 5G materials is a difficulty that materials vendors will face, and they are also working hard to develop a variety of new materials, hoping to solve the problem through this development. At the same time, 5G technology continues to advance, and terminal products and PCBs continue to put forward various new requirements for them. How to continuously update and iterate on current products is also a challenge facing material vendors.

With the advent of the 5G era, everyone is deploying 5G, and some industry players are worried about whether this will cause overcapacity. Dr. Jiang Xugao of Prismark answered this question based on what he knew.

He said that at this point in time, there is no problem of overcapacity. According to what they have observed, some key products in the supply chain are actually out of stock. He pointed out that 5G has three biggest impacts on the PCB industry. One is high frequency, the other is high speed, and the third is that 5G can bring unlimited imagination. Under such a scenario, the required PCBs are available. higher requirement.

He believes that at the beginning of this year, everyone was not ready, and did not expect that the 5G era will come so soon. Faced with the huge opportunities brought by 5G, only a few companies are really prepared, so in 2019 they are operating. Significant increase, especially the representatives of several domestic companies, saw the statistics in the morning, and the growth rate of several companies reached 20 to 30% from the first quarter to the third quarter.

However, at this point in time, most companies are ill-prepared to deal with the 5G era. Even if they have begun to deploy 5G, there may be problems such as poor quality. This shows that there is currently no overcapacity phenomenon. He pointed out that there may be some problems like this in two or three years. He believes that the PCB industry should have more improvements in technology and production capacity.

During the sharing, Dr. Jiang also shared his insights on the changes in the global PCB industry layout and industrial form. Especially in the face of Sino-US trade frictions, many people will wonder whether China’s electronics industry has reached a turning point after the development of the past two to three decades. China’s PCB industry accounts for more than half of global manufacturing, and whether it needs to do something in the future. Adjustment. In this regard, he said that according to the data he saw in the morning, there is only one region in the world where PCB manufacturing is growing, and that is China.

Now that the 5G era is coming, the communications industry is precisely the strength of China's electronics industry, so it is definitely a very positive impact on China's electronics industry and PCB industry. He believes that the PCB industry is still competitive in manufacturing in China, and the PCB industry will continue to take root especially in the communications industry.

At present, the growth of overall manufacturing in China is beginning to slow down, showing an increase in domestic capital and a decline in foreign capital. There will be some transfers to other regions, but this transfer does not seem to change significantly at present, because the entire supply chain is relatively complete in China. But he also said that the domestic development in the next few years is not to say that it is great for everyone, because the transformation brought by 5G involves two important links, one is the improvement of quality, and the other is whether the technology can meet the demand. If this is not possible, in fact, it may not be possible to grasp such an opportunity in the next few years.

He believes that China will still be a major PCB town, and China will continue to play a key role in the PCB industry. 5G will bring many opportunities. He believes that the overall PCB industry will continue to develop well in China in the next few years. Contains materials, includes HDI, includes carrier board, etc.

In terms of quantity, comparing 5G and 4G at present, the number of 5G is nearly three times that of 4G. The increase in quantity actually requires a large investment for operators, which means that if operators want to recover costs, A big challenge.

Another aspect is energy consumption. Because 5G requires a highly integrated, multifunctional, and high-density design, it will inevitably have a relatively large energy consumption. Compared with 4G, 5G will consume three times the energy consumption, and the cost will naturally increase accordingly. At present, the country has been inclined in policy in response to this situation. In some places, there will be a certain discount on the electricity price of 5G base stations. This is a relatively good phenomenon. In addition, our industry must also consider how to upgrade technology to adjust for changes in energy consumption. This is very important.

There is also a cost issue. In the 5G era, the characteristics of 5G products have led to a significant increase in the operating costs of operators. This increased cost will inevitably be apportioned to users. The increase in user costs will make users less willing to purchase 5G products. strong. In response to these problems, Mr. Chen shared the company's efforts and results. He said that from the current point of view, the correct solution has been recognized by the operators.

And Mr. Sun Rui, Dean of Founder PCB Research Institute, reported to you the specific research and development preparations Founder PCB Research Institute has made in response to this new era.

He introduced that Founder PCB has been involved in circuit board manufacturing for 33 years. In the past 30 years, Founder PCB has always focused on the manufacturing of circuit boards in the communications industry. Its products mainly focus on two major types of core customers. Dell's main communications equipment customer. Founder PCB, the high-frequency and high-speed product mentioned by the experts, is also available to customers.

The second category is consumer terminal customers, such as Huawei terminals, VIVO, Amazon, etc., mainly to provide some such high-density, high-complexity HDI products for mobile phones, tablet computers, and wearable electronics.

He said that Founder PCB Research Institute was established in 2008 and is the first research organization in the industry that specializes in PCB material process research, including the transformation and implementation of some industry-university-research results.

Since 2008, Founder PCB, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and some other universities have jointly established the Technology Research Institute. It has a history of more than 10 years. Founder PCB has several factories that produce different products, including communication equipment and high-level PCB factories, and HDI sales terminal factories, which are distributed in different regions. The research institute and the company's factories are closely coordinated and closely coordinated. Meet the needs of core customers, and do research and reserve of materials and processes for customers in advance.