PCB News - The future development trend of FPC circuit board market

The trend toward miniaturization of electronic equipment has driven the industry's demand for flexible printed circuit boards (FPC), and at the same time put forward higher requirements for FPC. How to technically meet the FPC needs of mobile phones, monitors, and automobiles, and continue to explore new application areas in the market, the industry has given a "good prescription".

As far as the development status of rigid-flex board is concerned, it is actually a relatively mature PCB product for foreign markets. The current situation can be roughly divided into three major areas according to regions. First, the United States, where products are mainly used in military, aerospace and medical fields, and the number of product layers can reach more than 40; secondly, Europe, where product applications are concentrated in automotive electronics, In terms of instrumentation and military aerospace, the overall market size is comparable to that of the North American market; finally, of course, Asia. According to IPC statistics, Japan and South Korea are currently the two largest markets for the manufacture and demand of rigid-flex board products in the world, accounting for approximately More than 50% of the global market is supported by a complete industrial chain. The demand for rigid-flex boards mainly comes from digital consumer products. It has the mass production and processing capabilities of HDI rigid-flex boards with more than 8 layers. The domestic industrial development is mainly concentrated in Taiwan, and the investment and production level of mainland enterprises is not high. The higher number of layers in the production of flexible boards and rigid-flex boards is 8 layers, and there is no blind buried via HDI structure.

The rapid development of the above-mentioned industries has brought opportunities for the development of the rigid-flex board industry mainly in the following aspects:

, There are two major changes in the function of mobile phones that affect the development of rigid-flex boards, movable body design and modular design. In terms of movable body, in the structural design of folding, clamshell, and sliding cover, if the original combination of flexible board, rigid board and connecting components is replaced by rigid-flex board, it can have better product performance. It is also an important application in mobile phone modules, which requires higher transmission capacity and reduces the lack of assembly in mobile phone factories. Therefore, the demand is gradually growing, and its applications include current common camera modules.

Second, DSC and DV are the most widely used rigid-flex boards in consumer electronic products. Because digital electronic products have a large signal transmission volume, rigid-flex boards can have better signal paths, and the design of DSC and DV tends to Small size and high durability, as far as possible to reduce the defect rate caused by the joint assembly, so the rigid-flex board is also a suitable part.

Third, under the trend of automotive electronics, automotive control systems, such as dashboard displays, air quality, audio, monitors, etc., high signal transmission capacity and high reliability requirements, etc. automotive rigid-flex boards, make rigid-flex boards It will begin to show its advantages, so that the functions that can be completed by PCB rigid or soft boards in the past, under the trend of sophisticated components, plus the three-dimensional structure of the car body, the narrow wiring area and the bending of rigid-flex board can better meet the design Requirements.

There are more materials used in the process of making rigid-flex boards, and the physical properties of various materials are also more complicated. The greater difficulty of multilayer boards lies in the control of the alignment accuracy between the layers and the control of the pressing parameters. The main problems that need to be solved are as follows: 1. Swelling and shrinking control: At the same time, there are a variety of materials such as rigid sheet, flexible sheet, pure glue, cover film, and chemical sheet. The expansion and shrinkage characteristics of various materials are different, and the process The subtle differences in the process will cause the expansion and contraction coefficients to be completely different; the pattern density of the rigid-flex board is getting higher and higher, so the requirements for the expansion and contraction control are also very high. Therefore, the problem of expansion and contraction control is the primary problem to be solved in the R&D of rigid-flex board. 2. Fine circuit production: Rigid-flex board with line width/spacing ≤3/3mil, in the process of pattern transfer, to achieve high yield, and its control requirements are very high. 3. Micro-holes and blind-buried holes: mechanical drilling and laser drilling of micro-holes in rigid-flex boards, blind-buried holes, de-drilling, hole wall activation, and hole metallization. 4. The cutting and seam treatment process of the rigid-flexible joint. 5. The optimization of the pressing parameters of the high-multilayer rigid-flex board and the control of the alignment accuracy. Fast company started the R&D and industrialization operation of the entire project from the end of 2003. It has invested more than 10 million yuan in capital and more than 20 R&D personnel. Based on its own FPC board production technology capabilities, the company completed the process development work of the project and built specialized products. String.

Products are widely used in the military, aerospace, medical and communications industries. 50% of the products are sold in overseas markets. The annual output value growth rate has reached more than that, and it has the production capacity of more than 10 layers of rigid-flex boards. In 2007, the "Rigid-Flexible Multilayer PCB R&D and Industrialization" project declared by the company received funding of 4 million yuan. The company is currently planning and constructing a new product line. The project is expected to be put into production in 2017, with an annual output of 50,000 square meters to better meet customer needs.

At present, the FPC industry is still in a stage of steady growth. However, competition in the entire industry is fierce, product prices have fallen sharply, and technical and managerial talents are relatively lacking. The key technologies and advanced management methods of the industry are still in the hands of Japanese and Korean companies. Domestic FPC companies have a big gap with their foreign counterparts in terms of technology, management, and scale. Although there are differences in the time involved, I personally believe that the current situation of internal and external troubles is mainly due to the problem of the concept of domestic enterprise managers, which is reflected in the lack of understanding of the current situation and the poor learning atmosphere. The ancients said: "Know oneself and the enemy, a hundred battles will never end." Put down the arrogance, pick up the domineering, I think it will be another world.

Generally speaking, the rapid development of communications, automobiles, and consumer electronics has brought revolutionary impetus to the development of FPC. In particular, mobile phones, digital cameras, notebook computers and related monitors are in great demand for FPC. At the same time, communications and automobiles have put forward higher requirements on FPC technology and quality, which has promoted the development of FPC technology.

At present, the difficulties we encounter are mainly some technical problems in the production of high-level rigid-flex board, such as expansion and contraction problems, excessive glue overflow after pressing, board appearance processing problems, and special surface treatment process problems, etc.