Compared to our current 4G and 5G download speeds of 1.25GB per second, a high-definition movie in one second.
The arrival of 5G is the beginning of the interconnection of all things in the true sense. 5G will complete the interconnection of all things in the world. With the advent of the 5G era, communication PCBs will also have a great time!
PCB is printed circuit board (Printed Circuit Board), known as “the mother of electronic products”, all electronic equipment or products need to be equipped with PCB boards, so that its downstream demand is continuous and stable, and its industry development level can be to a certain extent It reflects the development speed and technical level of a country or region’s electronic information industry.
Over the past 10 years, the global PCB industry has maintained an average annual compound growth rate of about 4%. In 2017, the global PCB output value was US$58.8 billion, a year-on-year growth rate of 8.60%. China’s PCB output value was US$29.7 billion, a year-on-year growth rate of 9.70%, which is higher than the global growth rate. From the perspective of the regional distribution of PCB output value, the focus of the PCB industry continues to shift to the Asian region, and China has become the most important player in the world’s 5G PCB, accounting for more than 50% of the global PCB output value.
5G PCB upstream is a variety of raw materials for PCB production, mainly including copper clad laminate, copper foil, copper ball, prepreg, gold salt, ink, dry film and other chemical materials. The main raw materials of flexible circuit board also include cover film, electromagnetic film, etc. .
The downstream is mainly used in the fields of computers, communication equipment, industrial control, automotive electronics, consumer electronics and aerospace, with a very wide coverage. Among them, communications, computers, and consumer electronics are the three most important application terminals in the PCB industry, with demand accounting for 27%, 27%, and 14%, which directly affect the development of the upstream PCB industry.
Due to the characteristics of 5G high speed and high frequency, as far as a single base station is concerned, the value of the communication board will also be greatly improved. On the one hand, with the increase of 5G frequency bands, the increase in frequency has led to a significant increase in the number of RF front-end components, and Massive MIMO is integrated on the AAU. The PCB area on the AAU has increased significantly, and the number of layers has increased. The added value of the antenna AAU is added to the PCB board and overlay Copper plate transfer; on the other hand, as 5G transmission data increases significantly, there is a higher requirement for the data processing capability of the base station BBU. The BBU will use a larger area and a higher number of PCBs. The substrate requires high-speed high-frequency materials. According to conservative estimates, the PCB value of a single 5G macro base station is more than double that of 4G.
The number of 5G base stations will increase compared to 4G. According to the public data of China’s three major telecom operators, China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom added 400,000, 380,000, and 340,000 4G base stations in 2016, the total increase To 1.51 million, 890,000, 740,000, a total of about 3.14 million. According to estimates, the number of small base stations in the future will be more than 10 times the current base station market.
