Raw material prices tide from the second half of last year in the LED industry spread. this trend seems to open in 2017 and didn’t stop the trend.

Into 2017 only less than 1 month, PCB board has gone through a round of price increases, it’s understood that PCB plate prices in this round of tide prices rose again 5%. As the new production capacity of electrolytic copper foil, the production cycle takes 2-3 years, so in the next 1-2 years, CCL and PCB with copper shortages will be normal.

LED PCB market Demand

According to market sources, from the first quarter of 2017, the PCB industry from the upstream equipment factory. raw material factory to the downstream manufacturers are showing off-season performance is not short.

First, the proportion of automotive electronics with the cardboard increased from 0.5 ㎡of copper foil substrate rose to 2㎡; Second, the second half of the Apple iPhone8 will be used to select the new line width, line spacing smaller “class board” (Substrate Like-PCB, referred to as SLP) technology, which will replace the previous HDI PCB technology.

With the LED lighting penetration into the final accelerated rise, coupled with the LED small-footprint display demand continued to release, strong market demand, PCB industry, the market will gradually pick up for a long time.

LED Procurement Costs Rise

As compared to communications, lithium batteries and automotive industry, LED industry on the PCB’s technical requirements are relatively low. while small and medium-sized PCB enterprises shuffle led to the overall capacity compression. manufacturers generally bet on the future production capacity in the communications. lithium batteries and automotive, Thus causing no significant impact on the LED industry.

From the beginning of 2016, PCB standard copper prices have risen more than 50%, copper foil processing fees and effective CCL price than the original average were 100% and 50% higher. In early November 2016, the price of copper fell soared to 48,000 yuan/ton. Due to the price of raw copper rose 26%, electrolytic copper prices driven by the processing fee transferred to the original copper price. the overall price of electrolytic copper has exceeded 110,000 yuan/ton, Mark. According to Taiwan media reported that in January 2017 copper foil processing fees and a small price increase.

Reasons for Rising Procurement Costs

There are industry companies frankly, “copper-clad plate production enterprises. a change in the past three or five months after the arrival of the habit of payment. With cash procurement of copper foil. copper prices rose 20 to 30%, have to line up orders Limited supply. “Sheet metal transactions generally 90 days to half a year. lithium battery demand after the emergence of some manufacturers to take cash to buy material phenomenon. indirectly caused by the vicious competition in the price rise in the PCB circuit board industry . development of more than 30 years There is never been a thing.

• Copper foil in the past 1 year in short supply. in March last year, the highest market share. the most influential CCL manufacturers Jedao first issued price notice. the other plate business have followed up. to stimulate the upstream and downstream supply chain is also comprehensive follow up.
• Copper foil supply shortage also led to other raw materials rose rapidly. the industry came the news that CCL another main material fibreglass thick cloth may have to rise to 7 yuan / m. aluminium plate, light guide plate cumulative increase of about 20%. FR- 4 cumulative increase of more than 40%, plastic sheet, plastic pieces rose more than 10%. and even loaded with the carton also cash transactions.
• Copper foil, CCL, and PCB manufacturers have long struggled in the bottom. who didn’t expect the car lithium battery turned out. this round of raw material rise cycle so fast and lasting. the price tide is more electronic copper production capacity to Lithium copper foil caused by lithium.

Future Trends

The world can make 41,000 tons of electronic copper per month. but more than 8,000 tons have  stopped. Japanese companies as early as three years ago has been out of the closure of electronic copper foil factory. converting high-speed plate dedicated copper foil. high-frequency special copper foil, copper foil package. a soft board dedicated copper foil. There are about 12,000 tons of electronic copper foil that are no longer in the supply chain as a whole. At present. Whether it is a new copper foil business or the old copper business. they carried out all of the expansion. All around the lithium battery to expand production.

Also, the communications industry’s new demand for PCB is beginning to brew. The world’s largest public schedule operators may hasten 5G commercial time. South Korean operators will deploy 5G before the 2018 Korean Winter Games. Verizon in the United States has also been the first to determine the 5G band, the Tokyo 2008 Tokyo Olympic Games will also provide 5G business, so 5G commercial speed may be ahead of time.

As the number and complexity of the 5GMiMO antenna are much higher than the 4G active antenna system. So for the improvement of antenna integration, reduce the difficulty of assembly made a higher demand. Besides, due to the need for a smaller size in the integration of a certain power. 5G relative to the thermal conductivity of the material for 4G also put forward higher requirements.

5G commercial speed is accelerating, relative to 4G, 5G due to the use of higher frequency. The RF microwave PCB material low loss, high integration, high consistency, easy processing put forward new technical requirements.