In 2019, the growth rate of the laser processing market has further slowed down. Moreover, the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 has cast a shadow on the development of laser companies. However, in this case, the laser market related to PCB (Printed Circuit Board) processing is still growing. According to the data disclosed by some listed companies, PCB business orders have become the main driving force supporting performance growth. How is the development of the PCB market? And why can it bring huge growth momentum to laser companies?
PCB is one of the important components of the electronics industry, used in almost all electronic products, and its main function is to realize the electrical interconnection between various components. The PCB is composed of an insulating bottom plate, connecting wires and pads for assembling and soldering electronic components, and has the dual functions of conductive lines and insulating bottom plates. Its manufacturing quality can directly affect the reliability of electronic products. It is the basic industry of today’s electronic information product manufacturing, and it is also the industry with the largest output value in the global electronic component industry.
The application market of PCB is very extensive, including consumer electronics, automotive electronics, communications, medical, military, aerospace, etc.. At present, consumer electronics and automotive electronics are developing rapidly and become the main areas of PCB applications. For a long time, the global PCB output value was mainly concentrated in North America, Europe, Japan and other regions. After 2000, the center of PCB industry began to shift to the Asian region, especially to the Chinese market. In 2009, China’s PCB industry accounted for about 1/3 of the world’s output value, and by 2017 it had reached 50.5%, accounting for half of the global PCB output value.
In 2019, affected by trade frictions, declining terminal demand and exchange rate depreciation, the global PCB output value declined slightly. However, the Chinese market is still growing due to the rapid development of 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet Of Things Application Technology. According to Prismark data, the size of China’s PCB market in 2019 was approximately US$32.9 billion, accounting for 53.7% of the global total.
In the PCB application of consumer electronics, FPC has the fastest development speed, and its share in the PCB market has been increasing. FPC is the abbreviation of Flexible Printed Circuit (Flexible Printed Circuit). It is made of polyimide (PI, also known as PI cover film in the industry) or polyester film with high reliability. In the current trend of intelligent, light and thin mobile electronic products, FPC is widely used due to its advantages of high density, light weight, thin thickness, bending resistance, flexible structure, high temperature resistance, etc., and has become the only solution to current requirement for miniaturization and mobility of electronic products. .
The fast-growing PCB market has fostered a huge derivative market. With the development of laser technology, laser processing has gradually replaced the traditional die-cutting process and has become an important part of the PCB industry chain. Therefore, in the context of the overall slowdown in the laser market, the PCB-related laser product business can still maintain high growth.
