The rising price of raw materials began to spread in the LED industry in the second half of last year. It seems that this trend has not stopped at the beginning of 2017.

Less than one month into 2017, PCB plates have experienced a round of price rise. It is understood that the price of PCB plates has risen by another 5% in this round of price rise. As the new production cycle of electrolytic copper foil requires 2-3 years, the shortage of copper foil for CCL and PCB will be a normal situation in the next 1-2 years.

According to market news, from the first quarter of 2017, the PCB industry from upstream equipment factories, raw material factories to downstream manufacturers has shown off-season performance.

First, the proportion of vehicle board for automotive electronics increased from 0.5 square meters of copper foil substrate to 2 square meters; Second, it is said that in the second half of the year, Apple's new iphone8 will adopt the "substratelike PCB" (SLP) technology with smaller line width and line spacing, which will replace the previous hdipcb technology.

However, as the LED lighting penetration rate enters the final accelerated rising period, and the demand for LED small spacing display screen continues to release, the market demand is strong, and the gradual recovery of the PCB industry will last for a long time.

Compared with the communication, lithium battery and automobile industries, the LED industry has relatively low technical requirements for PCB. At the same time, the reshuffle of small and medium-sized PCB enterprises has led to the compression of overall production capacity. Large manufacturers generally bet on the future production capacity in the communication, lithium battery and automobile industries, which has also had a significant impact on the LED industry.

Since the beginning of 2016, the price of PCB standard copper foil has increased by more than 50%, and the processing fee of copper foil and the selling price of effective copper clad laminate are 100% and 50% higher than the original average level respectively. At the beginning of November 2016, the price of original copper soared to 48000 yuan / ton. As the price of original copper rose by 26%, the driving force of the price rise of electrolytic copper foil was transferred from processing fees to the price of original copper. The overall price of electrolytic copper foil has exceeded 110000 yuan / ton. According to Taiwan media reports, there was another small-scale price increase in copper foil processing fees in January 2017.

A company in the industry said frankly, "the manufacturing enterprises of copper-clad laminates have changed their habit of paying after three to five months of arrival. When purchasing copper foil with cash, the price of copper foil has risen by 20 to 30%, and they have to queue up to order and supply in limited quantities." Plate trading generally takes 90 days to half a year. After the demand for lithium battery copper foil appeared, some manufacturers took cash to buy materials, which indirectly led to vicious competition of rising prices. This has never happened in the more than 30 years of PCB industry development.

Copper foil has been in short supply in the past year. Last March, Jiantao, a large copper clad laminate manufacturer with the highest market share and the greatest influence, first issued a price increase notice. After that, other plate makers followed suit, stimulating the upstream and downstream supply chains to follow up.

At the same time, the shortage of copper foil supply has also led to the rapid rise of other raw materials. It is reported in the industry that the glass fiber thick cloth, another main material of CCL, may rise to 7 yuan / m. The cumulative increase of aluminum substrate and light guide plate is more than 20%, the cumulative increase of FR-4 is more than 40%, and the increase of plastic plate and plastic parts is more than 10%. Even the cartons used for loading are subject to cash transactions.

Copper foil, copper clad laminate and PCB manufacturers have been struggling at the bottom for a long time. No one expected that automotive lithium batteries would be born. This round of raw material rise cycle is so rapid and lasting. This price rise is more caused by the conversion of electronic copper foil production capacity to lithium battery copper foil.

The global production capacity of electronic copper foil is 41000 tons per month, of which more than 8000 tons have been discontinued. As early as three years ago, Japanese enterprises withdrew from the closure of electronic copper foil factories and switched to copper foil for high-speed board, high-frequency, packaging and flexible board. In the whole supply chain, about 12000 tons of electronic copper foil are gone. At present, no matter the new copper foil enterprises or the old copper foil enterprises, all their production expansion is centered on lithium batteries.

In addition, the new demand for PCB in the communication industry is brewing. According to the public schedule of major operators around the world, the commercial time of 5g may be further accelerated. It is understood that at the 2018 Korean Winter Olympics, Korean operators will provide 5g services in advance. Verizon of the United States has also determined the 5g frequency band ahead of time. The Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan in 2020 will also provide 5g services. Therefore, the commercial speed of 5g may be advanced.

As the number and complexity of 5gmimo antennas are much higher than that of 4G active antenna system, higher requirements are put forward for improving antenna integration and reducing assembly difficulty. In addition, due to the need to integrate a certain power in a smaller size, 5g also puts forward higher requirements for the thermal conductivity of materials compared with 4G.

The commercial speed of 5g is accelerating. Compared with 4G, 5g uses higher frequency, which puts forward new technical requirements for low loss, high integration, high consistency and easy processing of RF and Microwave PCB materials.