Recently, LED-related listed companies have released their first three quarters of this year's performance estimates. Among them, sapphire companies are particularly eye-catching. Benefiting from the development of LED, the performance of sapphire companies generally rose, and the growth rate of Antai Technology even reached 1335.98%.
Sapphire has always been the best material for LED substrates. With the development of communication, IoT technology and intelligentization, it has been more and more widely applied to the protective glass of mobile phones and wearable electronic devices, which greatly increased the demand of the sapphire market. Due to the increasing sapphire application and the strong stimulation of the LED lighting market, the sapphire point “stone†has accelerated into “goldâ€.
LED substrate demand is rising steadily
The sapphire here refers to the general name of artificial corundum gemstones other than red gems, and the main component is alumina. It is an ideal substrate material due to its excellent mechanical and thermal properties such as high hardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance and high temperature resistance, and is widely used in photovoltaic elements.
According to the French Yole statistics, the application of sapphire substrate materials accounts for about 75%, and the application of non-substrate materials accounts for about 25%. Among them, the substrate material is mainly used for semiconductor illumination substrate materials and SOS related products, wherein the LED substrate material accounts for about 95% or more.
As an upstream industry for LED chips, the sapphire substrate market depends on the demand for LED epitaxial wafers. In other words, if the chip demand is high, the substrate market is good; once the chip market is sluggish, the substrate demand will shrink a lot.
Driven by the LED lighting market, in order to stabilize market share and demand for lighting market, the production capacity of major chip manufacturers' epitaxial wafers expanded rapidly in 2014, and domestic first-line LED chip manufacturers such as Huacan, Sanan and Tongfang accelerated production expansion and increased production capacity. Utilization, to seize the market, further drive the demand for sapphire substrates.
Take Sanan Optoelectronics as an example. In 2014, the monthly demand for two-inch sapphire substrates was about 420,000 pieces. At this stage, there are still active expansion plans. It is estimated that if 100 units are put into production in 2015, the monthly production capacity will reach 650,000. sheet.
However, this is only the beginning. At present, LED lighting has entered the golden development period of three years, and demand has entered a stage of rapid growth, which will continue to drive the rapid growth of the industry. According to HISResearch, it is estimated that by 2015, the overall LED chip market will reach 12.6 billion US dollars, further driving the rapid growth of LED sapphire market demand.
Stimulated by the strong demand in the lighting market, the sapphire market once again showed a market boom, especially the price of crystal rods continued to be optimistic: the price of the 2-inch sapphire crystal rod was maintained at around US$5/mm, while the price of the largest 2-inch substrate rebounded to 8 dollars, slightly higher than before, the price of a 4-inch sapphire substrate is five or six times that of 2 inches.
At this stage, sapphire accounts for about 10% of the cost. As the replacement rate of LED chips above 4 inches is rapidly increasing, the sapphire application size gradually transitions from 2 inches to 4 inches or even 6 inches. At the same time, the large-size ingot can reduce the loss of raw materials. The 6-inch wafer is 10-12 times larger than the 2-inch wafer. However, the geometric area is increased by only 9 times that of the 2-inch wafer, which can reduce the production cost and expand the product. The scope of application.
According to YoleDevelopment's forecast, in 2015, the demand for sapphire wafers above 4 inches will reach 82% of the entire industry. Therefore, companies with large-scale sapphire production capacity or companies that have large-scale areas in advance will benefit.
As the LED chip accelerates to a 4-inch substrate, the 4-inch substrate will remain stable and bullish for a certain period of time, while the 2-inch substrate will usher in a gradual decline in prices. In this regard, Tian Yue shares market director Guo Yuebo said: "In the future, the profitability of the 4-inch sapphire substrate investment project will be further enhanced. Tiantong's LED sapphire substrate products will be mainly positioned on 4, 6-inch large-size substrates ."
Consumer electronics into the blue ocean of the market
Relatively mature in the LED substrate market, the hardness is second only to diamond sapphire, as a protective material began to be widely used in mobile phones and other consumer electronics.
The sapphire was imported into the lens cover by the Apple iPhone5, and used by the iPhone5S for the Home button, and then used as the front window material for this year's iWatch. APPLE's next goal may be to consider applying sapphire materials to more products. At the same time, Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, VIVO, and Coca-Cola are also actively considering the use of sapphire mobile phone covers.
Many brokers have clearly pointed out that consumer electronics, represented by screen-protected glass and mobile phone lenses, will open up new growth potential for sapphire. If the global smartphone is calculated at 1.658 billion in 2016, the mobile lens sapphire application penetration rate is 80%, the Home button sapphire application penetration rate is 25%, and the mobile phone screen sapphire application penetration rate is 15%, the sapphire application market has more space. 5 billion US dollars will be more than 5 times that of LED substrate materials.
As a supplier of sapphire materials to Apple's traditional cover processing plant, Lansi Technology and Berne Optics, Orient claims that only iWatch, the company's 2015 2-inch crystal rod has signed the actual number of orders reached 30 million mm, forecast 2016 to The growth rate of sales in 2018 was 100%, 33%, and 19%, respectively.
Via In Pad PCB
What is Via In Pad? In shortly,via in pad is the via holes are at the SMD pad.The vias are very small,usually under 0.3mm.Why and how? First is there is no enough space to layout,you have to put the vias and holes closer even together.Second it helps thermal management and for high frequency boards,it may help improve signals.
Because the SMD pads are for SMD components loading,so the solder can not flow to inner layer or the other side when assemble.That is the most important for via in pad board.
How PCB manufacturers like us to do via in pad board? We will fill all vias with non-conductive epoxy and plate copper over it ,so the vias are flat same as others. Many PCB factories are unable to do such capability.
The key technology is how we fill vias and guarantee there is no any solder (surface finishing) in the holes.
Filled via in pad is a way to achieve intermediate density with an intermediate cost compared to using blind/buried vias. Some of the key advantages associated with using the via in pad technology are:
.Fan out fine pitch (less than .75mm) BGAs
.Meets closely packed placement requirements
.Better thermal management
.Overcomes high speed design issues and constraints i.e. low inductance
.No via plugging is required at component locations
.Provides a flat, coplanar surface for component attachment
Via in big pads are not a big problem.but for BGA,that is technology.As BGA pads are very small,10mil or 12mil,and there is no enough space.Manufacturing is not easy as other boards.
Via In Pad PCB
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