- What is a polyimide printed circuit board?
- What are the characteristics of polyimide printed circuit boards?
- In what fields are polyimide printed circuit boards generally used?
- Finally
What is a polyimide printed circuit board?
Polyimide printed circuit board, or FPC, is a highly reliable and excellent flexible printed circuit board made of polyimide or polyester film as the substrate. It is used in many cell phones, notebooks, and other electronic products and is the cornerstone of integrated circuit semiconductors.
Polyimide printed circuit board is an important type of PCB, with the advantages of high wiring density, lightweight, thin thickness, foldable and bendable, Etc. Automotive polyimide printed circuit board has high barriers in customer certification, product process, technology, Etc., and has a broad application prospect in lighting, power battery, intelligent cockpit, and other modules.
What are the characteristics of polyimide printed circuit boards?
The traditional internal connection method is much cheaper if the circuit design is relatively simple, the total volume is not large, and the space is suitable. If the circuit is complex, handles many signals, or has special electrical or mechanical performance requirements, polyimide printed circuit boards are a better design choice. The polyimide printed circuit board assembly method is the most economical when the application’s size and performance exceed a rigid circuit’s capabilities. Flexible circuits with 12 mil pads with 5 mils through holes inside and 3 mil lines and spacing can be made on a single film. Therefore, direct chip placement on film is more reliable. Because no flame retardant may be a source of ionic drill contamination, these films may be protective and cured at higher temperatures to get a higher glass transition temperature. The cost savings of flexible materials compared to rigid materials is due to the elimination of connectors.
The high cost of raw materials is the main reason for the high price of polyimide printed circuit boards. The price of raw materials varies widely, with the lowest-cost polyester flexible circuits costing 1.5 times more than the raw materials used in rigid circuits; high-performance polyimide flexible circuits are four times more expensive or higher. At the same time, the material’s flexibility makes it difficult to automate processing during manufacturing, resulting in lower yields; defects are prone to occur during final assembly, including peeling off flex attachments and broken lines. Such conditions are more likely to occur when the design is unsuitable for the application. Under high stresses caused by bending or forming, the choice of reinforcing or strengthening materials is often required. Despite its high raw material cost and manufacturing hassles, the foldable, bendable, and multi-layered assembly board features will reduce overall assembly size and a subsequent reduction in materials used, resulting in a lower total assembly cost.
The polyimide printed circuit board industry is amid small but rapid growth. The polymer thick film method is also an efficient, low-cost production process. This process selectively screens conductive polymer inks on inexpensive, flexible substrates. The representative flexible substrate is PET. Polymer thick film conductors include screen-printed metal fillers or toner fillers. The polymer thick film method is inherently clean, uses lead-free SMT adhesives, and does not require etching. Because it uses an additive process and low substrate cost, a polymer thick film circuit is 1/10 of the copper polyimide film circuit; 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of rigid circuit boards. The polymer thick film method is particularly suitable for device control panels. In cell phones and other portable products, the thick polymer film is suitable for converting components, switches, and lighting devices on printed circuit boards to polymer thick film circuits. It saves cost and reduces energy consumption at the same time.
Generally speaking, polyimide printed circuit boards cost more than rigid circuits at a higher expense. When manufacturing polyimide printed circuit boards, in many cases, one has to face the fact that many parameters are out of tolerance. The difficulty in manufacturing polyimide printed circuit boards lies in the material’s flexibility.
In what fields are polyimide printed circuit boards generally used?
1、Widely used in the field of robotics
According to Anpllopcb research, high-precision polyimide printed circuit boards have a wide potential space and high barriers to entry in the field of consumer-grade humanoid robots.
(1) Sensory and actuation level, both hands and feet, and their small joints may require up to 20 highest precision polyimide printed circuit boards equipped with a full range of sensors. Its bare board value volume may equal or exceed the soft board of 1 iPhone 14pro.
(2) limb torso level, 8 medium width high precision polyimide printed circuit boards, also carrying all kinds of sensors, and components, which need all kinds of signal lines aggregated common line, the value of the bare board will be more than 2 iPhone14pro.
(3) the main torso level of the robot need a large area of large width and high precision polyimide printed circuit board; its bare board value may be equivalent to a Tesla.
(4) The head area and bare board value amount should equal 1.5 Apple MR.
According to the above estimation, the ASP of polyimide printed circuit board for a consumer humanoid robot (after playing parts) is about 500 USD (the above analysis is only for the bare board). The global market size after volume release is roughly $5 billion. Due to the extremely high requirements for precision, reliability, and high precision hitting ability, the main global supplier is expected not to exceed 3. In the long run, the profit contribution of this business to the industry-leading company may be equivalent to the current Apple business.
2、Broad prospects in the field of consumer electronics
Almost all the components on the smartphone need a polyimide printed circuit board that will be connected to the motherboard. The amount of polyimide printed circuit boards in smartphones has gradually increased due to the demand for internal space. The trend of increasing polyimide printed circuit board usage can be seen in the internal polyimide printed circuit board usage of Apple phones and Android phones (Huawei). It is also expected that the use of high-value polyimide printed circuit board antennas (MPI, LCP) for the next generation iPhone14 will also increase, which in turn will lead to a simultaneous increase in the value of polyimide printed circuit boards. With many famous brands planning to launch heavy VR new products, 2023 is expected to become a big year of VR, and polyimide printed circuit board usage will further increase.
3、There is a huge demand in the field for new energy vehicles
The electrification and intelligence of new energy vehicles have become the biggest trend in the industry, driven by the policy on top and the consumer upgrade and technology revolution on the bottom.
In the early stage of development, the power battery is dominated by traditional wiring harness (composed of multiple copper wires and external surrounding plastic), mainly because the cost and reliability of polyimide printed circuit board are not perfect. Still, with the continuous development of technology, the cost of polyimide printed circuit boards has been reduced, reliability has been perfected in recent years, and the trend of replacing traditional wiring harnesses is becoming more and more obvious. Ningde Times and BYD have applied polyimide-printed circuit boards in pack link, and Xinwanda, Tesla, and Guoxuan High Tech have also started to apply polyimide-printed circuit boards. More enterprises are expected to use polyimide-printed circuit boards in the future. The price of an automotive polyimide printed circuit board on persimmon is about 60 yuan/pc, and the new energy models are generally about 10 modules. The polyimide printed circuit board is projected to replace the traditional main harness, bringing an incremental value of about 600 yuan per vehicle.
The main driving force for the increase of automotive polyimide printed circuit board usage contains.
1) The trend of replacing wiring harnesses with polyimide printed circuit boards for vehicles.
2) The penetration of new energy vehicles, whose PCB usage is 5-8 times that of traditional vehicles.
It is expected that from 2016-2022, the annual growth rate of automotive polyimide printed circuit boards will be about 6%~9%; the scale of automotive polyimide printed circuit boards will increase to 7 billion yuan in 2022. According to iFixit data, it is expected that the usage of polyimide printed circuit boards for new energy vehicles will exceed 100 pieces, among which the usage of battery voltage monitoring polyimide printed circuit boards can be as high as 70 pieces. At present, major companies are actively expanding the production capacity of automotive flexible boards and actively expanding customers.
Finally
Anpllopcb is a professional service company mainly engaged in the design, R&D, manufacturing, and selling of various types of printed circuit boards, focusing on providing a full range of PCB products and services to industry-leading customers. According to downstream applications, our PCB products can be classified into communication boards, consumer electronics, computer boards, and automotive/server and other boards, and are widely used in downstream products such as cell phones, network devices, tablet PCs, wearable devices, notebook computers, servers/storage, and automotive electronics.