In June this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China issued 5G commercial licenses, marking China's official entry into the first year of 5G commercialization. On August 23rd, the completion ceremony of the new factory and the entry of the first batch of imported production lines for the 5G high-frequency and high-speed flexible copper clad laminate project of Jiangyin Junchi Composite Materials Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangyin Junchi") were grandly held. This marks that the 5G high-frequency and high-speed flexible copper clad laminate project of Jiangyin Junchi has officially entered the production preparation stage. It is expected that after the project is officially put into production in December this year, it will break the monopoly and blockade of foreign high-end materials, complete the localization of products and achieve technological surpassing and leading, thereby promoting the development of 5G in China to accelerate.
It is reported that the new project of Jiangyin Junchi ultra-thin high-frequency flexible copper clad laminate is planned to have a total investment of 800 million yuan. It officially started construction in August 2018, with a new modern factory covering an area of 50,000 square meters. It is expected to officially start production in December 2019. After the project reaches its full production capacity, it can achieve an annual output of 15 million square meters of ultra-thin high-frequency flexible copper clad laminates, which will effectively alleviate the tight demand for high-frequency and high-speed flexible copper clad laminates for 5G in China.
It is understood that copper clad laminate is one of the strategic emerging materials industries and encouraged and supported projects in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan. For its production process, the industry generally uses the pressing method. Copper foil double-sided substrates can be made by purchasing materials, but the raw materials are in the hands of the manufacturers, so neither the price nor the technology can be controlled. Jiangyin Junchi possesses the core technology of high-frequency and high-speed flexible copper clad laminate for 5G. Its self-made adhesive material can fully replace the old technology, significantly reducing costs and effectively ensuring product quality. It is mainly used in the production of printed circuit boards (PCBS). It can be widely applied in multiple industry fields such as aerospace, signal base stations, military radars, semiconductors, medical and health care, new energy vehicles, driverless technology, artificial intelligence, communications, smart phones, and smart cities. Our products are becoming thinner and more frequent, which is something that other competitors do not have. This has greatly enhanced our market competitiveness.
Huang Nankun, the general manager of Jiangyin Junchi, introduced that due to the greater data volume and transmission frequency of 5G, as well as the higher working frequency band, the number of macro base stations required for 5G networks has increased, and it is expected to reach 6 million. The AAU of 5G base stations requires the use of high-frequency copper clad laminates. The significant increase in the number of 5G base station constructions will drive an explosive growth in the demand for high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates. According to the progress of 5G construction, 2020 marks the peak of 5G base station construction. It is expected that the demand for high-speed and high-frequency copper clad laminates will grow significantly in the next 2 to 3 years.
It is worth noting that the leading companies in the global 5G high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates are mainly from the United States and Japan. Currently, 90% of the global high-frequency board market share is concentrated among suppliers from the United States and Japan. Since the Sino-US trade friction, major domestic communication equipment manufacturers have been accelerating their search for domestic manufacturers with the capacity to produce high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates for domestic substitution. Stimulated by market demand, copper clad laminates have witnessed multiple rounds of price hikes since the beginning of this year. The issues of production capacity and domestic production have become one of the bottlenecks restricting the development of 5G.
According to Huang Nankun, in order to break the situation where high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates for 5G are restricted by others, Jiangyin Junchi has formed a scientific research team composed of over 50 R&D backbone members with overseas backgrounds. Not only that, in order to strictly control the product quality, the entire production line of the company also adopts imported equipment. At present, the R&D team has already "held" 9 core patent technologies of high-frequency materials, and the overall scientific research strength of the company can be described as strong.
Huang Nankun disclosed that although the company has not yet started production, it has already reached cooperation intentions with many well-known enterprises such as Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, SONY, Apple and BYD. It can be foreseen that with the successive entry and production of the company's equipment, a "hidden champion" of high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates for 5G is about to emerge.
