Hotspot-Domestic IC Board Manufacturers Accelerate The Rise!

IC carrier is the consumable with the largest value in the packaging link: IC carrier is an important material used to connect the chip and PCB board in IC packaging, accounting for 40-50% of the material cost in low-end packaging, 70-80% in high-end packaging, and is the material with the largest value in the packaging link.

Since the second half of 2020, the semiconductor boom has continued, with the IC board as an important material being no exception. Due to the lack of long-term expansion of the carrier manufacturers, stacking IC carrier factory Xinxing electronic Shanying factory two misfire impact IC carrier supply, resulting in 20 years Q4 1C carrier demand, delivery time continues to stretch. According to the Hong Kong Circuit Board Association, ABF board and BT board prices increased by 30%-50% and 20% respectively. In the long term, it is estimated that the supply and demand of IC board will be tight until at least the second half of 2022 due to the shortage of upstream substrate and long expansion cycle.

Demand-side: the semiconductor industry continues to boom, chip sealing test demand surge, accelerate the clearance of capacity. Emerging applications and PC, 5G millimeter-wave mobile phone and other electronic equipment shipments increase, promote the semiconductor boom continued to rise, strong chip demand also led to a surge in IC onboard shipments. Specifically, ABF board: the demand for downstream high-performance computing chips increases, and heterogeneous integration technology expands the amount of single chipboard. The downstream of the ABF onboard is mainly applied to high-performance computing chips such as CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and Asics. PC shipments rebounded for five consecutive quarters on a year-on-year basis, and the construction of data centers and 5G base stations accelerated, leading to a surge in demand for high-performance computing chips and a rising demand for ABF board. In addition, heterogeneous integration technology increases the packaging area and the amount of board used on a single chip, and the maturity and wide application of this technology will further increase the demand for ABF board.

BT carrier board: 5G millimeter-wave mobile phones to drive demand, eMMC chip shipments steady progress. 1) AiP is currently the preferred packaging scheme for 5G millimeter-wave mobile phone antenna modules. BT carrier board perfectly meets the packaging requirements of AiP in function. With the increase of 5G millimeter-wave mobile phone penetration and shipment, BT carrier board demand increases along with the trend. 2) eMMC and other memory chips are the main downstream applications of BT board at present. EMMC chips have been growing steadily in the medium and long term, while the booming market of loT and intelligent vehicles further drives the new demand for eMMC chips. And at present, The Yangtze River storage, Hefei Changxin, and other domestic storage manufacturers into the capacity expansion cycle, is expected to achieve one million pieces of monthly production capacity in 2025, driving BT board domestic alternative demand increase.

Supply-side: IC board industry high entry barriers, insufficient capacity expansion, material, yield factors restrict supply climbing. IC board industry high capital investment, stringent technical requirements, and high customer barriers, to a certain extent, restrict the entry of new players in the industry; The shortage of upstream raw materials and low yield of manufacturers have a serious impact on capacity expansion.

ABF carrier: upstream material monopolized + yield decline, expansion, or lower than expected. At present, Although Ajinomoto Company has announced that it will increase production of ABF material, the increasing scale is conservative compared to the surging downstream demand, and the production CAGR is only 14% by 2025, resulting in the annual capacity release of ABF board can only reach 10%-15%. In addition, the increase of THE ABF carrier area leads to the reduction of the yield of the carrier production, resulting in capacity loss. Under the trend of the increase of the downstream chip packaging area, it means that the actual capacity expansion rate of THE ABF carrier will be lower than the market expectation. BT carrier board: short product life cycle, leading manufacturers of low production intentions. BT carrier product life cycle is usually only about 1.5 years, so the overseas leading manufacturers for BT carrier capacity expansion generally tend to be conservative, at present, the overseas manufacturers disclosed that the expansion plan capacity increase is less than 10%. In addition, the rise of ABF board price led to the conversion of some BT board production lines, BT capacity was squeezed out, further aggravating the state of insufficient supply.

C Board prosperity is high, domestic substitution meets the east wind:

Xingsen technology: the two major businesses go hand in hand, IC board business continues to increase. Xingsen technology began to lay out the IC carrier business in 2012 and focuses on the r&d and manufacturing of storage carriers. After years of accumulation, xingsen technology passed the Certification of Samsung in September 2018, becoming the only carrier manufacturer in Mainland China to officially enter the official supply system of Samsung. Xingsen Technology has a capacity of 250,000 square meters per year, and a capacity of 480,000 square meters per year is planned and under construction.

Shennan Circuit: 3-In-One business overall layout, IC board business-wide coverage. As a leading PCB enterprise in China, Shennan Circuit has a wide layout in the IC board industry. Its board products downstream include MEMS, eMMC memory chips, rf modules, processor chips, and high-speed communication chips. The company has two board production bases in Shenzhen and Wuxi, with a total annual capacity of 800,000 square meters. According to the announcement of Shennan Circuit, Shennan Circuit will invest more than 8 billion yuan for the expansion of onboard capacity in the future and will increase the capacity of 200 million FC-BGA,3 million panelRF/ FC-CSP, and other organic packaging substrates after reaching the end.