The country promotes intelligent manufacturing, Shenzhen FPC becomes the biggest beneficiary

"The core of intelligent manufacturing is to achieve high-efficiency, high-quality, green, networked, and individualized production. It is an innovation from production to the entire ecology. The most fundamental path to intelligent manufacturing is innovation." On April 9 Huang Qunhui, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out at the second "Made in China (Shenzhen) Summit Forum" held on Japan.

Since the launch of “Made in China 2025” in 2015, in order to guide the “transformation and upgrading of the real economy”, the country has clearly defined the main direction of smart manufacturing, and its support has also been increasing. Especially in 2017, in order to sprint "intelligent manufacturing", all regions are gearing up: Guangdong Province proposed to cultivate 100 advanced equipment manufacturing backbone enterprises with an output value of more than 1 billion yuan, and form 20 advanced equipment manufacturing enterprises with an output value of more than 10 billion yuan Industrial clusters; Hubei Province proposed to focus on 50 national and provincial-level smart manufacturing pilot demonstration units and drive 1,000 enterprises to implement smart transformation; Anhui Province proposed to build 100 digital workshops and smart factories; Liaoning Province proposed, To promote the construction of 100 smart manufacturing and smart service pilot demonstration enterprises. Shenzhen has even put forward the goal of building a world-class intelligent manufacturing highland.

"No matter how big the goal is, intelligent manufacturing must eventually realize the intelligent transformation of the entire manufacturing process, the entire industry chain, and the entire value chain." Li Xiaohua, chairman of Shenzhen Shangda Electronics Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese FPC company, believes, "Intelligent manufacturing is design innovation. , Product innovation, technological innovation, model innovation, and the general route of improving product quality, improving manufacturing efficiency, and promoting green manufacturing represent the future of manufacturing. The global manufacturing industry from the industrial chain to the value chain's resource allocation model and organizational innovation are calling for intelligence manufacture."

Smart manufacturing in full swing has spawned huge market demand. According to data from market research institutions, China's smart manufacturing output value has reached 1 trillion yuan in 2015 and is expected to exceed 3 trillion yuan by 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of about 20%. China has become the world's largest market for smart manufacturing demand, which will drive the booming development of robotics, drones, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, unmanned driving, VR, smart home and other related industries.

According to data from research institutions, the smart home market may reach nearly 100 billion yuan in 2017, and the 3D printing market may exceed 20 billion yuan in 2018. In 2018, the Chinese civil drone market will reach 11 billion yuan, and the artificial intelligence market will be in 2020. It will be close to 10 billion, and the VR market will exceed 55 billion in 2020. The Chinese robot market will reach 600 billion yuan in the next 10 years.

"The core demands of smart manufacturing are integration and interconnection. Many core components involved, such as sensors, will use FPC (flexible circuit boards). Stimulated by the huge market demand for smart manufacturing, the FPC industry will become the biggest beneficiary."

In fact, the global FPC output value in 2016 has reached 13.5 billion US dollars. According to IDTechEx's forecast, the global FPC market will grow to US$26.2 billion by 2020.

Li Xiaohua uses drones as an example. As drones move toward miniaturization, FPC will be used in large numbers. At present, Sony has developed a 2mm wide camera sensor, the lens and sensor are integrated together, which also includes a flexible circuit board, the total weight is less than 1/10 grams. Another example is wearable sensors. Various manufacturers are vying to develop ultra-low power consumption, flexible, printed electronic components to promote devices that can continuously monitor the health of users and collect human body data in real time in a non-invasive way. FPC will be promising.

Although the FPC industry has ushered in historical development opportunities, only those FPC manufacturers with high technical standards can occupy the market. According to Li Xiaohua, the FPC industry uses the thickness of the line to measure the level of technology. At present, Shangda Electronics has been able to achieve a line width of 35 microns, and this ultra-precision process leads the industry.

"Smart manufacturing has higher and higher requirements for sensors, and sensors naturally have higher and higher requirements for flexible circuit boards. Only when supporting technologies can keep up can the entire intelligent manufacturing advance smoothly. To implement smart manufacturing, it is also necessary to vigorously develop independent and controllable key components of smart manufacturing. The rapid development of Shenzhen’s FPC industry has enabled some key components of smart manufacturing that have long been dependent on imports to achieve autonomy. Shangda Electronics will firmly grasp the key components of smart manufacturing. A historical opportunity to achieve leapfrog development."