Production status and demand analysis of CCL industry

Copper clad laminate (CCL) is a multi-functional electronic laminated composite material. It is a plate shaped material that is made of reinforcing materials (glass fiber cloth, fiber paper, glass fiber paper, etc.) dipped in various resins (mainly epoxy resin), baked into a semi solidified sheet, and shaped by cutting, laminating, copper coating, high temperature, high pressure, and vacuum. Copper clad laminate is the primary basic raw material in the manufacturing materials of the entire PCB. It undertakes the four major functions of PCB, namely, conductivity, insulation, support and signal transmission, and determines the performance, quality, manufacturing level, manufacturing cost and long-term reliability of PCB.

At present, rigid organic resin copper clad laminate is widely used in PCB field, including paper substrate, glass fiber cloth substrate and composite substrate. In addition to the above types, the rigid copper clad laminate also includes multilayer substrate, metal substrate, ceramic substrate, heat-resistant thermoplastic substrate, buried substrate materials, etc.

Although there are many kinds of CCL, the epoxy resin based CCL is the main one, accounting for more than 70% of the total amount of CCL. It mainly includes the following types:

Industry production status

According to the survey, statistics and calculation of domestic copper clad plate enterprises conducted by CCL Materials Branch of China Electric Materials Association in April 2018. In 2017, the total capacity of various types of CCL was 838.39 million square meters, a slight increase of 1.0% compared with 830.05 million square meters in 2016. In 2017, the total output of various types of CCL in China was 590.84 million m2, an increase of 5.1% over 2016. In 2017, the total sales volume of various types of CCL in China was 582.69 million m2, a slight increase of 0.7% year on year; The sales revenue was 2693.71 million yuan, up 28.5% year on year. The total capacity utilization rate reached 70.5%.

There is a shortage of raw materials. The increased capacity in recent two years has not been mass produced. The capacity utilization rate of flexible copper clad laminate and related products is only 46%, reducing the capacity utilization rate of enterprises in the copper clad laminate industry (see Table 2).

The production, sales and sales revenue of national commodity semi cured tablets increased significantly year on year (see Table 2). In 2017, the total sales revenue of CCL and commercial semi cured tablets nationwide increased by 30.3% year on year (see Table 3).

Import, export and demand

In 2017, China's imports and exports of copper clad laminates (trade name: copper clad laminates for printed circuits, trade code: 74102110) increased significantly. The imports of copper clad laminates were 853.64 million tons, an increase of 8.25% year on year, and the imports were 1098.2 million dollars, an increase of 13.18% year on year; The export volume was 1079.93 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%, and the export volume was 595.76 million dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11.39%. The deemed export price of CCL was 5.517 USD/kg, up 5.79% year on year.

The year-on-year growth of the deemed export price is slightly higher than that of the deemed import price, but the deemed import price is still more than twice the deemed export price. The annual trade deficit exceeded 500 million US dollars, a significant increase of 15.37% compared with 2016, indicating that the supply of domestic high-tech copper clad laminate is still seriously insufficient. In 2017, the main import places of CCL were still the Jinma region of Taiwan and the mainland, accounting for 80.09%. South Korea has the largest export volume.

The proportion of imports and the proportion of imports of copper clad laminate in China vary greatly. For example, the proportion of imports in mainland China is 13.01%, while the proportion of imports is only 7.75%. The apparent import unit price is only 7.745 dollars/kg, while the proportion of imports from Japan and the United States is only 3.47% and 0.64%, respectively. However, the proportion of imports is up to 16.56% and 4.37%, respectively. The apparent import unit price is 61.24 dollars/kg and 88.38 dollars/kg, respectively, This shows that the average added value of products imported from these countries is very high.

In 2017, the proportion of copper clad laminate exported by general trade in China reached 64.57%, 13.4 percentage points higher than that of the previous year, 49.92% in value, and 9.02 percentage points higher than that of the previous year. The export volume and amount of processing with supplied materials and imported materials fell by 13.42 and 9.02 percentage points year on year. The structure of export trade has undergone significant changes.

In terms of imports, the proportion of copper clad laminate imported through general trade has reached 49.4%, up 15.82 percentage points year on year; The proportion of import value also reached 40.9%, an increase of 6.42 percentage points over the previous year.

In 2017, the demand for copper clad laminate in mainland China was based on the domestic demand and sales of copper clad laminate and the import and export of copper clad laminate in 2017. From this, it was estimated that the apparent demand of copper clad laminate market in 2017=sales volume - export volume+import volume (the import and export volume is converted by 20 tons/10000 m2)=571.37 million m2. See Table 5 for details. A slight increase of 0.8% over the previous year. Compared with the estimated production capacity of 838.39 million m2 for various types of CCL in 2017, the capacity utilization rate is only 68.15%, which shows that there is still a serious overcapacity of CCL in mainland China.

From 2012 to 2015, the growth of sales revenue of China's copper clad laminate industry was always lower than that of sales volume, and the industry as a whole was struggling to operate under the downturn of increasing volume and decreasing price for four consecutive years. Since 2016, the sales volume and sales revenue of CCL have both increased significantly, while in 2017, the sales volume increased slightly by 0.7 percentage points, and the sales revenue increased dramatically by 28.5 percentage points, which should be closely related to the price increase of raw materials driving the price increase of products. See Figure 1 for details.

summary

With the national emphasis on environmental protection and the great efforts of supervision and inspection, the implementation of the Emission Standard of Electronic Pollutants is approaching, and there are many problems in the emission of pollutants in China's copper clad laminate industry. There is a big gap between the nitrogen oxides and VOCs of some enterprises and the Emission Standard of Electronic Pollutants (Second Draft for Comments) issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on March 12, 2018. Therefore, the leaders of enterprises should pay attention to the environmental protection work of enterprises, and make equipment upgrading and process improvement plans in advance. In addition, with the promotion of major industrial transformation and upgrading strategies such as "Manufacturing 2025", "Foundation Strengthening Project" and "Internet plus", China's electronic information industry will maintain a sustained and rapid growth. As an important basic material, the macro environment for the stable development of the copper clad laminate industry will not change significantly in the short term.