PCB type
There are various types of PCB products, which can be classified according to substrate materials, conductive pattern layers, application fields, and terminal products.
1. Based on the flexibility of the substrate
Hard PCB
Rigid PCB is a sturdy non flexible printed circuit board. It is made of a non bending, tough and sturdy base material. It can serve as support for components. It is widely used in computers, network equipment, communication products, industrial control, automobiles, military aviation, etc.
Flexible PCB
Flexible PCB is made of flexible substrate, including metal conductor foil, bonding compound, and insulation film. It is lightweight, thin, bendable, and can be assembled in three dimensions. It is widely used in smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, and other touch devices.
Rigid flex PCB
Rigid flex printed circuit board is a board that combines flexible and rigid board technologies in applications.
It refers to laminating different flexible and rigid boards, which are connected to each other through hole metallization process. The flexible board part can bend, while the rigid board part can support the components. It is widely used in medical devices, navigation, consumer electronics, and more.
2. Based on electrical performance
It can be divided into ordinary board, high-frequency board, high-speed board, HDI, SLP, IC substrate, etc.
3. According to the number of PCB layers
Single sided PCB, double-sided PCB, and multi-layer PCB.
Categories of 5G PCB materials
The main materials for 5G PCBs can be divided into two categories:
1. High frequency board
High frequency boards are mainly used for antennas and RF front-end products. CCL is usually made by mixing high-frequency materials (PTFE and hydrocarbons) with FR-4. Due to the higher flexibility of high-frequency materials compared to FR-4 materials, the consistency of the mixing process is poor, production difficulty increases, and prices and profit margins are higher.
2. High speed board
Many high-speed boards used for 5G are multi-layer boards, especially the backplane of the core network, which even exceeds 20 layers (while the general PCB layers are 4, 6, and 8). The increase in data rate requires a reduction in base station size, further refinement of line width and spacing, and of course, PCB technology will be more difficult.
Overall, due to the high difficulty of high-frequency and high-speed material processing, it will bring higher revenue and profits to the company. Due to the fact that the PCB of 5G base stations needs to be purchased in advance with the construction of the base stations, many countries abroad have already built some base stations on a large scale.
At present, PCBs can be divided into high-frequency multi-layer rigid boards for 4G/5G base station antennas, high-speed multi-layer rigid boards for 4G/5G base station BBUs, and high-speed multi-layer rigid boards. For 4G/5G core network servers and data center servers, the high-speed multi-layer backplane can be simply summarized as high-frequency and high-speed multi-layer rigid board PCBs.
Other future applications of PCB
1. autonomous vehicle
In the future, high-frequency boards (millimeter wave radar antennas) and high-speed boards (in car data communication) used in automotive electronics will continue to drive demand for high-frequency and high-speed boards.
2.5G smartphone
In addition, consumer electronics products represented by mobile phones have experienced a long-term downturn in the late 4G period, and are expected to heat up in the new 5G cycle, thereby driving demand for mobile phone FPC.
3. Security protection systems for IoT related industries
Security and IoT smart cities, as well as IoT media, will gradually emerge as innovative phenomena.
What are the PCB categories that benefit from 5G core? I think the answer is flexible PCB, rigid PCB, high-speed and high-frequency board.