Overall industry market analysis of FPC laser cutting machines

According to market feedback, laser cutting machines can currently perform precision cutting of flexible circuit boards and organic cover films without the need for special pressure and mold fixation. The ability to overuse high-energy laser sources and precisely control laser beams can effectively increase processing speed and achieve more precise processing results. Through the combined motion of galvanometer scanning and linear motor two-dimensional platforms, the processing difficulty is not increased due to complex shapes and tortuous paths. Laser cutting is commonly used for precision molding of flexible circuit boards, hard-soft boards, and FPC film windowing.

1. Application of laser precision cutting in forming FPC:

1.      Flexible circuit board laser processing technology is mainly used for FPC shape cutting, covering film window opening, drilling, etc. The following are the main benefits:

2.      Directly use laser cutting according to CAD data, which is more convenient and quick, and can greatly shorten the delivery cycle.

3.      Do not increase the difficulty of processing due to complex shapes and tortuous paths.

4.      When opening the covering film, the edge of the cut covering film can be neat and round, smooth without burrs and overflowing glue. When using a mold press to open a window, it is inevitable that burrs and glue overflow will appear near the window after the die is punched. This burr and glue overflow are difficult to remove after the pressure is applied to the pad, which directly affects the quality of the subsequent coating.

5.      Flexible sheet sample processing often requires customers to change the circuit and pad position to change the cover film window. The traditional method requires the replacement or modification of the mold. When using laser processing, this problem can be easily solved, because only the modified computer-aided design data can be imported to easily and quickly process the cover film that you want to open the window graphic, which will win the company market competition opportunities in terms of time and cost.

6.      Precision laser cutting machine is an ideal tool for forming flexible circuit boards. Lasers can process materials into any shape.

7.      In the past, in mass production, mechanical stamping dies were used to form many parts. However, the hard stamping die process has high loss and long delivery cycle, which is not practical for part processing and forming, and the cost is very high.

2. FPC market analysis report:

In the early days, FPC was only used in special industries such as military and aerospace. With the development of various information terminal equipment, FPC has gradually been used in civil and commercial fields. In recent years, the growth mode dominated by the growth of consumer electronics mainly includes the following aspects:

1.      Personal computers: including desktop computers and laptops, as well as wearable computers that are being produced.

2.      External computers. The above two markets have the largest demand for FPC in the world, but the growth rate is slow.

3.      Mobile phones: 6 to 10 FPCs are used in flip phones, and these FPCs are mainly single-piece and double-sided. FPC is used in display modules and camera modules with multi-layer structures.

4.      Audio and video equipment is the third application field of FPC: portable products (such as MP3, MP4, mobile TV, mobile DVD, etc.) and flat panel displays will continue to increase the number of FPC.

5.      Other application markets include medical devices, automobiles and instruments.

3. The development trend of FPC in the future mainly has three aspects:

1.      The development of TFT-LCD and PDP display technology has prompted single-sided and double-sided displays to develop towards high density. The line shape is thinner and the aperture is smaller. The line width of single-sided and double-sided FPC lines is 1.5mil/1.5mil, and the diameter of the small hole is 0.1~0.05mm.

2.      Adopt the two-layer method of FCCL flexible copper clad laminate material with high dimensional stability. Due to the demand for mobile phones with high flexure requirements and TFT-LCD products with high dimensional stability requirements, the two-layer method FCCL flexible copper clad laminate material technology is mature and cheap, and the use rate of glue-free two-layer FCCL is getting higher and higher.

3.      Developing towards COF (CHIPONFLEX), driven by the TFT-LCD and integrated circuit packaging substrate markets, COF has a good development momentum. The line spacing of single-sided COF is 10渭m, while the line spacing of double-sided COF is 15渭m, and the aperture of the small hole is less than 50渭m.