Recently, the two sessions of local governments in various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country have been held one after another, and many localities have clarified the "construction drawings" of new infrastructure in their government work reports. Among them, 13 provinces put forward 5G base station construction plans in 2022, with a total of 425,000 constructions. The network coverage area of 5G is gradually expanding and the layout of 5G base stations is increasing, which not only brings greater market demand for 5G communication chips, but also expands a larger market for basic electronic components. Among them, the chip multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC), known as "industrial rice", is very popular in the market due to its many advantages.
has huge market potential
is a basic passive component, and ceramic capacitors occupy 56% of the capacitance market, among which, MLCC occupies more than 90% of the market because of its high temperature resistance, high voltage resistance, small size, and wide capacitance range. ceramic capacitor market. The MLCC market is widely used in smart phones, automotive electronics, home appliances, industrial control and other fields. Bu Rixin, general manager of InnoPath Investment Consulting, said in an interview with the reporter of " China Electronics News ": "The market demand for MLCC is huge. The usage of a 5G smartphone is more than 1,000. A single new energy The usage of in automobiles is as high as 10,000 or more, and mainly high-end models.” It is reported that each fuel vehicle needs about 3,000 to 4,000 MLCCs, while a new energy vehicle requires as many as 17,000 to 18,000 MLCCs .
According to my country's "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", by 2025, my country's new energy vehicle sales will account for about 20%. At present, this figure is only 5%, and the development prospect of the new energy vehicle market is huge. In the field of consumer electronics, according to data released by DIGITIMES Research, the annual global smartphone shipments will be about 1.32 billion units in 2021, with an annual growth rate of about 6.1%, of which 5G mobile phone shipments will be about 530 million units.
analyst of TrendForce Consulting, Chen Weisheng predicted in an interview with a reporter from "China Electronics News": "In recent years, the rapid development of automotive electronics and electric vehicles has driven a substantial increase in the demand for MLCCs. It is estimated that the demand for MLCCs in vehicles will grow in 2022. 10%, the number is about 535 billion.” For electronic components, the annual demand growth rate of 10% is a very impressive figure. Behind the continuous growth of
market demand lies the MLCC supply chain and price fluctuations under the impact of the epidemic. In August 2021, Murata Manufacturing, a global MLCC head supplier, was affected by the new crown epidemic, and its main factory in , Fukui County, was shut down; at the beginning of this year, Murata shut down again. Affected by factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the market price of MLCC fluctuated violently last year. In March 2021, Yageo, the world's third largest MLCC manufacturer, proposed to raise prices by 10% to 20%, and Huaxinke, the world's fifth largest MLCC manufacturer, proposed to increase prices by 30% to 40%. In December 2021, Murata Manufacturing Co., the world's largest MLCC supplier, also disclosed news of a price increase. This time the price increase ranges from 50% to 500%, and the specific increase depends on different series of models.
It was the time when domestic manufacturers expanded their production
MLCC field, and Japanese manufacturers occupied the main market share. The market share of Japanese manufacturer Murata is as high as 40%. Together with Taiyo Yuden and TDK, which rank fourth and fifth in the world, they occupy more than 50% of the global market share. The market share of mainland Chinese manufacturers in this field is only 6%. Comparing my country's MLCC demand, which accounts for about half of the world, it can be found that my country has a huge trade deficit in the MLCC field. Liu Tun, a senior analyst at CCID Consulting , said in an interview with a reporter from "China Electronics News": "The import value of MLCC in my country is about 50 billion yuan, while the export value is more than 20 billion yuan." Bu Rixin said: " The industrial center of MLCC is in Japan, and among the electronic industrial products supplied by Japan to China, MLCC is the second largest export category except NAND memory.”
MLCC CityThe continuous expansion of market share is a good opportunity for Chinese enterprises to expand production capacity and increase supply. Liu Tun said in an interview with a reporter from "China Electronics News": "In the past few years, more manufacturers destocked , and the expansion of production capacity lagged behind the market. In the past two years, affected by the 'stay-at-home economy', the downstream demand has been at a low level. The process of gradual expansion.”
Facing a huge potential market, the production capacity of Chinese enterprises is relatively low. Huafeng Hi-Tech and Sanhuan Group are the leading enterprises in my country's domestic MLCC field, and their production capacity is about tens of billions per month. In contrast, the monthly production capacity of overseas leading enterprises reaches hundreds of billions. Compared with foreign companies such as Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the products supplied by Chinese companies are still mostly low-end. Even if there is still a gap between my country's products and global leading enterprises in terms of technology, there is still market space for my country's enterprises to expand production.
Liu Tun believes that for domestic manufacturers, production expansion is an inevitable task at present: "Whether it is high-end or low-end, first increase production capacity, and gradually increase R&D investment when production and sales are guaranteed. In this way, the competitiveness of products can be improved."
It is very difficult to catch up with the technology
The market expansion of electric vehicles and 5G mobile phones has brought new technical requirements to MLCC, such as miniaturization, high capacity, high reliability, high temperature resistance, etc. It is the technical trend of MLCC development.
in the same volume, in order to achieve a higher capacitance, it is required to make the capacitor thinner, thereby accommodating more layers. This puts higher requirements on the manufacturing process of MLCC. In terms of technology, Japanese leading manufacturers can achieve more than 1,000 layers of ceramic films in one MLCC, while domestic manufacturers can only achieve a few hundred layers at most. On the other hand, the single-layer thickness of MLCC that domestic manufacturers can achieve is still far behind that of leading Japanese companies.
For domestic product lines that have already mastered the technology, the time and economic pressure of expanding the production line of MLCC is smaller than that of the production line of integrated circuits. It takes about 10 months to build a complete MLCC production line from the previous powder preparation, pressing, sintering, electroplating, testing and other related processes to machine erection, testing, parameter adjustment, etc. Chen Weisheng said that at present, all the production and testing equipment of Japanese factories and Korean factories are self-developed and designed, and then transferred to outsourced manufacturers for manufacturing and shipping. It only takes about 6 months to complete from order placement to delivery. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, machine manufacturers are facing problems such as chip shortages, lack of cabinets, and delays in flight schedules. The current delivery time is more than 15 months.
In September 2021, China Electronic Components Industry Association compiled the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of China's Electronic Components Industry (2021-2025)" and stated: "By 2025, the sales of my country's capacitor industry will reach 143.9 billion yuan. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the average annual growth rate target is 6%. The sales of local capacitor companies in China will reach 68 billion yuan, of which, the sales of capacitors of 2 or more companies will reach more than 4 billion yuan."
To achieve this In order to achieve this goal, MLCC, which occupies a significant market share in the field of capacitors, needs to play a key role. Liu Tun pointed out that in order to improve the position of Chinese enterprises in the MLCC market, we can start from two aspects: first, domestic downstream manufacturers provide more verification opportunities. Emerging markets such as electric vehicles have high requirements for electronic components and long verification cycles. Giving domestic MLCC suppliers more verification opportunities and joint development with them will help domestic suppliers take advantage of low transportation costs and short delivery cycles. To achieve supply chain stability. Second, cultivate its own talent team. In order to catch up with leading enterprises in technology, domestic enterprises also need to optimize their own processes, strengthen the talent pool in the field of process technology, and widely absorb overseas talents with technical experience.
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