Accompanying article
1) FPC circuit board provides excellent conductivity, can meet the design requirements of smaller and higher density installation, can greatly reduce the volume and weight of electronic products, and is suitable for the development of electronic products in the direction of high density, miniaturization and high reliability.

2) FPC circuit board can be wired in three-dimensional space and its shape can be changed according to the limitation of space, so as to achieve the integration of component assembly and wire connection;

3) Unlike PCB industry chain, the upstream of FPC industry chain includes FCCL manufacturers and suppliers of raw materials such as pi / PET film and calendered copper foil, which are not affected by the price fluctuation of electrolytic copper foil. FPC board is widely used in medical instruments, consumer electronics, mobile phone communication, tablet computers, Industrial Industrial control, digital cameras and other fields;


The main production methods of FPC are subtraction method, full addition method and half addition method: subtraction method is the main method of traditional FPC production, and the limit frame of subtraction method is 20 μ m line width; The full addition method is to use insulating base material to directly process and form circuit graphics. The full addition method can produce the most refined circuit at present, but this method needs to use the assembly for semiconductor manufacturing, which has complex process and high cost, so it is very difficult to popularize. The half addition method is to select 5 μ m thin copper foil for base material, sometimes it can also use the conventional copper foil after being etched and thinned, so it can be produced The line below 20 μ m is a method with development potential.
PCB raw materials are electrolytic copper foil, glass fiber cloth, etc., and the base material is rigid copper clad laminate (CCL); while FPC raw materials are mainly composed of calendered copper foil and polyimide (PI) film / polyester (PET) film, and the base material is flexible copper clad laminate (FCCL).

PCB and FPC Industry Chain comparison


In 2017, due to the vigorous development of new energy vehicles, the production capacity of electrolytic copper foil was squeezed by lithium battery, and the supply and demand turned over. The prices of copper foil, copper clad laminate and other raw materials kept rising, which brought a certain cost pressure to PCB. The raw materials of FPC Industry, whether calendered copper foil or PI film, almost have no production capacity in China. The impact of the cycle of price increase is not significant, and the cost of raw materials is basically stable.