Recent status of PCB material five asked five answer (including glass fiber cloth, copper foil)

To say what is the most concerned for circuit board industry in the last year, it must be the raw materials’ price and supply changes. In order to bring the latest raw materials market information, now share the research report “copper foil, CCL industrial chain’ five Q&A’” issued by “snowball” forum on April 17.

1: Why is copper foil in the off-season in January and February can still rise in price?

Changchun Taiwan copper foil factory refurbished in March, is expected to affect the output in April and May, while Changchun downstream CCL customers in January and February early begin to find other capacity in the market. Making the supply is relatively tight. Thus, copper foil is not short in the off-season.

2: Why copper prices do not rise recently?

1) CCl manufacturers’ currently purchase bottlenecks is the glass fiber cloth, under situation of cannot buy fiberglass cloth, even if get copper, still can not achieve production

2) copper foil = copper + processing fees, early stage up processing fees, then rapid rising in copper prices by the end of last year, 1Q17 average processing fee higher than 4Q16, has been located in the high.

3) On February standard copper foil processing costs is faster rising than the lithium copper foil, the two levels have been approaching, lithium copper foil in the first quarter originally is the electric car’s sales off-season.

Above three factors affect the recent copper prices may not rise.

3: Why is fiberglass cloth less than copper?

1) fiberglass cloth electronic grade and industrial grade mismatch, market concentration to promote price increases. Over the past few years, glass fiber cloth business operated bleakly, prices fell to a record high of 20% -30%, small factory came to withdraw.

2) cold repair will affect the subsequent supply. Glass fiber manufacturers inventory close to the bottom, or even full sales. glass fiber’s leader South Asia announced start to cold repair the yarn kiln whose an annual output of 30,000 tons，which lasted 3 months.

3) short-term expansion is difficult, expansion cycle is more than one to two years, mainly because kiln’s construction needs a year and a half, once operate three to five years can not be discontinued; and manufacturers’ attitude is cautious for expansion. Coupled with the impact of cold repair, looking forward to the whole year, in addition to Kingboard will expand 30%, the total production capacity of fiberglass can not be substantially increased.

4: copper foil expansion period why is longer and longer?

Copper foil expansion cycle from the initial year to a year and a half, and further extended to 18 to 24 months. The reason is that whom master the bottleneck of the key equipment cathode roller is the Japanese manufacturers, will not expand the production of cathode roller because of the increase in the demand for copper. at the end of 2015 the manufacturer who decided to expand, this year it is more likely to develop new capacity (land may have Nord and ultra-Hua, Taiwan have Changchun). Thus, the release of new capacity will not be as fast as expected.

5: the industry chain can continue to rise in price this year?

1) the upstream glass fiber cloth market supply shortage, the situation at least to maintain a year.

2) copper supply and demand is directly related to the sales of new energy vehicles, based on 2017 sales forecast of 700,000, if the sales exceeded expectations or policy support greater, will further promote

Industry chain continues upward. We need to remain optimistic that markup will continue this year.