Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market - Forecast(2023 - 2028)

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Overview

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market size is forecast to reach US$4.6 billion by 2027 after growing at a CAGR of 5.7% during 2022-2027. Flexible CCL is a single-layer or double-layer flexible copper clad laminate made of insulating PI film or polyester film as the substrate material and a thin copper foil conductor with surface flexibility. Globally, the rising usage of flexible CCL such as polyethylene terephthalate copper clad laminate in personal computers, digital communications, automotive electronics, and office automation, and others, will drive the market growth. Also, the automobile sector has been a major driver for the demand for flexible CCL businesses. In recent years, flexible CCL has found usage in Chip on Flex (COF) film for liquid crystal display (LCD) modules and has registered strong growth with the rising automotive sector. Furthermore, the shifting technology landscape in the automotive industry has increased the penetration rate of flexible CCL by more than 4%. 

Impact of Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic created a dent in the growth rate of the flexible copper clad laminates market in many end-use industries. This is owing to factors such as broken supply chain and the temporary shutdown of manufacturing units which has caused a cut down in supply for the manufacturing companies of the printed circuit board, ink-jet printer, automobile, and other industries. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the production and demand and market reconciliation, and by its financial impact on firms and financial markets of flexible copper clad laminates. The negative effect of COVID-19 on the economy and flexible copper clad laminates market was seen till the end of the year 2020.

Report Coverage

The report “Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market – Forecast (2022-2027)”, by IndustryARC, covers an in-depth analysis of the following segments of the flexible copper clad laminates industry.
By Type: Type Casting, Sputtering, Electroplating, and Laminating
By Layers: Single Side Flex CCL, Double Side Flex CCL, and Multi-side Flex CCLs
By Trace Density: Ordinary Flex CCL and High-Density Flex CCL
By Substrate Material Type: Polyester Type Flexible CCL, PI Type Flexible CCL, and Polytetrafluoroethylene Type Flexible CCL
By Product Structure: 3L-FCCL and 2L-FFCL
By Application: Medical Apparatus, Printed Circuit Board, Ink-jet Printer, Automobile, and Others
By Geography: North America (USA, Canada, and Mexico), Europe (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, and Rest of APAC), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Rest of South America), and RoW (Middle East and Africa)

Key Takeaways

• The Asia Pacific region dominates the flexible copper clad laminate industry, with a significant proportion of the global market. Countries such as India and China, which have well-established infrastructure in areas like auto manufacturing, defence, and aerospace, as well as developing 5G technology, will drive CCL's business over the projection period.
• Increasing investments for EV manufacturing expansions is set to drive the growth of the industry. For instance, In November 2019, Volkswagen announced that it began the construction of its electric vehicle production facility in Tennessee, US, with an estimated investment of US$ 800 million.
• During the projection period, the flexible copper clad laminate manufacturers will get benefited from increased investments in 5G infrastructure and industry 4.0 innovations.
  

  Figure: Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Revenue Share, by application, 2021 (%)

  
  

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Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Segment Analysis – By Type

Tape casting held the largest share in the flexible copper clad laminate market in 2021. Tape casting is a fabrication technique to produce thin ceramic sheets from ceramic slurry that casted in a thin layer onto a flat surface, and then dried and sintered. Laminar ceramic structures formed by layers of alumina and partially stabilized zirconia are usually fabricated by water-based tape casting. Tape casting is primarily used to produce functional ceramics, ceramic chips for monolithic capacitors, multilayer wiring sheets, and circuit substrates for thick film capacitors, which has significantly advanced the electronic technologies. Hence the growing demand from the electronics sector is majorly boosting the market growth rate. Technology transitions such as the rollout of 5G networks and IoT are driving the accelerated adoption of electronics products. As stated by Government of India, Indian Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) Industry is expected to grow 6.5x from $23.5 bn to reach $152 bn by 2025.

Printed Circuit Board held the largest share with 65% in the flexible copper clad laminate market in 2021 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 5.7% during the forecast period 2022-2027. Flexible copper clad laminate is the key material for printed circuit board products which is further used in electronic industry, thereby contributing to its overall market growth. The growing semiconductor industry along with increasing demand of consumer electronics products such as smartphones and computer coupled with the wide usage of PCBs is fueling its market growth. Hence, the growing semiconductor industry in APAC region is set to drive its market growth in the future. For instance, according to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (ASSOCHAM) and EY, the Indian electronics and hardware industry is expected to reach US$112-130billion by 2018 as electronics and hardware manufacturers are looking to increase their manufacturing base in India to cater to the domestic market in the Middle East, Africa and SAARC countries.

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Segment Analysis – By Geography

Asia-Pacific region dominated the flexible copper clad laminates market in terms of revenue with a share of 48% in 2021 and is projected to dominate the market during the forecast period (2022-2026). China is one of the major producers of automobiles and owing to the increasing environmental concerns on production of greenhouse gases, the Chinese government has undertaken certain initiative to explore the territories based on alternative energy based vehicles, propelling the  electric vehicles market, simultaneously  accelerating the flexible copper clad laminates market in the region. As stated by IEA, registration of new electric cars was lower than the overall car market in the first-half of 2020. This trend reversed in the second-half as China constrained the pandemic. The result was a sales share of 5.7%, up from 4.8% in 2019. BEVs were about 80% of new electric cars registered. In the APAC region the majority of this growth is from the South-East countries which are undergoing a transformational change in terms of both the economic and the infrastructure developments. New investments mainly in China in the sectors of infrastructure and automobile would present high growth opportunities for Flexible Copper Clad Laminates market in the region.

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Drivers

Growing demand for Consumer electronics

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) announced global semiconductor industry sales were $47.2 billion in the month of August 2021, an increase of 29.7% over the August 2020 total of $36.4 billion and 3.3% more than the July 2021 total of $45.7 billion. Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in Europe (33.5%), China (30.8%), the Americas (30.6%), Asia Pacific/All Other (28.2%), and Japan (23.8%).  Despite the uncertainty in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global market grew substantially in 2021, and the outlook is strong for the remainder of 2022 and beyond. According to a study commissioned by the European Parliament, in European Union the demand for personal computers and tablets rose by 4.6% year-on-year until December 2020.  Therefore the growing demand for consumer electronics is significantly boosting the Ics especially the memories thereby contributing to the market growth rate. Increasing usage of polyethylene terephthalate copper clad laminate in consumer electronics will also drive the market growth. As stated by IMEC, The emerging non-volatile memory market is expected to grow at >50% compound annual growth rate mainly driven by the demand for embedded magnetic random access memory (MRAM) and standalone phase change memory (PCM).

Huge Demand from Automotive Sector

The rising penetration of electric vehicles integrated with advanced features such as ADAS requiring PCBs is analyzed to further escalate the market growth rate. Hence the rising investments in EV manufacturing expansions is set to boost the market growth rate. In November 2020, General Motors announced an increase in investment in the electric vehicles to $27 billion through 2025. The major aim of this investment is to increase the manufacturing capacity of BEV. Given the need for a smaller size PCB in vehicles manufacturers are turning to high density interconnect (HDI) and rigid flex PCBs. With the introduction of new technologies in vehicles and electric vehicles entering the mainstream automobiles, the demand for flexible copper clad laminates is rising. To aid the interconnection between these devices or components through metal strips, the base support is provided by PCB’s. Each system has customized PCB’s to cater to the diverse needs of end users. Automobile manufacturers are now coming up with new innovations in assisting drivers to avoid any accident. These assistance systems include Night Vision, Intelligent Speed Adaption, Adaption Cruise Control, Automatic Parking etc. All these assisting systems are controlled via an ECU (Electronic Control Unit) that contains inter-connected processing systems on a PCB layout. In order to provide customer satisfaction, automobile manufacturers customize their ECU designs regularly to add on new characteristics that particularly require a new PCB design tailored according to their needs.

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Market Challenges                            

High E-waste generation

According to the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020, a record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in just five years. According to the UN, in 2021 each person on the planet will produce on average 7.6 kg of e-waste, meaning that a massive 57.4 million tonnes will be generated worldwide. WHO stated that with mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faces what one recent international forum described as a mounting “tsunami of e-waste”, putting lives and health at risk. These factors are analyzed to hinder the rapid production of the electronics thereby constraining the market growth rate.

Flexible Copper Clad Laminates Industry Outlook

Technology launches, acquisitions, and R&D activities are key strategies adopted by players in the flexible copper clad laminates market. Major players in the flexible copper clad laminates market are:

1. Taiflex Scientific Co., Ltd
2. LG Chem Ltd.
3. UBE Industries Ltd.
4. Panasonic Corporation
5. INNOX Advanced Materials Co., Ltd.
6. SK Nexilis
7. Shengyi Technology Co., Ltd.
8. TORAY ADVANCED MATERIALS KOREA INC.
9. Nippon Steel Chemical & Material
10. Arisawa Mfg. Co., Ltd and Others

Recent Development

• In July 2021, Sytech and Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group (TNMG) signed a strategic cooperation agreement to have wider cooperation in the electronic copper area.

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