What I am sharing today is an in-depth research report on the new materials industry:"AI Computing Power and 55G evolution drives the development of high-frequency and high-speed materials(Report Producer: IFC**).
Summary of the content of the research reportAs followsThe upgrade of AI servers and x86 servers will drive the demand for M6+ copper clad laminates, and the corresponding electronic resins will benefit.
According to IDC data, global server shipments are expected to be 14.93 million units, 16.26 million units, and 17.63 million units in 2023-2025, and with the increase in shipments of NVIDIA and AMD chips, we assume that AI server shipments in 2023-2025 will be 460,000 units, 950,000 units, and 1.64 million units, of which ordinary server shipments will be 14.47 million units, 15.31 million units, and 15.99 million units. Through calculation, we estimate that from 2023 to 2025, the demand for Shuangma BMI resin will be 837 tons, 1749 tons, and 2607 tons, and the PPO demand will be 2155 tons, 3717 tons, and 5233 tons.
1. The development of AI servers will drive innovation in the material link of copper clad laminates
1.1 The development of AI servers and the upgrade of ordinary servers have driven the use of copper clad laminates above M6+
High-speed data transmission places new demands on the electrical properties of CCL materials. The copper clad laminate material itself exists in a certain energy dissipation under the action of electric field, which can cause signal loss in the process of information transmission, and is not conducive to high-speed transmission of information. Among them, the most concerned are DK and DF (dielectric constant and dielectric dissipation factor) in electrical properties, especially DF indicators.
AI ServerWe will analyze the NVIDIA DGX A100 and DGX H100, two products with benchmark product strength, and we will first observe the basic architecture of AI servers with product power from the DGX A100. From a functional point of view, we believe that the PCB value calculation of AI servers can be summarized into three parts, one is the core GPU board group of AI servers, the second is the CPU motherboard group that is necessary for all servers, and the last is the accessory group such as fans, hard disks, and power plates. The PCB of the GPU board group is mainly composed of 4 parts, GPU carrier board, NVSWITCH, OAM, and UBB. At present, the UBB part of NVIDIA's servers mainly uses Taiguang 890K copper clad laminates, while the OAM part uses Taiguang 528K (corresponding to Panasonic M6+) copper clad laminates. According to the official website of Taiguang Electronics and the research of the industrial chain, Taiguang Electronics' 528K copper clad laminate body resin is mainly Shuangma BMI resin, while 890K (corresponding to Panasonic M7+) copper clad laminate body resin is mainly PPO, supplemented by Shuangma BMI resin.
The iterative upgrade of the common server makes the bus standard change from PCIe40 upgrade to PCIe 50, which in turn increases the demand for high-level multi-layer PCBs for servers, and the high-speed copper-clad laminate market is expected to grow further. PCI-Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, PCIe 50 is expected to become mainstream in the server PCB market, where PCIE interfaces are often used to connect high-performance peripherals to user computers, most often GPU graphics cards, as modern gaming, science, engineering, and machine Xi applications involve processing large amounts of data. pcie5.0 One of the most important features is speed, PCIe5The speed of 0 is PCIe4Twice as much as 0.
Efficient transmission requires more layers of high-speed CCL. Improving transmission efficiency requires efficient wiring layout and more layers of high-speed copper clad laminates, thereby reducing the degree of interference between signals, and the number of layers of high-speed copper clad laminates will be greatly improved after the iteration of ordinary servers. According to industry data, PCIe40 servers such as Intel Whitley and AMD ZEN3 are clad laminates at 12-16 layers, while PCIe50 Servers such as Intel Eagle Stream and AMD Zen4 are made of copper clad laminates at 16-20 layers, and it is expected that a large number of ordinary servers will adopt PCIe5 in the future0 bus configuration, the communication industry has further increased the demand for more layers of copper clad laminates. pcie5.0 requires a rate of 4 Gbs for a single channel, and 32 Gbs for 8 lanes. In terms of such transmission performance requirements, a higher grade of copper clad laminates is required to support, and high-speed copper clad laminates above M6+ will become the standard.
1.2 In copper clad laminates above M6+, the demand for Shuangma BMI resin and PPO resin will increase significantly
Copper-clad laminate is a plate-like material made by dipping glass fiber cloth or other reinforcing materials with resin, covering one or both sides with copper foil and hot pressing. Taking glass fiber cloth base copper clad laminate as an example, its main raw materials are copper foil, fiber cloth and resin, accounting for % and 26% of the cost respectively. In terms of cost proportion, electronic resin accounts for about 25-30% of the production cost of copper clad laminates, and the cost proportion of electronic resin will be further increased in the current rapid development of high-speed and high-frequency copper clad laminates.
Factors such as the type, content, and degree of cure of the resin can also affect the properties of the medium. Generally speaking, in order to reduce dielectric loss, it is necessary to choose a resin with low dielectric constant, low loss factor, and uniform curing, at present, the commonly used resin types are epoxy resin (EP), polyimide resin (PI), polyphenylene ether resin (PPO), Shuangma BMI resin, etc.
Below, we take a closer look at the pull of AI server and general server upgrades on the demand for Shuangma BMI resin and PPO resin.
1) AI server PPO consumption and dual horse BMI resin consumption. The PPO consumption of a single server is equal to the weight of PPO per square meter of PP multiplied by the number of layers of PP sheets of a single device multiplied by the area of a single PP sheet, according to the research of the industrial chain, we learned that the weight of PPO per square meter of PP or Shuangma BMI of very low loss and above grade CCL is about 80G, and then according to the AI server PCB represented by DGX H100 calculated in our electronic group report "How many PCBs are needed in AI servers". According to the teardown data, the main components of the GPU board group are UB and OAM:
The 26-layer UB in a single AI training server GPU board will use 25 layers of PP chips, and the area of each layer of PP is about 03 square meters, 18 layers of OAM require 17 layers of PP sheets, 8 sheets of OAM area of 024 square meters, from which we can conclude that the UBB portion of the GPU board group for a single AI training server consumes 06kg (80g square meters * 25 layers * 0.)3 sqm floor = 06kg), for a double horse BMI resin consumption is 024kg (32g square meters*25 layers*0.)3 sqm floor = 024kg)。The OAM part of the GPU board group of a single AI training server mainly uses Shuangma BMI resin, and the consumption of Shuangma is 033kg (80g square meter * 17 layers * 0.)24 sqm floor = 033kg)。
Considering that the loss rate from the resin link to the CCL link is about 8% and the loss rate from the CCL link to the PCB link is about 10-18%, the PPO consumption corresponding to the GPU module is 074kg, which corresponds to a consumption of 0 for a two-horse BMI7kg。When calculating GPU composition, 23 years and beyond we use 8 cards for 1 training GPU and 4 cards for one inference GPU. Considering that the number of accelerator cards for the inference GPU is about 50% less than that of the training GPU, we estimate that the corresponding PPO consumption of the AI inference GPU is half that of the training server, that is, 038kg。The AI inference GPU corresponds to half the BMI consumption of the training server, which is 035kg。
CPU Motherboard: The CPU motherboard in the CPU motherboard group will also be upgraded to PCIe 50. Using materials above the very low loss grade, according to the previous report, the CPU motherboard needs 15 layers of PP sheets with an area of 03 square meters, according to the consumption of 80g of PPO resin per square meter or 80g of Shuangma BMI resin, the amount of PPO or Shuangma BMI required for the AI server CPU motherboard can be calculated as 15 layers*03 square meters floor*80g=0.36kg。Considering that the loss rate from the resin link to the CCL link is about 8% and the loss rate from the CCL link to the PCB link is about 10-18%, the corresponding PPO or Shuangma BMI consumption of the CPU motherboard is 044kg。
2) Number of AI servers. According to IDC, the market share of servers used for inference in data centers reached 57 in 20216%, and the workload for inference is expected to reach 622%。According to the industry chain survey, the shipments of AI training cards in 2023 and 2024 will be about 1.5 million and 3 million, and the shipments of inference cards can be measured according to the proportion of inference training of IDC **, and in general, the corresponding AI server shipments from 2023 to 2025 will be 460,000 units, 950,000 units, and 1.64 million units, of which AI training server shipments will be 190,000 units, 380,000 units, and 630,000 units, and AI inference server shipments will be 280,000 units, 580,000 units, and 1.01 million units.
4) PPO consumption of normal server upgrade and consumption of double horse. According to the previous report, the number of layers of the CPU motherboard of ordinary servers is about 16 layers, corresponding to 15 layers of PP chips, and the area is about 024 square meters, because the CPU motherboard is mainly M6 and above copper clad laminates, and the technical route of M6 copper clad laminate resin of various manufacturers is different, we calculate according to the consumption of 80g of PP resin or 80g of double horse BMI resin per square meter of PP sheet, then the demand for a single ordinary server PPO or double horse BMI is 029kg, considering that the loss rate from the resin link to the copper clad laminate link is about 8% and the loss rate from the copper clad laminate link to the PCB link is about 10-18%, the PPO or Shuangma BMI requirement of a single ordinary server is 036kg。
With the evolution of communication technology, the demand for LCP materials will continue to increase.
LCP stands for Liquid Crystal Polymer, which has low dielectric loss and processability, and can meet the material requirements of flexible circuits, and the most famous commercial use of LCP materials in the industry is the connection antenna in the iPhone. With 5With the rapid development of 5G communication technology and automotive intelligence, as well as the rapid growth of demand for data centers and cloud computing, the data transmission bandwidth and capacity are increasing exponentially, and the requirements for the signal transmission rate and transmission loss of various electronic products are significantly improved, and the demand for LCP materials will rise on a large scale.
LCP is currently rolling out 5Antenna materials in 5G base stations, and considering the use trend of mobile phone LCP antennas or LCP transmission lines after the construction of millimeter wave base stations, we believe that the market size of LCP will continue to grow.
Communication technology to 5The evolution of 5G is driving the application and development of LCP materials
With the rapid development of 5G communication technology and automotive intelligence, as well as the rapid growth of demand for data centers and cloud computing, the data transmission bandwidth and capacity have increased exponentially, and the requirements for the signal transmission rate and transmission loss of various electronic products have increased significantly. Wherein, the signal transmission loss mainly includes the conductor loss and the dielectric loss, wherein the dielectric loss is proportional to the dielectric constant (DK), the dielectric loss (DF) of the dielectric material, and the signal transmission delay is proportional to the dielectric constant (DK) of the dielectric material, in order to reduce the signal transmission loss and delay, the high-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminate puts forward the requirement of reducing the DK and DF value of the dielectric material to its substrate. High-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates are currently in the field of mobile communication 5One of the core raw materials for the construction of 5G, 5G, and 4G base stations is an important emerging material needed for technological upgrades such as unmanned millimeter-wave radar and high-precision satellite navigation, and a key basic material urgently needed by communication equipment, aerospace and military industries.
The communication base station has entered the upgrade cycle
In 5G base station equipment, high-frequency communication materials are the key basic materials for the realization of base station antenna functions. Compared with 4G base stations, the 5G base station architecture has undergone major changes: the 4G base station architecture mainly includes passive antennas, remote radio units (RRUs), and baseband processing units (BBUs).In the 5G era, passive antennas, RRUs, and part of the physical layer will evolve into active antenna units (AAUs), while BBUs will be split into distributed units (DU) and concentrated units (CUs). The PCB substrate materials used in 5G communication meet the requirements of high frequency and high speed, integration, miniaturization, light weight, and high reliability. In particular, resin materials require low dielectric constant (DK), low dielectric loss (DF), low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and high thermal conductivity. At present, rigid copper clad laminates, represented by polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) thermoplastic materials and hydrocarbon resin (PCH) thermosetting materials, occupy the vast majority of the market for 5G high-frequency and high-speed PCB substrates due to their low dielectric properties.
The number of 5G macro base stations required for the same signal coverage area is much higher than the number of 4G macro base stations. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, according to iFind data, by the end of September 2023, a total of 318 5G base stations have been built and opened in China90,000, or 27% of the total number of mobile base stations. The wavelength of 5G is millimeter-level, the wavelength is extremely short, the frequency is extremely high, resulting in poor diffraction and wall penetration, and serious attenuation in the propagation medium, compared with the 4G base station, the coverage area of the 5G macro base station is smaller. In the future, further laying of small base stations in hot spots and densely populated areas is expected to drive the continuous growth of the market demand for high-frequency copper clad laminates.
In April 2021, the International Standards Organization 3GPP officially identified 5G-Advanced (5G-A) as the official name for the next stage of 5G evolution, starting with REL-18, which marks the global 5G development into 5A new phase of 5G. 5.The main mission of 5G is twofold: one is to correct and strengthen the deficiencies of 5G;The second is to explore the latest direction for the future development of 6G according to the development and changes of the industry. On June 27, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a new version of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Radio Frequency Allocation, which is the first in the world to allocate all or part of the 6425-7125MHz frequency band for IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications, including 5G 6G) systems. The determination of its regulatory status in the form of regulations is conducive to stabilizing the expectations of the 5G and 6G industry, promoting the global or regional division of 5G and 6G spectrum resources, providing the necessary mid-band frequency resources for the development of 5G and 6G, and promoting the innovation and development of mobile communication technology and industry. 5.5G, as a transition and bridging between 5G and 6G, will probably last for more than 5 years.
5.5G will achieve peak rates of 10 Gigabit (10 Gbit/s) downlink and 1 Gigabit (1 Gbit/s) uplink, as well as millisecond-level latency and low-cost 100 billion IoT. Compared to 5G, which began commercially available in 2019, 55G increases bandwidth speeds by 10 times, reduces latency by 10 times, increases connection density by 10 times, and improves positioning accuracy from sub-meter to centimeter-level 5G. 5.5G will add new capabilities to support the application of new scenarios and services. 5.5G will be used in three major application scenarios: EMBB (enhanced mobile broadband), MMTC (massive Internet of Things), and ULLC (highly reliable and low-latency connection).
The standard rhythm is clear, 55G has moved from vision to consensus. 5.5G has already started the process of standardization, and it will be defined in three versions: 3GPP R18, R19, and R205G technical specifications, continue to enrich 5The technical connotation of 5G. With the establishment of the first batch of R18 projects, 55G technology research and standardization has entered a substantial stage, and the direction of R18 will be continuously enhanced towards EMB. In the future R19 and R20 versions, it will continue to be enhanced for new services and new scenarios.
Key technological breakthroughs, ultra-large bandwidth and ultra-large-scale antenna arrays have been verified with 10 Gigabit capabilities. In the 5G era, high-bandwidth multi-antenna is the key to achieving cross-generational experience, delivering on Gbps capabilities. 5.5G technology has made further breakthroughs, and ultra-large bandwidth and ultra-large-scale antenna array technology, that is, ELAA technology, has become 5The key to a tenfold upgrade of 5G capabilities. Huawei has worked with multiple operators to verify the capabilities of ultra-high bandwidth and ELAA. In the mmWave band, 800MHz bandwidth combined with more than 2,000 array antennas enables a 10Gbps experienceIn the 6GHz band, the 400MHz bandwidth combined with more than 1,000 array antennas also delivers 10 Gigabit capability, while covering the same distance as C-BAND.
2.2 base station to 55G evolution is expected to benefit from antennas, filters, PCBs, and other links
Compared to 5G base stations, 5The number of ultra-large-scale antennas in 5G base stations has increased exponentially to more than 192 channels. With the base station communication frequency band to 5The evolution of 5G has created new requirements for the performance and quantity of base station RF, and antennas, filters, PCBs and other links are expected to benefit.
Radio frequency is the abbreviation of high-frequency alternating current electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 300kHz-300GHz that can radiate into space. Radio frequency is mainly used to realize the two essential functions of wireless communication - sending and receiving, that is, converting binary signals into high-frequency wireless electromagnetic wave signals and transmitting, and receiving wireless electromagnetic signals and converting them into binary signals. From a structural point of view, RF can be split into antennas, RF transceiver chips, baseband, and RF front-ends. The function of the RF front-end is the transmission and reception of wireless electromagnetic wave signals, and it is the core module necessary for mobile terminal equipment to realize wireless communication functions such as cellular network connection, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc., and can be further split into antenna tuner (tuner), antenna switch (switch), filter (filter), power amplifier (PA) and low noise amplifier (LNA). With the base station communication frequency band to 5The evolution of 5G has created new demands on the performance and quantity of RFs.
Massivemimo (Massive Antenna Technology) is a key technology for 5G communications to improve system capacity and spectrum utilization. The application of MassiveMIMO technology has led to a significant increase in the number of antenna channels for 5G macro base stations. In the 2G 3G 4G era, antennas are mostly 2 4 8 ports. In the 5G era, the number of antenna channels used by macro base stations is 64 on one side, and each base station usually needs to be equipped with three antennas to achieve 360-degree coverage. Large-scale antenna technology is a key technology for 5G communications to improve system capacity and spectrum utilizationThe number of ultra-large-scale antennas in 5G base stations has increased exponentially to more than 192 channels. Second, the increase in the number of base station antennas leads to an increase in the demand for filters for a single base station. The application of MassiveMimo technology and active antenna technology in 5G base stations requires 64 filters for a single-sided antenna and 192 filters for a single macro base station three-sided antenna,5The number of channels in 5G is more than three times that of 5G, so the demand for filters is also growing exponentially.
The complexity of information interconnection of 5G communication equipment is rapidly increasing, and the supporting PCB will also develop in the direction of high speed and large capacity, and new requirements are put forward in terms of frequency, rate, number of layers, size, and optoelectronic integration. 5.The bandwidth of 5G is further increased compared to 5G, and the data processing capacity needs to be improved by increasing the number of PCB conduction layers without much change in the size of the device. The number of components, such as filters, is proportional to the number of antennas, and the increase in the number of components further increases the PCB area. So 5The construction of 5G will further drive the demand for high-speed multi-layer PCBs (20-30 layers, and the number of high-speed PCB layers for core equipment reaches more than 40 layers).
2.3 The base station upgrade will lead to the innovative application of LCP materials
With 5The upward migration of the 5G frequency band will lead to a massive increase in the demand for LCP materials. LCP stands for Liquid Crystal Polymer, which has low dielectric loss and processability, and can meet the material requirements of flexible circuits, and the most famous commercial use of LCP materials in the industry is the connection antenna in the iPhone.
LCP materials from the upstream resin production to the finished product of LCP three different processing and molding products: LCP injection molded products, LCP film products (flexible board path), LCP fiber products (hard board path);and then to the midstream FPC path FCCL, the rigid board path of the electronic cloth;Finally, the module type is formed and applied to the end product.
LCP is an antenna material that is currently being promoted. The oscillator is the most important functional component inside the antenna, in order to reduce weight and reduce costs, the plastic vibrator has attracted attention, the plastic vibrator has been introduced into mass production LDS process (laser direct structuring technology, that is, the use of CNC lasers to transfer the circuit pattern directly to the surface of the plastic original, and the use of three-dimensional surface three-dimensional workpiece to form a circuit interconnection structure technology), the use of LDS-LCP material, LCP material has extremely low dielectric loss, good heat and flame resistance, extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion, in 5The 5G high-band has a clear competitive advantage.
China's current 5G frequency band is sub-6GHz (450MHz--6GHz), 55 The 6G band needs to reach 6GHz or more, while 55 The full realization of the commercial application of 6G also requires the coordinated deployment of millimeter-wave base stations and network equipment, at that time, the base station frequency band will reach 24GHz and above, and in the high frequency band, the antenna end and transmission end materials on the base station side are in urgent need of lower dielectric loss materials. Taking the high-frequency and high-speed materials currently used in Sub-6GHz as an example, the raw materials used for copper-clad laminates are mainly PPO hydrocarbon PTFE resin and high-end quartz fiberglass cloth
After entering 24GHz, the current resin material can still be used, but the performance of the glass fiber cloth will have a certain bottleneck, even after modification, its dielectric constant is only 4 (6 before modification), and the dielectric constant of the material suitable for the 24GHz frequency band is 2-3 (higher frequency bands or even below 2), the dielectric constant of LCP glass fiber cloth can reach this range, and it is expected to reach 1 after improvement6。It is worth noting that the current high-end quartz fiberglass cloth used in China's sub-6GHz has obvious shortcomings in the first chain, mainly relying on overseas manufacturers and Taiwanese manufacturers (mainly Japan Nittobo, Japan Glass Cloth Group and Taiwan Glass Cloth Group), in the future, with the construction of higher frequency band base stations, the localization of this key material is urgent.
In order to improve the high-frequency performance of the antenna and reduce the space occupation, Apple began to try to use LCP-based antenna modules in the iPhone 8 in 2017, and Apple first applied LCP antennas and LCP soft boards on the iPhone X released in the same year. In order to improve the high-frequency and high-speed performance of the antenna and save the space occupied by the device, Apple increased the number of LCP antennas using 2 in the iPhone X to 6 in the subsequent iPhone XS XS Max XR. At present, the antenna solutions selected by various mobile phone manufacturers are mainly LDS antennas, MPI antennas, and ceramic antennas (Apple's antenna transmission line uses LCP), but when the base station frequency band reaches 15GHz and above, the dielectric loss value of the antenna material needs to reach 0Below 2%, there are not many options at the material level, and there are currently LCP, ceramic, and PTFE (the dielectric loss value of the currently commonly used MPI material is 0.).3%), while the problem of the thickness of the ceramic material as well as the problem of preheating and expansion of the PTFE material are destined to be limited in the use of mobile phones, therefore, with the 55 6G, millimeter wave base station construction, mobile phone manufacturers will successively use LCP antenna or LCP transmission line scheme, at the same time, due to the unique way of millimeter wave transmission, mobile phones need to have 6 surface straight line radiation conditions, at that time, the number of LCP antennas required will reach 3.
At present, some mobile phone manufacturers have loaded UWB antennas in flagship phones, and the solutions used are LCP antennas and MPI antennas, and the loading of UWB has opened a new breakthrough for the popularization of LCP antennas in mobile phones. In the future, as various car companies successively install UWB modules, the loading of UWB antennas in mobile phones will accelerate, and the number of UWB antennas in a single mobile phone will also change from 1 to 3 (to meet the needs of angle measurement).5 With the advancement of 6G and millimeter wave construction, it is easier for mobile phone manufacturers to choose UWB and the main antenna to be co-linear, and the possibility of choosing LCP solutions will be greatly increased.
Other areas. 5.In the 5G era, the requirements for high-frequency transmission insulation materials are very high. To ensure minimal signal loss during transmission, LCP materials are ideal for 5G high-frequency transmission due to their excellent high-frequency dielectric properties, dimensional stability, and heat resistance. In addition to mobile phone antenna FPC, LCP-based circuit boards can also be used in 5G-related communications, notebook computers, smart wearables, automotive millimeter-wave radar, telemedicine, high-definition wireless** real-time transmission, and other fields. From the perspective of the competitive landscape, in terms of upstream LCP resin, overseas companies are currently in a leading position, domestic low-end resin links have basically achieved breakthroughs, and high-end fields, Plitt can achieve mass production. LCP finished products are mainly divided into LCP injection molded products, LCP film products and LCP fiber products. Due to the relatively low-end of LCP injection molding products, domestic manufacturers can achieve mass production, mainly used in automotive connectors, computer cooling fan blade materials and other fields. The overseas manufacturers of LCP film products are Kuraray and Murata, but Murata's own industrial chain is involved in the midstream, and the finished products are completely self-supplied and not sold. Domestically, the manufacturers with film blowing and back-end equipment are Pulit and Ningbo Jujia.
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