News briefing
In April 2019, South Korea and the US’s 5G mobile communications were launched one after another. Although the initial signal coverage is not satisfactory, it has indicated that the 5G era is coming. In the second half of 2019, countries including the UK and China will subsequently officially launch the commercialization of 5G, and it is expected that this should open up another long wave of competition with various business opportunities available in the 5G industry.

Impact analysis 
PCB business opportunities derived from 5G mobile communication can be roughly divided into several categories. Firstly, the number of base stations 5G requires is 4 to 5 times higher than that of 4G, and these are a large number of small base stations because of the physical characteristic of micro-waves for infrastructure. For the part of the mobile terminal, we have found that 5G smart cellphones have continued with the trend of change in smart phones, trailed by a variety of switches, routers, or household communication equipment that has to be updated. Finally, 5G applications could come in all sorts of varieties. As for various types of system modules, they would need diverse PCB support with different characteristics, and the scale of the demand will be realized when the size and the scale of the market is discovered. Right now, PCBs for base stations are reckoned to be the earliest for realization and the business opportunities of such demands have long been materialized. Nonetheless, the most eye-catching business opportunities for 5G should come along with the new smart phones that will be released in the next 3 to 5 years.

In terms of 5G base stations, AAU in each 5G base station has about 6 PCBs (3 pieces on antenna-ends, 3 pieces on RF-terminal), DU has about three pieces of 28-layer high-speed PCBs, and CU has one piece of 40-layer high-speed backplane. In view of the amount of base stations to be established every year worldwide, materials, and PCB quotations, it is estimated that the PCB market for base stations around the globe will achieve about US$1 billion in 2019, and is expected to grow to US$8 billion by 2023. PCB’s in base stations would, all in all, need high-frequency/high-speed material support. Although users have mainly made use of Rogers materials, Panasonic of Japan, Formosa Lab and Iteq of Taiwan, or even SYTech and Wazam of China, have claimed to have developed related materials, the right to use whatever materials remains in the hands of the end customers. Presently, mainland-based materials manufacturers are connected to Huawei, ZTE, and others, it is why it has more advantages than those Taiwanese manufacturers. As for Taiwanese material manufacturers, they must be cleared of the verification platform and mechanisms before it becomes easier to obtain the willingness of the end user for their utility. 

For PBC manufacturers, it is not simply that when they obtain materials they can then cut into the market for high-frequency/high-speed boards for 5G applications. In addition to material support, high-frequency/high-speed boards in the 5G environment of PCBs also require heat dissipation design requirements, precision fine path of thin boards, and high impedance matching requirements, and other manufacturing process capabilities. All in all, the supply chain of PBC for 5G is still not fully finalized regarding the materials, equipment, and board factories. Any new materials and new manufacturing processes may have broken loose from the current supply chain system, and this is considered a great opportunity for many manufacturers to transform and upgrade.