Flexible Printed Circuit Boards

In recent years, flexible circuit boards (FPCs) have become one of the fastest growing sub-sectors in the printed circuit board industry. According to IDTechEx, the market for FPCs will grow to US $26.2 billion by 2020.

FPC is everywhere in consumer electronics products. It is a kind of highly reliable and excellent flexible printed circuit board. Due to its high wiring density, light weight, thin thickness, and good bendability, FPC is mainly used in small, portable and wearable devices, such as mobile phones, PCs, drones and even car terminals. 

Approximately 12 to 15 flexible circuit boards are installed inside a mobile phone. They are widely used for mobile phone screens, motherboards, buttons, side keys, cameras, handsets, cables, and other components in a large number.

According to the statistics, the global FPC output in 2016 reached 13.6 billion U.S. dollars. Faced with the continued expansion of profit margins for FPCs, domestic circuit board manufacturers have deployed in advance to expand production capacity. This shows that the market demand for FPC is extremely huge.

Although FPC production equipment still purchase from Japan, Europe and United States manufacturers, it is important that most of the global electronics production capacity comes from China, especially from the Pearl River Delta region, where can basically achieve large-scale production. Since 2010, domestic companies have no technical barriers in the FPC production process. Thus, the competitiveness of Chinese FPC manufacturers has also increased.