The high-end electronics industry is developing rapidly, and the market demand for spherical silica powder is large
Spherical silica powder is made of selected angular silica powder as raw material and processed into spherical silica powder material by flame method. It has good fluidity, low stress, small specific surface area and high bulk density. It can be obtained as a filler. Higher filling rate and uniformity are widely used in high-end PCB boards, epoxy molding compounds for large-scale integrated circuits, high-end coatings, special ceramics, etc. The price is 3-5 times that of angular silicon powder.
Silicon micropowder is one of the core basic raw materials of the electronics industry, and the expansion of the advanced packaging market has driven the growth of the demand for spherical powder. According to Yole data, with the upgrading of the electronics industry, the scale of the advanced packaging market has gradually expanded. It is expected to occupy nearly 50% of the packaging market share in 2024, which is expected to further drive the growth of spherical silicon micropowder demand.
With the vigorous development of high-end electronic industries such as 5G intelligence, high-performance copper clad laminates and chip packaging industries are expected to drive the incremental market for silicon micropowder fillers. According to Absolute reports, the global sales of spherical silica for fillers will reach 159,000 tons in 2023, and its market size will reach US$660 million in 2024, with CARG5 reaching 9.2%. The output of spherical silica in the same year is estimated to be 184,900 tons, and the overall production and sales continued to grow. According to the data of the global copper clad laminate and chip packaging industry calculated by Guotai Junan Securities Research Institute, the total global demand for spherical silicon micropowder is expected to increase from 225,800 tons in 2020 to 396,200 tons in 2025, with an average compound growth rate of 11.90 tons from 2020 to 2025. %.
There is a broad prospect for automobile intelligence. The demand for printed circuit boards (PCB) for a single new energy vehicle is more than 5 times that of ordinary vehicles. According to industry chain research and other data, it is estimated that the demand for spherical silicon powder for new energy vehicles will reach 28,231.6 tons, of which the new energy vehicle copper clad laminate and the spherical silicon micro-powder for chip packaging increased to 15,880.3/12,351.3 tons respectively.
The general trend of the Metaverse is driving the development and upgrading of computing power. On the one hand, the growth of servers has expanded the demand for PCBs; on the other hand, high-speed, large-capacity, and high-performance servers will continue to develop, creating a large demand for high-level, high-density, and high-speed PCB products. According to industry chain research and other data, it is estimated that the demand for spherical silicon powder for servers will reach 18,542.1 tons in 2025, of which the filling volume of spherical silicon powder for copper clad laminates and chip packaging will increase to 10,429.9/8,112.2 tons in 2025, respectively.
The demand for high-performance PCB drives the expansion of the spherical microsilica market. The short-wave and high-frequency characteristics of 5G communication technology have higher requirements on the transmission speed, transmission loss, heat dissipation and other performance of the PCB, and the investment in routers, switches, IDCs and other equipment required to carry larger bandwidth traffic has increased accordingly. High-frequency and high-speed copper clad laminates need to use low-dielectric, low-loss fused silicon micropowder and spherical silicon micropowder as key functional fillers, and require low powder impurity content and high filling rate. Therefore, the demand for high-performance spherical silicon micropowder is gradually expanding. According to industry chain research and other data, it is expected that the total filling volume of spherical silicon micropowder for 5G base stations will increase to 1,295.8 tons in 2022.