The development of high-frequency substrates opens new application areas for quartz fiber

Quartz glass fiber is an inorganic high-performance fiber with a SiO2 content of more than 99.9%. Quartz fiber is a special glass fiber with a diameter of 1-15 μm, which is drawn from high-purity silica quartz stone after being melted at high temperature. The composition of quartz fiber is basically the composition of high-purity quartz glass. It maintains some of the characteristics of quartz glass and is superior in high temperature resistance, chemical stability, strength, corrosion resistance and other properties.

As a material with high wave transmittance, high strength and high heat resistance, quartz fiber is mainly used in the military and aerospace fields. It has important applications in radome, thermal protection and other fields. The application of quartz fiber in the electronic field, especially in high-frequency substrates, began in Japan and other powerful countries in the electronics industry. However, due to market capacity constraints, the application scale is relatively small. Many Chinese companies such as Hubei Feilihua Quartz Glass Co., Ltd., Henan Shenjiu Tianhang New Materials Co., Ltd., and Wuhan Xinyoutai Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. have realized the industrial production of glass fibers and their products, breaking through in technology. foreign monopoly. In recent years, with the development of 5G technology and the construction of 5G base stations and other related facilities, people have increasingly higher performance requirements for high-frequency substrates. The application of quartz glass with low dielectric loss in the field of high-frequency substrates has attracted the attention of relevant domestic manufacturers. In particular, communication equipment manufacturers such as ZTE and Huawei have joined forces with high-frequency substrate manufacturers to develop high-frequency substrate products using quartz glass, and are trying to open up the industrial chain and promote the development of related technologies and the industrialization of products, driving the use of quartz fiber in high-frequency substrates. The development of application technology in the field and the development of related products. However, in general, due to the relatively late development time and low technological maturity, there are few domestic companies that use quartz glass to manufacture high-frequency substrates, and the main companies are mostly in the technology development, product certification or small batch production and application stages, with a long distance. Large-scale commercial use is still some way off. According to the released “2022-2026 Quartz Fiber Industry Venture Investment Situation and Investment and Financing Strategy Guidelines“, China’s quartz fiber The scale of production and application is relatively small, and its application in the field of high-frequency substrates is even more limited. In 2021, the quartz fiber used in China’s high-frequency substrate field will be at the ton level.

At present, with the R&D investment and industrial integration of large users such as Huawei and ZTE, the application technology of quartz fiber in the field of high-frequency substrates continues to develop, and some products have entered the certification test stage. Analysts believe that in the future, as the technology gradually matures, the demand and production of high-frequency substrates using quartz fiber will gradually increase. Especially in the context of the large-scale construction of 5G base stations, the gradual maturity of microwave communication technology and the increase in investment in 6G technology research and development, the penetration rate of quartz fiber materials with lower dielectric constant and dielectric loss in the field of high-frequency substrates will continue to increase. This provides good market conditions for the development of the quartz fiber industry for high-frequency substrates.