SDGC Advanced Ceramic Technology Group is China's largest high-purity nano-level electronic ceramic material barium titanate and bio-ceramic material technology enterprise.
I accidentally saw that SDGC applied for a patent for "a process for continuous preparation of barium titanate powder" and picked up several core points:
1. Highly active precursor + barium salt; continuous production process, completely overturning the traditional batch hydrothermal synthesis process;
2. Independent research and development of continuous synthesis reaction equipment: nanometer level, high purity, high crystallinity, uniform particle distribution, and good dispersion;
3. The world's first commercialization: 60 nanometer-level barium titanate powder material, which can prepare 10 nanometer-level barium titanate powder material;
4. Compared with batch type: energy consumption is reduced by 30%-40%; preparation time is shortened by 50%. From this patent description, it can be seen that SDGC has the qualifications of the MLCC formula powder leader. With the hydrothermal process as the core, it becomes understandable to extend to the relevant industry chain.
SDGC's core technology and products:
• Following Sakai Chemical in Japan, the second manufacturer in the world to successfully mass-produce high-purity, nano-level barium titanate powder using high-temperature and high-pressure hydrothermal technology, and the largest high-purity nano-level electronic ceramic material barium titanate series products and MLCC in China Manufacturers using series of functional ceramic materials.
• The electronic materials sector, the catalytic materials sector, and the biomedical sector have formed three core business sectors, and the sectors have played a high degree of synergy in the market, technology and quality management.
Business model
Industry characteristics from the sales model
SDGC focuses on direct sales, supplemented by agency sales. Most of the products are direct sales, but in order to open up the market, some products will adopt the mode of consignment sales in some areas abroad
1. The main product of electronic materials: the price of formula powder for MLCC: components and upstream raw materials are different. The upstream raw materials are basically oligopoly and maintain long-term stable cooperative relations, so the price of raw materials will not fluctuate too much, but downstream MLCC components have a wide range of customers, and there are many traders, resulting in large fluctuations in component prices.
2. The main product of catalyst: Honeycomb ceramics for automobile exhaust gas treatment are generally sold directly and delivered to coating companies or packaging companies (SDGC can also do their own coating) due to the product characteristics, that is to say, China Ceramics is supplied by Level 2 or Level 3. The mainstream model is the OEM designated honeycomb ceramic supplier.
3. The main biomedical product: high-end zirconia for dentistry
-Domestic customers: mainly for customers such as dental laboratories and dental clinics, direct sales of zirconia blocks, dental equipment and consumables through direct sales.
-Foreign customers: The market is dominated by high-end markets such as North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea, and the business is mainly realized through foreign medical equipment distributors. Adopt a buy-out distribution method to directly sell dental materials such as zirconia porcelain blocks to foreign distributors.
1. Electronic materials sector
1) MlCC formula powder
MLCC refers to multilayer ceramic capacitors, which are mainly used in audio and video equipment, mobile phones, computers and automobiles. High-end products are concentrated in Japanese and Korean companies, and low-end products are concentrated in China and Taiwan, including GDFH Ceramic Technology Group , BJSH Ceramic Technology Group, GJ Electronic Material Technology Group, etc. Ceramic formula powder is the core raw material of MLCC, accounting for 20% to 45% of the cost of MLCC (different amounts of different capacities are used).
The formula powder is a dielectric ceramic powder made of barium titanate basic powder by adding rare earth metal oxides for modification. The fineness, uniformity and reliability of ceramic powder directly determine the size, capacitance and performance of downstream MLCC products. (Remark, SDGC also has electrode material for MLCC)
SDGC status: global market share: 30%; China market share: 80%. SDGC is the world's major supplier of MLCC formula powder. SDGC is the first company in China and the second company in the world to use water-phase method to produce barium titanate, breaking Japan's long-term monopoly in this field, and it has been taking the road of import substitution from the beginning to now. Cost advantage: The ceramics are divided into titanium/barium/rare earths as raw materials, and most Japanese manufacturers rely on imports. SDGC is located in a rich source of ceramic raw materials, and the production cost is relatively low. Compared with Japanese competitors, barium titanate basic powder of similar quality has a price gap. 30%.
The formula powder is based on the basic powder and naturally has a certain price advantage. At present, it has reached an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons of MLCC media powder. If the demand is stable and the production capacity continues to be released, there is still room for expansion of 2,000 tons. At a reasonable price of 68,500 yuan/ton, there will be about 137 million yuan in revenue in the future. Increment.
As Japanese MLCC manufacturers such as Japan's TDK and Murata fade out of the low-end market and switch to the high-end automotive and electric market, China's domestic mid- and low-end manufacturers will further expand their production. For SDGC, although its domestic market share may not increase further, due to its oligopoly position in China, as the output of downstream domestic manufacturers increases, the consumption of national porcelain powder will be further expanded. SDGC's new manufacturing workshop has the ability to produce small particles, high-reliability basic powder and formula powder, which can meet the needs of high-capacity, high-reliability MLCC for vehicles, and it will be possible to further divide the high-end formula powder market.
Competitors: Global MLCC powder formulations are mainly concentrated in Japan: Japan's Sakai Chemical is the world's largest manufacturer of MLCC powder formulations, with a market share of about 28%; American Ferro and Japan Chemical rank second and third respectively, with market share They are 20% and 14% respectively.
Domestic competitors in China are also customers: BJSH: has additive production capabilities, but only for self-produced and used, not external sales; formula powder should be provided by SDGC;-GDFH: has MLCC formula powder production capacity;-HJ Electronic Materials Technology Group: start Research and develop porcelain powder formula and ultra-fine production process.
Market space: According to research data, the current global MLCC formula powder market demand is 50,000 tons, of which 70% of the market share is self-produced and self-use, 30% of the formula powder needs to be purchased from external suppliers, and the outsourcing market demand is about 15,000 tons.
Compared with ordinary mobile phones, the usage of single MLCC in 5G mobile phones has increased from 300 to 500 to 550 to 990, an increase of 80% to 200%. At the same time, in terms of electric vehicles, the number of MLCCs used in pure electric vehicles is gasoline vehicles. 6 times. The growth rate is about 10%.
2) Electronic paste
The electronic paste is a mixture of metal conductive powder, a linker, and an organic carrier to form something similar to toothpaste. The latter process is heating and sintering to make a finished product. For example, in the hot solar cells in recent years, the positive electrode is made of silver and aluminum paste, and the negative electrode is also made of silver paste. There are also flexible electronics, capacitors, sensitive components, integrated circuits, etc. The use of paste is everywhere. In 2016, it acquired JSHY Optoelectronics Technology and DGMP Electronic Material Technology, with a production capacity of about 3,000 tons, and is the first to occupy the Chinese market.
Main products: Nickel internal electrode paste, copper terminal electrode paste, silver target electrode paste, resin silver paste chip inductor internal electrode paste, chip inductor external electrode paste, chip inductor photosensitive paste
Competitors: DuPont of the United States and Heraeus of Japan occupy more than 60% of the market. China has BJSH. Market space: The scale is about 7.5 billion, the product technology threshold is high, the added value is high, and the layout of Chinese enterprises is small.
3) Zirconia powder: mobile phone ceramic back plate
It is mainly used for mobile phone ceramic backs/smart watches and ceramic dentures. The dentures are introduced separately later. Since the market space of mobile phones is larger than that of watches, only ceramic back panels are introduced here. With the gradual use of wireless charging technology and the imminent commercialization of 5G, mobile phones will abandon the metal back cover that shields the signal and use non-metallic materials-ceramic back cover and glass back cover. Among them, the advantage of the ceramic back cover is that the surface hardness is even higher than that of glass, and it is more wear-resistant and scratch-resistant, and the color adjustability and hand-feel comfort of the ceramic are very good.
The disadvantage of the ceramic backplane is that the post-processing accounts for a relatively large proportion of the cost, mainly due to the complex processing technology, high processing difficulty, and high labor hours of precision ceramic components, resulting in a much higher overall cost than glass.
The yield is low, at 60-80%. The price in the figure below is based on the information at the end of 2017. The current ceramic price is about 100 yuan (the price of different mobile phones will be slightly different), then the overall price should be closer to the glass solution now, depending on whether the production capacity and efficiency can keep up.
Note: Calcium oxide can also be used on the cover of the fingerprint module, a small piece is about 5 yuan. However, Zhizhijun believes that virtual fingerprint recognition will replace the physical fingerprint recognition cover, and the amount is relatively small, so it is ignored.
TBC…