Taiwan's copper-clad laminates (CCL) makers including Elite Material (EMC), Iteq, and Taiwan Union Technology are all gearing up their deployments in high-frequency offerings for automotive applications, according to industry sources.

The trend of vehicles going electrical and using more electronics is driving the upgrades of CCL specs for automotive PCB products needed to support car-use mmWave radars, electronic control units, and autonomous driving applications. This, coupled with much larger automotive PCBs, will bring lucrative business opportunities for CCL makers, the sources said.

High-frequency CCL makers will see demand for automotive applications start taking off in 2023-2024, given that they are needed to support V2V (vehicle to vehicle), V2I (vehicle to infrastructure), C-V2X (cellular-vehicle to everything), as well as positioning, entertainment, and communications systems, the sources said.

To cash in on the demand, CCL makers are all busy having their products undergo validations at prospective clients, seeking to build a preemptive presence in the market.

The makers are also eyeing business opportunities for high-frequency CCLs required for 5G handset antennas, base station antennas, and RF modules, as well as those for high-speed offerings for datacenter server and switch applications.

Also, makers are also actively developing CCLs for the production of IC substrates. Iteq, for instance, has developed CCLs for BT substrates in cooperation with Japan's leading BT resin supplier Mitsubishi Gas Chemical (MGC), now pending validations at clients. EMC is also set to start commercial production of substrate-use CCL materials in 2023, the sources said.

By DIGITIMES