Ceramic products in the 5G field

With the official opening of 5G commercialization in China, 5G has become a key infrastructure for the transformation of the digital economy and is gradually gaining popularity and penetrating into all areas of society. 5G industry chain is very broad, including components, major equipment, operators and downstream applications. Initial investments mainly include wireless equipment, transmission equipment, base station equipment, small base stations, optical communication equipment, and network planning and implementation. In terms of application direction, 5G applications include three major directions: industrial digitization, smart life, and digital governance.
Vacuum technology, as a modern basic science closely integrated with applied science, has been widely used in the 5G industry chain. From the preparation process of materials and devices for 5G base stations, to the vacuum leak detection of optical communication devices in the network, to the preparation of core components in 5G cell phones, VR/AR devices and driverless cars, vacuum technology is involved and widely used. The following small series will take you into the 5G industry chain and explore the application of vacuum technology in the 5G industry chain.
1、5G industry chain
From the hardware point of view, the 5G industry chain is mainly divided into 5G network and 5G terminal. 5G network:5G network can be divided into three areas, namely access network (including 5G base station and its supporting power supply, antenna, RF equipment, etc.) , bearer network (including optical fiber, optical cable, optical module, optical communication equipment, etc.) and core network (including servers, switching equipment, etc.). .
5G terminal:5G terminal refers to the application end of 5G technology, including 3D communication, super clear video, online AR/VR, cloud office, cloud game, and a series of new application scenarios applicable to mobile Internet and IoT such as IoT, autonomous vehicle, industrial automation, e-medicine, etc.
2、The application of vacuum technology in 5G access network
(1) Substrate isolator, circulator
China's 5G system frequency use plan clearly stipulates: 3300-3400MHz (in principle, the upper limit of indoor use), 3400-3600MHz, 4800-5000MHz band for the 5G system's working frequency band; stipulates that the 5G system should use the above working frequency band, and shall not cause radio astronomy services and other radio services carried out in accordance with the law in the same or adjacent frequency band Harmful interference. Therefore, the substrate isolators and circulators used in the original 4G base stations need to be upgraded to meet the requirements of 5G.
The current substrate isolators/loopers used in 5G base stations use vacuum coating technology in two aspects: one is to make metal bottom electrodes on the ceramic surface, and the other is to prepare their own YIG films using vacuum coating technology. (e.g. PLD laser pulse deposition)
2) Ceramic dielectric filter
With the development of 5G base stations towards miniaturization, light weight and high integration, the antenna technology of base stations is constantly upgraded, and the demand for filters will increase greatly. Ceramic dielectric filter with its low insertion loss, high dielectric, small size, light weight, low cost and other advantages, gradually become the mainstream of 5G base station filters, replacing the widely used metal cavity filters in 4G base stations. The current metallization scheme for ceramic dielectric filters is mainly a silver paste process and a vacuum coating process. In the vacuum coating process, the clean multi-cavity microwave dielectric ceramic substrate is placed in a pollution-free, zero-emission vacuum coating equipment, and a dense metallic silver layer is plated on the ceramic surface using high-energy ion PVD technology, thus achieving the purpose of metallization of ceramic filters.
3) Lithium iron phosphate battery
5G base stations use larger array antennas and higher bandwidth, and the full-load power of a single station is nearly 3800W, which is 3.5 times the power consumption of 4G base stations. Considering the energy consumption of other equipment in the nacelle, the energy consumption of 5G base stations will reach 5300W, and the backup power of a single base station requires 21.2KWh.
With the significant increase in power consumption of 5G base stations, the use of standby power to reduce the cost of electricity consumption by peak shaving will become a standard feature of 5G base stations. The cycle life of lithium iron phosphate batteries is four times that of lead-acid batteries, with good multiplier performance, support for fast charging, and a wide temperature range, making it more suitable for use with 5G base station backup power. So the large-scale construction of 5G base stations will bring an increase in demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries.
During the preparation of lithium batteries, the welding part of the shell needs to be checked for leaks. If the electrolyte inside the lithium battery leaks out because of the sealing of the shell, it will not only affect the service life of the equipment, but also cause harm to the operator. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a leak test during the assembly and sealing of lithium batteries (cylindrical and prismatic units are welded). Depending on the production process, a helium mass spectrometer leak detector or helium leak detection system can be selected.
3、The application of vacuum technology in 5G bearer network
1）Optical passive devices
Optical passive device is a general term for optical functional devices without optical energy, which mainly realize the functions of connection, energy attenuation, reverse isolation, splitting or merging, signal modulation and filtering in the optical path. Optical passive devices require extremely high sealing, and if there is leakage, it will affect their performance and accuracy. The leakage rate standard of optical communication industry is less than 5×10-9 Pa*m3/s, so leakage detection is required. The helium mass spectrometry leak detection method uses helium as the tracer gas to precisely locate the leak point, replacing the traditional foam leak detection method and differential pressure leak detection method, and is now widely used in the production process of optical devices.
2) Thin Film Filters (TFF)
One of the advantages of fiber optic communication is that dozens of wavelengths can be transmitted simultaneously in a single fiber, which is called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM).The basic components of WDM transmission are optical filters, which can be implemented by fiber fusion taper (FBT), thin film filter (TFF), array waveguide grating (AWG) and optical comb filtering.TFF and AWG are the two most commonly used WDM technologies. Thin-film filter-based devices are widely used in WDM schemes for both forward transmission and transmission. Currently, thin film filters are mainly produced using optically controlled plasma-assisted electron beam evaporation coating (IAD) or ion beam direct sputtering coating.
For thin film filters used in 5G carrier networks, silica and titanium dioxide are alternately deposited on the filter surface by a coating process with a deposition thickness of the order of a molecular layer, with the deposited layers ranging from a few to several hundred layers depending on the need. The more layers, the closer the response spectrum curve is to rectangle, the better the filter performance.
4、The application of vacuum technology in 5G terminal
1）5G cell phone
5G cell phone backplane coating
5G communication uses high frequency signal, the metal cell phone back plate which has obvious shielding to high frequency signal will gradually leave the market stage, replaced by glass back plate and ceramic back plate.
Since the traditional anodized aluminum alloy dyeing process cannot be used, optical decorative coating becomes the preferred process for glass dyeing. In the manufacturing process of ceramic backplates, magnetron sputtering coating gradually becomes the first choice for printing logos and decorative stripes.
5G cell phone electromagnetic shielding film
5G cell phones have many Massive MIMO antennas, and the trend of high frequency and high speed is obvious, further increasing the demand for electromagnetic shielding. Usually 5G cell phone manufacturers will be in the FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit Board) cover film and electromagnetic shielding film to solve the problem of electromagnetic shielding.
Electromagnetic shielding film is a kind of electromagnetic shielding material, currently mainly used in FPC and related components, has a broad application space in the field of electromagnetic shielding and wave absorption. The electromagnetic shielding film needs to have the characteristics of high shielding efficiency, thin thickness, light weight, anti-bending, high peeling strength and low ground resistance. electromagnetic shielding film in 5G cell phone is mainly made by vacuum winding magnetron sputtering method.
5G cell phone OLED display
According to the backplane technology of cell phone panels, 5G displays are mainly divided into four categories: flexible OLED, rigid OLED, low-temperature polycrystalline silicon LTPS-LCD and amorphous silicon α-Si-LCD. and OLED screens become the core accessories of 5G cell phones with their advantages of fast response and low power consumption.
The preparation of OLED materials is closely related to the vacuum coating technology, where vacuum evaporation is the key to the OLED manufacturing process and directly affects the OLED screen display. The job of the evaporator is to evaporate the OLED organic light-emitting material on the substrate accurately, uniformly and controllably; meanwhile, the preparation of OLED organic light-emitting material also needs to be carried out in a vacuum environment.
5G cell phone camera and filter
From 3G-4G-5G, each generation of communication network upgrade means a greater amount of information throughput. At present, mainstream 5G cell phones have invariably increased the number of cameras and the pixel increase of individual cameras has become a significant trend. Under this trend, the number of lenses and infrared cut-off filters for cell phone cameras have increased significantly, greatly increasing the demand for optical coatings.
2) VR/AR devices
In the 4G era, smartphones developed rapidly. With the arrival of the 5G era, one cannot help but speculate what the next generation of consumer electronics terminals will look like. Among them, VR/AR devices are the most popular.
The core feature of both VR and AR devices is a new display system. In addition to the image display device, the near-eye display optical lens set is more critical. lens solutions for AR and VR devices are different and are described below.
At present, AR lens solutions mainly include prism, free-form surface and optical waveguide, with planar optical waveguide as the mainstream. At present, the optics based on planar optical waveguide technology are mainly manufactured by optical coating. The current VR lens scheme mainly adopts Fresnel lens, and the vacuum coating technology is mainly applied to the preparation of anti-fog film and anti-reflection film on the inside of the lens.
3) Smart Home
5G technology will promote the rapid development of the Internet of Things and provide communication basis for smart home. At present, a series of smart home products have appeared in China, such as: smart desk lamp, smart security system, smart curtain, smart temperature control system, smart audio system, etc. Both the production process of smart home itself and the communication system to realize the intercommunication of "things" are inseparable from vacuum technology.
5Developing vacuum technology, helping 5G industry
5G, as a new generation of mobile communication technology, extends the service object from interpersonal communication to interpersonal communication, and the application field from mobile Internet to mobile Internet of Things. It opens up a new journey of ubiquitous interconnection of everything, deep human-computer interaction, and intelligent leading change, representing the development direction and strategic high point of a new generation of information and communication technology.
Vacuum technology, as a modern basic science under development, is widely used in all aspects of the 5G industry. In the future, CSCE will continue to strengthen its leading position in the field of vacuum technology, focus on 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and other frontier technologies, base on strategic emerging industries, and make continuous contributions to the development and industrialization of 5G technology.
Statement: The content of the article is reproduced in CSCE, only for sharing, does not represent the position of this number, if there is any infringement, please contact the editor to delete, thank you!