The market for industrial robots in the 3C industry is huge

Select components from cost and equipment from process. There are many smartphone accessories, and the body, touch screen and final assembly inspection account for the largest proportion of mobile phone hardware costs, which has machinery-related investment value. The automated manufacturing of components will bring opportunities for equipment replacement and robot entry with the replacement of mobile phones and the change of the benefits and costs of technology.

Automation in the 3C industry is exploding. China's industrial robots still have huge room for development. According to the "Made in China 2025" roadmap in the field of robotics, by 2020, the number of industrial robots will reach 800,000 units, about twice the number of vehicles in 2015, with an average growth rate of 15%. From the perspective of application industry, the automotive industry is the most used, but the stable ratio of mature applications and international giants hinders the entry of domestic manufacturers. The growth rate of robots in the 3C industry is fast, but the degree of automation is very low, and many desktop robots are expected to be upgraded. 3C products are updated quickly, especially mobile phone products, which change greatly every 1-2 years, bringing the need for equipment replacement. As a representative of 3C products, mobile phones are large-scale, high-tech, and fast-upgrading, and their automation and upgrading process will bring huge opportunities.

From a process perspective, we identify the most critical and most likely equipment and companies in the three major links.

Body: A piece of metal also has multiple "cooking-" methods. At present, the more common mobile phone bodies on the market include metal bodies, double-sided glass metal frames, plastic bodies, etc., and metal bodies can be divided into: three-stage, window and nano injection molding. The change of the material and structure of the fuselage, as well as the market preference behind it, will lead the share of processing equipment to shake. At present, the general equipment of the metal body includes CNC machine tools, CNC drilling and tapping machine tools, high-speed engraving machines, grinding machines, sandblasting machines, etc. It is necessary to pay attention to the technical use of mobile phone cutting or injection molding, the change of mobile phone materials, the treatment of antennas, and the curvature requirements of the fuselage.

The touch screen is layered to find the highlights. The touch screen is composed of multiple layers such as protective glass, LCD screen, and backlight module. Protective glass, liquid crystal and backlight, touch and chip, module assembly and other multi-level manufacturing concepts exist at the same time, and the cost, the preference of design manufacturers, and the popularity of the market will gradually affect the product and industrial chain. At present, the main equipment of protective glass includes cutting knife wheel (related machine), glass engraving machine, flat grinding machine, laminating machine, etc. The sapphire processing equipment that is widely expected by the market mainly includes: rod digging machine, diamond wire cutting machine, diamond wire cutting machine or laser cutting machine, grinding disc equipment, etc.

Assembly and inspection are a must for mobile phone automation. The market attaches great importance to the assembly and inspection of mobile phones, and many assemblers have put forward the need for automation. At present, robots can be used in SMT, screwing, veneer functional testing, preprocessing, MMI, metal polishing, transportation and packaging, but there are difficulties in plugging and unplugging, PCB board assembly, shell assembly, film and other aspects. Current solutions for robots include redundant DOF robots equipped with torque sensors, human-robot collaboration concepts, etc. In terms of automation integration, it is hoped that it will be improved into a flexible production line. Price, technology stability, and technology maturity will become the next expected direction.

Seize the opportunity of the dots and lines of mobile phone automation. From accessory manufacturing to final assembly testing, the demand for mobile phone manufacturing automation continues to increase. Among them, there will be incremental growth opportunities for the replacement of the stock of processing equipment (points) and the connection link (line). 2016 will usher in a big year of technological changes in smart phones, internal and external updates and changes in concepts will bring a large number of replacements, and it is necessary to grasp the timing of trial manufacturing of new mobile phones. With the increase of labor costs and the requirements for efficiency, the opportunities of the line will be gradually released and will bring greater market space