Development trends of advanced ceramics in 3C industry

Release time：2024-09-12click：0

Advanced ceramics usually refer to the use of high-purity, ultra-fine artificially synthesized or selected inorganic compounds as raw materials, with precise chemical composition, precise manufacturing processing technology and structural design , and ceramics with excellent properties. Advanced ceramics can be divided into structural ceramics with high strength, high hardness, high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, and oxidation resistance, and functional ceramics with electrical properties, magnetism, biological properties, thermal sensitivity, and optical properties.

As a leader in promoting the use of advanced ceramics in 3C electronics, we have to mention Xiaomi mobile phones. For the first time, it boldly applied a zirconium oxide ceramic backplane to its flagship Xiaomi Mi 5 Premium Edition. It has already stood out and attracted tons of attention. This accelerates the application of advanced ceramics in 3C electronics. At present, the application of advanced ceramics in the 3C electronics market has received widespread attention. Its applications mainly include mobile phone backplanes, wearable device backplanes, wearable device screens, headphones and other small components.

Zirconium oxide ceramic material - high hardness "never wears out"

The 5G era is coming. In view of the signal transmission requirements of 5G communications, metal backplanes will definitely be eliminated. Ceramic materials, plastic materials, and glass materials have supported the mobile phone backplane market, forming a tripartite situation. The competition in the mobile phone market is actually very fierce. How can we bring the most intuitive experience to users and make them fall in love with them at first sight?

Of course it is a beautiful product design! The material, color, texture, etc. of mobile phone casing are tools for major manufacturers to compete and position target users.

Among the above three materials, ceramic materials can be said to be the “appearance-bearing material” among mobile phone backplane materials! Among ceramic materials, the number one candidate for mobile phone backplanes is zirconia ceramics.

At present, the ceramic materials used to make mobile phone backplanes include zirconia, alumina, silicon carbide, etc. Among all ceramic materials, zirconia ceramics not only have the advantages of high strength, high hardness, acid and alkali resistance, corrosion resistance and high chemical stability, but also have scratch and wear resistance, no signal shielding, excellent heat dissipation performance and good appearance. With its characteristics, it has become the most popular mobile phone body material. More importantly, zirconia has high toughness and is resistant to falling.

In early 2016, Xiaomi Mi 5 Premium Edition mobile phone adopted a zirconium oxide back cover. The black zirconium oxide ceramic back cover brought a very exquisite visual experience and provided a highlight for the differentiation of the whole machine. Then Xiaomi MIX was launched at the end of 2016. Designed by Philippe Starck, a famous contemporary design master and advocate of democratic design and minimalist design, Xiaomi MIX uses a mortise-and-tenon structure designed with an all-ceramic body, integrating the screen with ceramic buttons and The ceramic frame and ceramic back panel are tightly and firmly connected.

In fact, Xiaomi mobile phone is not the first manufacturer to try to add advanced ceramics to mobile phone materials. It is just an important promoter of using ceramics in the backplane of 3C mobile phones. As early as 2013, Huawei P6 introduced a collector's edition model with sapphire front panel and ceramic back panel, taking the lead in launching the ceramic back cover of mobile phones. Entering 2014, Gionee, Huawei, and Coolpad have successively released mobile phone models with ceramic back covers. In particular, the Coolpad S6 and Huawei P7 ceramic commemorative editions have begun to gain popularity in the market. However, due to the difficulty in molding and post-processing of zirconium oxide materials and the high cost of preparation, only warriors like Xiaomi mobile phones dare to touch it. In order to overcome the preparation of zirconia ceramic backsheets, many parties are currently working together. It is believed that the popularity of zirconia ceramic materials is not far away.

In April 2015, Apple Watch was launched, and for the first time, zirconium oxide ceramic material was used as the appearance part of the back cover. Although Gionee Tianjian W808, Coolpad ivvi S6, and Huawei P7 Collector's Edition have all used zirconia ceramic appearance parts before, the application of Apple Watch has pushed ceramic appearance parts to a new level.

The Apple Watch zirconia back cover has small signal shielding, is beautiful, and is wear-resistant and skin-friendly. Compared with metal and plastic, zirconia ceramics are wear-resistant and skin-friendly, making it more suitable for use in smart wearable devices. In addition, The airtightness and waterproofness of wearable devices determine that most of them adopt wireless charging methods. The back cover is made of ceramic material, which has small signal shielding and will not affect the internal antenna layout. It can be conveniently formed in one piece and does not need to be made of aluminum-magnesium alloy. Create an ugly segmented structure,Obviously better than metal materials. Since Apple’s Apple Watch uses zirconia ceramics as the back cover, the application prospects of zirconia ceramics in wearable devices are promising.

Zirconia ceramic earphones have inherent advantages in terms of material. They have both the texture of metal and the mirror luster of glass, and their hardness is second only to diamonds, making them more wear-resistant than glass. The cold touch on the surface of ceramic earphones combined with its unique jewelry texture allows it to take into account the advantages of both metal and glass materials. Compared with traditional metal and plastic back covers, zirconia ceramic earphones are wear-resistant, skin-friendly, and Advantages include better air tightness and smaller electromagnetic shielding. At the same time, due to the density characteristics of the material itself, it can also be used as a natural sound insulator. Silicone earplugs paired with ceramic headphones can provide better sound isolation.

Sapphire material

Sapphire is commonly known as corundum. Its main component is Al2O3 (aluminum oxide). It has good optical, thermal, dielectric and excellent mechanical properties. Sapphire crystal has unique machining characteristics. Using precision grinding and polishing technology of IC wafer processing, it can obtain a surface with ultra-precision nanometer size accuracy. Apple uses sapphire as the protective glass for the iPhone 5 camera and the protective glass for the home button of the iPhone 5s. Sapphire has officially entered the consumer electronics market, and consumer electronics products have opened up new market space for the sapphire industry.