Recently, a piece of news stated that due to the shortage of Low coefficient of thermal expansion (Low CTE) fiberglass cloth materials, the inventory of Apple's new generation of smart phone iPhone 17 series was extremely tight. This material is mainly used for mobile phone chip packaging substrates, PCBS and storage substrates. At present, Apple is making every effort to catch up with the supply chain.
What is low thermal expansion coefficient glass fiber cloth? It has even driven the tech giant Apple crazy!
Low coefficient of thermal expansion (Low CTE) and Low dielectric (Low Dk, Low Df) electronic cloths both belong to high-performance electronic cloths and are ideal materials to meet the requirements of high-performance PCBS in fields such as AI servers and 6G high-frequency communications.
Low dielectric electronic fabric, with its characteristics of low dielectric constant and low dielectric loss, can significantly enhance the speed and efficiency of signal transmission. Low thermal expansion coefficient electronic fabric can effectively reduce the thermal expansion coefficient of the board, thereby improving dimensional thermal stability and enhancing reliability.
In practical applications, Low CTE glass fiber cloth, as the reinforcing material of the substrate, needs to take into account the Low dielectric loss (Low Df) characteristic simultaneously to reduce signal transmission loss.
Electronic fabrics can be classified by function into Low Dk/Df fabric, Low CTE fabric, high CAF fabric, high dimensional stability fabric, high impregnation fabric, high heat resistance fabric, high flatness fabric, low impurity fabric, etc.
Having read this far, do you have a bit of an understanding of the status of Low CTE fabric? It's undoubtedly the "noble" among electronic fabrics.
At present, there are not many domestic and foreign enterprises that can produce Low CTE fabric.
According to the latest news reports, the A19 chip equipped in the iPhone 17 will be fabricated using TSMC's third-generation 3nm process (N3P). The number of layers of the packaging substrate will increase to more than 20, and the requirement for the flatness of the glass fiber cloth will increase by three times. By 2026, Apple plans to equip the iPhone 18 with TSMC's first 2nm process A20 chip.
