Rigid Flex PCB Market - Forecast (2020 - 2025)

Rigid Flex Printed Circuit Boards (RFPCB) is the combination of flexible and rigid board technologies. It consists of multiple layers of flexible circuit substrates stuck with one or more rigid boards externally and/or internally, which depends on the design of application. The future of the Rigid Flex PCB market looks promising with opportunities in various industries such as healthcare & pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, and industrial electronics. The global market for Rigid Flex PCB market was valued at $3835m in 2020 and is estimated to reach $7531m by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 9.8% during the forecast period 2020–2025. The American region dominates the rigid flex PCB market due to the growing demand of advanced healthcare devices and high-end consumer electronics in the region. The Americas Rigid Flex PCB market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 10% during the period 2020–2025.

Rigid Flex PCB Market Outlook

Rigid flex printed circuit board offers a wide array of applications that ranges from healthcare monitoring to surgical devices, consumer electronics, industrial electronics, and so on. However, PCB is more extensively used in healthcare compared to pharmaceutical industry, considering the fact that digitization of the healthcare industry is growing at a very fast pace and it contributes on an average 10% of a country’s GDP. In consumer products, the rigid flex PCBs are good in overcoming space and weight issues with spatial degrees of freedom.

The consumer electronics as well as healthcare & pharmaceuticals end-user segments hold a major share of the Rigid Flex PCB market, and are estimated to further grow at a CAGR of 10.8% and 12.0% respectively, during the forecast period. According to Industry ARC findings, the “4 Layer” rigid flex PCB type segment is forecast to hold the largest market share during the forecast period. 

Rigid Flex PCB Market Growth Drivers

The developments in industrial electronics mainly for factory automation and building automation applications will boost the growth of the Rigid Flex PCB market. Moreover, the advancement in healthcare & pharmaceuticals sector, which includes various monitoring and surgical devices, with many other wearable devices will drive the growth of the Rigid Flex PCB market.

Additionally, huge demand from the automotive sector with the introduction of new technologies in vehicles and electric vehicles entering the mainstream automobiles, the demand for navigation systems, vehicle tracking systems, information display systems in these vehicles will drive the growth of market.

Rigid Flex PCB Market Challenges

The manufacturing costs of the material to manufacture PCBs such as copper foil, electrolytic solvents, and cobalt salts are increasing and distracting companies from the competitive pricing strategies.

Rigid Flex PCB Market Research Scope

The base year of the study is 2020, with forecast done up to 2025. The study presents a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape, taking into account the market shares of the leading companies. It also provides information on unit shipments. These provide the key market participants with the necessary business intelligence and help them understand the future of the Rigid Flex PCB market. The assessment includes the forecast, an overview of the competitive structure, the market shares of the competitors, as well as the market trends, market demands, market drivers, market challenges, and product analysis. The market drivers and restraints have been assessed to fathom their impact over the forecast period. This report further identifies the key opportunities for growth while also detailing the key challenges and possible threats. The key areas of focus include the components of Rigid Flex PCB, and their types in specific end user industries.

Rigid Flex PCB Market Report: Industry Coverage

- Board Type: 2 Layer, 4 Layer, 6 Layer, 8 Layer, 10 Layer, and Above

- Component: Capacitors, Diodes, Integrated Circuits (Ics), Resistors

- Patterning Technique: Silk Screen Printing, PCB Milling, Photoengraving

- End User: Healthcare & Pharmaceutical, Automotive, Industrial Electronics, Aerospace & Defense, Consumer Electronics, Maritime Transport

The Rigid Flex PCB market report also analyzes the major geographic regions for the market as well as the major countries for the market in these regions.

The regions and countries covered in the study include:

• Americas: The U.S., Canada, Brazil, Rest of Americas

• Europe: The U.K., Germany, France, Rest of Europe

• APAC: China, India, Japan, Rest of APAC

• Rest of the World: The Middle East and Africa

Rigid Flex PCB Market Key Players Perspective

Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik Aktiengesellschaft (AT&S), manufacture high-end PCBs and substrates for semiconductors. The company also has an extensive experience of connection technology in the medical field. They innovated new possibilities for pacemakers, hearing aids, and medical lifestyle products. This miniaturization of medical assembly needs extremely small interconnect solution and, therefore, very small PCB dimensions. Hence, AT&S will develop and manufacture miniaturized PCBs for the medical technology with full benefits.

Some of the other key players mentioned in this report are Nippon, NCAB, TTM, Ibiden, and so on.

Rigid Flex PCB Market Trends

Cirexx International, Inc., an electronic solutions company, has closely worked for many years on manufacturing medical products or devices to develop rigid flex circuit boards for use in the cognition system. This is actually designed to detect the human brains’ reaction to stimuli. Additionally, this cognition system can also be used for clinical research and study.

A brushless motor and speed controller has been designed by Carl Bugeja, that heavily relies on the capabilities of the PCB. This device is incorporated with electromagnets as coils on a 4-layer circuit board.

The new PCB manufacturing techniques “mSAP (Modified semi-additive processes)” overcome many challenges, enabling high-density interconnects in smartphones and increasing the number of procurement at lower cost with faster manufacturing speed.