SpaceX Sets Timeline: 'Starship' for Starlink Launch by Mid-2027, IPO Prep Underway

Driven by robust demand for AI, the price hikes in the PCB circuit board industry chain continue. According to reports, Japanese semiconductor material giant Resonac has raised the prices of CCL copper clad laminate and adhesive films by 30% starting from March 1. The industry expects that Resonac's price increase will be passed on to high-end manufacturing processes such as MLCC, HDI boards, IC substrates, and high-frequency high-speed PCBs. Moreover, the PCB sector may see a super catalyst – Nvidia's LPU inference chip. The market believes that with the implementation and rapid growth of AI applications, the market for specialized AI inference chips will expand rapidly, bringing about a significant impact on the PCB industry including increased volume and prices, process upgrades, material innovations, and higher concentration. This will enhance the value and importance of PCBs in AI chips, opening up new market size opportunities for the PCB industry.

It is reported that ASML is expected to use artificial intelligence to enhance tool performance and production speed, expand chip manufacturing equipment into the advanced packaging field, and develop tools to help join multiple chips together.

[Shanghai Spot Copper] For tomorrow, Shanghai spot copper discounts are expected to continue a modest recovery trend, but the room for improvement is limited. During the second trading session of the day, spot premiums and discounts for SHFE copper gradually stabilized, with suppliers making no significant price adjustments. Only non-registered copper discount quotes dropped slightly, indicating an increased willingness among suppliers to hold prices firm. Meanwhile, downstream acceptance of current prices has been gradually improving, and buying and selling sentiment remains stable. In terms of market structure, the price spread between futures contracts for the next month narrowed slightly, suggesting that suppliers' willingness to ship to delivery warehouses may have decreased. On the supply side, domestic copper and previously locked-price imported sources continue to arrive, coupled with high social inventory, resulting in an overall ample supply of circulating goods. On the demand side, downstream enterprises are steadily resuming production, and buying and selling sentiment has rebounded MoM, but the overall pace of recovery remains slow, making it difficult to provide strong support for premiums and discounts. Overall, while spot premiums and discounts are slowly recovering, there are still upward resistance.