Base station antenna

First, the background of the antenna manufacturing industry

In modern communication systems, base station antennas are converters of communication equipment circuit signals and space radiation electromagnetic waves, and are bridgeheads for space wireless communication. As an important part of the mobile communication system, its characteristics directly affect the overall performance of the entire wireless network. The development of base station antennas mainly has experienced the processes of omnidirectional antenna, directional unipolarization antenna, ESC unipolarized antenna, ESC dual-polarization antenna, dual-frequency ESC dual-polarization to multi-frequency dual-polarization antenna, as well as MIMO antenna, Massive MIMO antenna and so on. At present, global telecom operators are facing the problems of limited resources and high operating costs when building networks, and the difficulty of site selection is gradually increasing, which poses new challenges to the development of base station antennas, and how to improve the cost performance of base station antennas and better cope with the problems of increasing difficulty in site selection is the follow-up development trend of the mobile communication base station market.

At this stage, the scale of global base station construction is still showing a rapid growth trend. According to data from Sihan Industry Research Institute, from 2018 to 2020, the global base station market increased from $69.2 billion to $80.5 billion, with an average annual compound growth rate of more than 7%. Base station antennas are an important part of base station construction, and under the background of the continuous expansion of base station construction, global base station antenna shipments increased from 4.87 million pairs to 5.35 million pairs from 2018 to 2020.

As a basic and leading industry in the digital era, the communications industry is a key support for promoting the digital transformation of various industries and building a digital China. As an important part of communication infrastructure, base station antennas have always attached importance to their industry development. The 14th Five-Year Plan and the outline of the long-term goals for 2035 clearly state that the country will "accelerate the construction of new infrastructure". "Build a high-speed ubiquitous, space-ground integration, integrated interconnection, secure and efficient information infrastructure, enhance data perception, transmission, storage and computing capabilities, accelerate the large-scale deployment of 5G networks, increase the user penetration rate to 56%, and promote the upgrade of gigabit fiber networks." Forward-looking layout of 6G network technology reserves. Expand the capacity of backbone network interconnection nodes, set up a number of new international communication entrances and exits, and comprehensively promote the commercial deployment of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). ”

Since its establishment, Latitude Antenna has focused on the research and development, production, sales and service of communication antennas, RF devices and related products, providing communication antennas, RF device products and integrated solutions for mobile communication operators and equipment integrators, and is one of the earliest enterprises engaged in the research and development, production and sales of communication antennas in China. Its R & D, production, sales and related integrated solution services of communication antennas are in a leading position in the industry. Through the construction of this project, the research and development and production of the next generation of high-performance antennas will comprehensively enhance the competitiveness of the company's products, improve production and management efficiency, and provide important support for the company to expand overseas high-end markets, so as to realize the company's global layout of the market strategy.

Second, the necessity of product development and production

(1) Comply with the development trend of the industry and maintain the development position of the company's industry

5G base stations use Massive MIMO technology and beamforming technology, which puts forward higher requirements for communication antennas, increases the complexity and integration of antenna design, and promotes AAU (active antenna) to become the mainstream with the application of Massive MIMO technology. In general, there are three trends in the development of base station antennas: first, antenna and filter integration (AFU) fusion; The second is electromagnetic compatibility between multi-port and multi-system antennas; Third, the high integration of multi-port and multi-system requires reduced energy consumption and reduced volume. At the same time, with the large-scale construction of base stations, operators face the situation of limited resources and high maintenance costs. Downstream application scenarios promote the evolution of base station antennas in the direction of smaller size, richer standards, more stable performance, and higher cost performance.

With the continuous upgrading of communication antennas, traditional communication antennas will enter the era of low profits, and enterprises with continuous innovation capabilities and rapid response to the market can win greater market space. In recent years, the company has continuously increased investment in the research and development of the next generation of high-performance antennas, established a high-end talent team with rich research and development experience, and made a number of technological breakthroughs to achieve the small batch production of some new products. Through the implementation of this project, the company will transform the research and development results, through the introduction of automated production equipment, information warehousing equipment, information management system, comprehensive transformation of the company's existing production, information management, warehousing system, to achieve the comprehensive upgrade of core products, maintain product competitiveness and industry technology leading advantages.

(2) Improve the company's production efficiency and reduce labor costs

Traditional base station antenna production process is complex, long process, high requirements for workers' proficiency, and belongs to labor-intensive and technology-intensive industries. The vast majority of production links rely on skilled workers to complete, and some processes become bottleneck processes due to the lack of skilled workers, which affects the company's production efficiency to a certain extent.

In recent years, Chinese enterprises have generally encountered the problems of "labor difficulty" and "labor shortage", and labor costs have increased year by year. Automated production equipment has more advantages in cost and efficiency than labor. At present, the company has optimized the structure and design of some antenna products, which can realize the automation transformation of some production links, and realize a significant reduction in the number of production personnel while continuously improving production capacity. Through the implementation of this project, the company will continue to increase research and development efforts, continue to optimize and upgrade products, and realize the automatic transformation of the production line through the purchase of customized automated production equipment, solve the problem of bottleneck process production efficiency, shorten the product production cycle, improve production efficiency for the company, and save labor costs.

(3) Provide important support for the company to expand the high-end market in Europe and the United States, and realize the company's global layout strategy

With the continuous deployment of communication infrastructure by operators around the world, the market space in the field of communication equipment is broad and has good prospects. However, due to the complete domestic base station antenna industry chain, the increase in manufacturers, the market competition is gradually fierce, the gross profit of products is low, and the high-end market in Europe and the United States has a high profit margin space. According to the company's overseas layout experience in recent years, customers in the high-end market in Europe and the United States have high requirements for product performance stability and consistency, but their price sensitivity is weak, and the successful expansion of the high-end market in Europe and the United States will greatly enhance the company's profitability.

Modern base station antenna structures are complex, and it is difficult for production lines with low automation to mass-produce products that meet the requirements of the high-end market. The automated production equipment is equipped with a variety of high-precision guidance, positioning, feeding, adjustment, detection, vision systems or components, which can ensure the high precision of product assembly and production. The products produced by automated production lines are highly repeatable and consistent, which can greatly improve the stability of product performance. Through the implementation of this project, the company will introduce advanced automated production equipment, information management system and intelligent warehousing system to achieve precise control of all links from raw material procurement to design, manufacturing, assembly, quality control and testing, reduce various uncertainties between design and manufacturing, and provide product guarantee for the company to further expand the European and American markets, so as to realize the company's global market layout strategy.

Third, the feasibility of project construction

(1) The implementation of this project is supported by national policies

The promotion of national policies has always been an important driving force for the development of the industry, and transmission equipment and wireless main equipment together account for most of the value of the communication network industry chain, leading the development of the communication industry chain. China fully promotes the development of the communication industry from the policy level, supports investment in communication infrastructure construction, provides a high-quality development environment for the progress of the industry, and provides a reliable policy guarantee for the smooth implementation of this project.

Base station equipment is used for the transmission, forwarding and reception of radio frequency signals and is the core equipment of the network coverage system. The base station antenna is an important part of the base station, which is a signal converter, connecting the base station equipment and the end user, and realizing the transmission of signals by sending and receiving electromagnetic waves. The state's policy support for the communication industry provides a favorable environment for the deployment of operators' networks, and operators achieve maximum area of network coverage through base station + base station antenna when deploying networks, and the construction of communication base stations has largely driven the market demand for base station antennas and created favorable conditions for the development of base station antenna industry.

(2) The market prospect is broad

Base station construction drives the development of base station antenna market. According to data from the Prospective Industry Research Institute, from 2018 to 2020, the global base station market grew rapidly, from $69.2 billion to $80.3 billion, with an average annual compound growth rate of more than 7%. The number of base stations in China showed a steady growth trend, with 5.75 million 4G base stations and more than 718,000 5G base stations in 2020, with a total of 9.31 million base stations throughout the year; In 2021, 150,000 new 4G base stations will be built, the total number of 4G base stations will be 5.9 million, more than 650,000 new 5G base stations will be built, and the total number of 5G base stations will be 1.425 million, twice as many as the previous year, and 2.4 million 5G base stations are expected to be built in 2022. From 2016 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of China's base station antenna market size is 36.72%, based on this growth rate, the base station antenna market size will reach 41.6 billion yuan in 2021.

At the same time, due to the continuous development of communication technology, the increasing frequency of antennas, the wide application of high-frequency high-speed PCBs with higher value, the unit price of base station antennas has increased at the same time, driving the market scale up. According to ABIResearch data, from 2018 to 2020, global base station antenna shipments increased from 4.87 million pairs to 5.35 million pairs, and the global base station antenna market size in 2020 was about $4.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.06%. In the future, with the continuous acceleration of global communication base station construction, the market capacity of communication antennas will be further expanded from the two dimensions of quantity and price.

(3) The company has strong strength to support the construction of this project

Since its establishment, the company has always adhered to R&D innovation as the core factor to promote the company's business growth, attached great importance to the research and development of new technologies and new products, continuously increased the improvement and innovation of technical level, and always maintained a leading position in the industry technology in the field of base station antennas. The company has a stable, professional and experienced R & D team, in material research and development, product research and development, process improvement and other links have professional talents, for the company's product and technology research and development and product quality improvement to provide a strong guarantee.

As of December 31, 2021, the company has obtained 719 valid authorized patents, 26 international patents, 104 domestic invention patents, 496 utility model patents, 93 design patents, and 26 trademark and software copyrights in the field of radio frequency communication.

At present, the company has achieved docking with base station systems of major equipment integrators such as Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, Samsung, and Datang. In terms of smart antennas, the company carried out TD-SCDMA smart antenna research and development earlier, and the TD-SCDMA ESC smart antenna developed has reached the international advanced level; In terms of broadband and ultra-broadband antennas, LTE800 (698~960MHz) and LTE2600 (1710~2690MHz) series product development and industrialization have been realized, and the overall product launch progress has been synchronized with international leading companies; In the field of 5G antennas, the company has formed close partnerships with major communication system equipment manufacturers, cooperating to develop and launch a variety of 5G antennas, including industry-leading products such as AFUs and A+P.

The company has been deeply engaged in the field of base station antennas, microwave antennas and RF devices for more than 20 years, with R & D strength, production capacity and product quality, has obtained the supplier certification of many communication system operators and equipment integrators at home and abroad, and has a large number of stable and high-quality customer resources. In the domestic market, the company's products are mainly sold to mobile communication operators such as China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, and communication equipment integrators such as Huawei, ZTE and Datang Telecom. In foreign markets, the company has successfully passed the procurement certification of equipment integrators such as Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson, etc., and its products have also entered the mainstream operators of Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway and other countries.

(4) Integrated R&D, manufacturing and testing capabilities provide important support for the implementation of this project

The company has the precision manufacturing ability of vertical integration from product development, mold design and manufacturing, machining, assembly and debugging to machine testing. According to the needs of the production process, the company can design and manufacture special molds by itself to ensure high production efficiency and production quality; The company has a number of base station antenna production lines, and supporting its own machining, spinning, numerical control, spraying, SMT, assembly and other workshops, basic parts processing, product assembly, performance testing, warehousing logistics and other links are independently controllable. For the core components in the base station antenna, such as: oscillator, phase shifter, metal cavity in RF devices, resonator, cross-coupler, etc., the company has independent intellectual property rights through independent research and development and design.

At the same time, the company's technical team has rich experience in production process control, equipped with advanced constant temperature and humidity testing machine, salt spray testing machine, network analyzer, intermodulator and other equipment, 75*40*40m fully enclosed far-field test field, 168 probe near-field test system, 128-probe near-field test system 3 antenna pattern test systems, which can complete the test needs of special environments and special frequency bands according to customer needs, and fully meet customers' requirements for product quality and performance.