Every day, a large amount of anode phosphorus copper is carried out from Cheon Western(China) Copper Ltd. Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Cheon”.) which locates in Jiujiang Industrial Park, Jiujiang Town, Nanhai, and enter the production workshops of many world-renowned printing circuit manufacturers. Subsequently, these printed circuits and large integrated circuits were used as core components of iphones, computers, and airplanes etc.

    Over the years, Cheon has just focused on how to manufacture a phosphate copper anodes ball. Now it has gained high trust and recognition from the circuit board industry and has become an important material supplier for the circuit board industry. It has gotten the first place in China's top 100 printing circuit industry materials for 8 consecutive years, occupying 34% of the global market of phosphate copper anodes, and has become the world's largest manufacturer of phosphate copper anodes.

    "Now, 34% of the circuit board industry market share is supplied by Cheon phosphate copper anodes. It is not only approbating but also socially responsible for us. We need to be responsible for the entire circuit board industry and support the development of the entire circuit board industry. "Cheon general manager Zhou Jianxin said.

    ● Author: Shiqi Wang, Yihao Huang

    Controling the industry global market share of 34%

    In people's lives, all the products that are automatically controlled, from spacecraft, plane, high-speed rail, car, ships, computers, mobile phones, and even smartwatch that many people carry, require PCB to achieve automatic control.

    With the development of technology, circuit control requires not only powerful functions, but also small size and flexible. This has led to the development of multi-layer, flexible, and integrated boards. The appearance of a single circuit board is actually made up of ten or even dozens of circuit boards. Each layer is printed with different lines according to the design requirements, just like a complex viaduct system.

    Cheon focus on the production of phosphate copper anodess is to play the role of bridges and channels in this complex viaduct system. In the some specific nodes and holes, the phosphate copper anodes is plated through the electroplating process to form channels. The circuits of the various circuit boards are connected together.

    Cheon product is a little "cute", and the phosphate copper anodes ball are quite round and bulging, and there are "a lot of mysteries." Starting from the raw material copper plate, each phosphate copper anodes ball before packing and shipping must through electrolysis, phosphorating smelting, forming, polishing, washing and air drying. In the case of microcrystalline phosphorous copper with a tighter internal structure, the crystal structure of the copper ions will be changed by a set of MCPA TECH system.

    The phosphate copper anodes produced by Cheon is an important material in the high-end circuit board process. As the world's largest manufacturer of phosphate copper anodes, Cheon has a global market share of 34%. Its production technology level and product level are in the leading position in the industry, and international advanced level. The key core technologies are unique and protected by patents. Products have become the designated application materials for many high-end manufacturing circuit board companies.

    The electroplated copper layer has good electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and mechanical ductility and is widely used in the field of electronic information products. In the electroplating bath, phosphorous copper acts as the anode, and the copper ions "run" toward the silicon wafer serving as the cathode, forming a dense, non-porous coating thereon. It can be said that no phosphate copper anodes no PCB.

    With the help of printed circuit manufacturers and integrated circuit manufacturers, the contribution of Cheon in the upstream of the industrial chain has spread to many industries such as mobile phones, computers, automobiles, and aerospace. 70% of the world's top 20 printed circuit manufacturers are Cheon customers.

    Years of persistence in quality "refining" into a "professional inspection-free" synonym

    Why is Cheon getting the favor of so many Industry tycoon? Zhou Jianxin explained that it is simple to make a qualified phosphate copper anodes balls but over the years, Cheon has produced nearly 5 billion copper balls. The quality is stable and no mistakes have been made. This is very difficult.

    “From creating it to master it, from focusing to the ultimate, (Cheon is keeping) doing the same a thing over the years, fully reflects the true craftsmanship.” Not long ago, at the Cheon anniversary celebration, Zhou Jianxin said in his speech.

    Stable quality is very important in the printed circuit industry. This is because once the performance of the plating layer is unstable due to the floating quality of the phosphate copper anodes, the entire batch of printed circuit boards may be completely discarded. "For product quality, in addition to honor, we consider more about social responsibility." Zhou Jianxin said.

    In order to ensure the stability of product quality, Cheon's production and operation strive to be stable.

    According to Zhou Jianxin, even the “upper furnace” used in Cheon production equipments are buried in the ground, and each of the furnace is juxtaposed and does not affect each other. “There were Japanese customers who were worried that the sudden earthquake would affect production. Even if there were very few earthquakes in Foshan, customers could only be assured if they saw our preparations.” Zhou Jianxin said that these arrangements are to ensure that even minimum probability accident occurs, Cheon can also ensure that production can be produced as usual in the maximum extent.

    Phosphorus content is the most important quality index for measuring phosphate copper anodes. Too high will cause anode passivation result in electroplating difficult, and too low will lead to rough plating. At present, the phosphorous copper anode phosphorus content produced by Cheon is 0.04%-0.065%, and the micrograin phosphorus-copper content can be 0.025%-0.050%, which is the best phosphorus content what industry deem.

    “In order to ensure product quality, we also hired after service engineers, two of whom are from Taiwan, which is relatively leading in this industry.” Zhou Jianxin said that after engineers can not only solve problems, but also timely feedback the needs of downstream customers. When Cheon launches new products, it can also let customers to adapt the new products in time to be win-win.

From the importing technology to research independently, and has pioneered several times development.

Cheon has pioneered several times in its history of development.

    Through independent research and development, Cheon industrially produces fine-grained microcrystalline phosphate copper anodes in China, and take 5 years to reduce the phosphorus content of the microcrystalline products from 0.04%-0.065% to 0.025%-0.05%. The ball utilization rate is higher, the product has been certified to reach the international advanced level, and won the Guangdong Province, Foshan Science and Technology Award.

    The multi-manufacturing core technologies of Cheon are also unique to the industry. This is the result of Cheon's development of technology innovation for the past years. "Normally, innovation what Cheon try to do has to depend on itself. Because the phosphorous copper anode market is not large, it is difficult to buy specialized production equipment, and it is necessary to improve and debug it by ourselves." Zhou Jianxin said. For example, the equipment used by Cheon to "twist" a copper rod into a copper ball was originally used to produce steel balls. The star product mirco-grain copper ball which make by micro-grain system, is originally used on copper and copper strips with larger volume.

    "We can only research and explore how to use these system to produce the products we need," said Zhou Jianxin. The microcrystalline extrusion equipment and its production method have applied for invention patents. In addition, Cheon has 16 utility model patents and 4 appearance patents.

    Today, Cheon is the drafting unit of the "Phosphorus Copper Anode Materials" national standard and the "Phosphorus Copper Anode" industry standard, and has occupied the first place in China  top 100 printed circuit industry materials for 8 consecutive years. It is a well-deserved industry benchmark enterprise. .

■ eye for observation

Focusing achieve to a champion

    A small Phosphate copper anodes ball, Cheon has been researched to this day.

    It is the concentration that has made Cheon.

    Different from other industries, the manufacturing process requirements of printed circuit can be considered harsh. Phosphate copper anodes is one of the main upstream raw materials. Its function is equivalent to the foundation of high-rise buildings. The stability of quality directly determines whether it can build a building.

    Phosphate copper anodes is a standardized product, the process is not complicated, but the phosphorus content should not be much or less, but also ensure that the fluctuation of phosphorus content of billions of phosphor bronze balls is stable within 0.025 percentage points. It is one of the core competitiveness what Cheon own.

    So, Cheon relies on the stable quality of its products when its domestic counterparts are still suffering from the shackles of “roughly fabricated” and “quality is not up to standard”. First, Cheon broke the monopoly of foreign manufacturers, and immediately won the favor of many industry giants, gradually occupied the market, and through the rapid development of Chinese printed circuit industry, all the way to the globe largest phosphorus copper anode production enterprises this peak.

    Cheon’s road to the championship, although there is a "good luck", but more inevitable.

    ■Enterprise Golden Sentence

    In the past, the development of Cheon relied on the “good luck” of the rapid growth of Chinese printed circuit industry, the “advantage of location” of entrepreneurship in the South China Sea, and the “harmony” of employees working together. We hope that in the next 20 years, Cheon will once again grasp the “good luck”, “advantage of location” and “harmony” of industry development through keeping innovating, catching chances in advance and keeping R&D.

    —— Zhou Jianxin, General Manager of Cheon Western(China) Copper Ltd.