1. Linear motor market scale
A. Segmented by industry
Linear motors are mainly used in the OEM market, among which machine tools, semiconductor equipment, laser processing equipment, and the main market of linear motors.
In 2017, in the overall market of linear motors, machine tools are still the industry with the largest application of linear motors, accounting for 25.2% of the total market, mainly concentrated in EDM and high-speed CNC machine tools, as shown in Figure 2.
Intelligent manufacturing brings new opportunities and challenges to China's CNC machine tool industry. With the improvement of the automation degree of industrial machinery, the requirements for machine tools and equipment are getting higher and higher. High-speed, high-precision, composite, intelligent, open, parallel-driven, networked, extreme, and green have become the trend and direction of CNC machine tools. Linear motors are gradually being applied to machine tools due to their high speed, high precision and high rigidity. In 2017, the performance of linear motors in the machine tool industry accounted for 25.2% of the overall performance of linear motors. In the future, with the promotion of national policies, the proportion of machine tools using linear motors may increase.
Secondly, the semiconductor industry. In recent years, the semiconductor industry, as a national high-tech industry, has received the attention of the state and government departments at all levels, and has achieved rapid development under the policy. In 2017, the performance of linear motors in the semiconductor industry accounted for 22.5 of the overall market. %. During the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, the government and local governments still launched a series of policies to strongly encourage and support the development of the semiconductor industry. MIR Rui Industry predicts that the semiconductor industry will continue to grow rapidly in the future, with an increase of approximately 22.5%.
Laser processing equipment is also one of the main applications of linear motors. On the one hand, with the development of technology, the performance of linear motors is constantly improving, and the cost is decreasing, creating conditions for its wide application; on the other hand, laser processing equipment, for example The laser cutting machine application industry continues to place higher demands on cutting quality and cutting efficiency. To this end, linear motor driven laser cutting machines have emerged. Because of its high speed, high acceleration and high positioning accuracy, it is favored by middle and high-end customers in the market. In the laser processing industry in 2017, the linear motor market accounted for 20.8% of the total.
In addition, linear motors are used in lithium batteries, EMS, electronics manufacturing and other industries. With the advancement of intelligent manufacturing and industrial automation, the market for linear motors will be further expanded and the market scale will gradually increase.
B. Segment by product category
The linear motor is divided into an iron core and a coreless linear motor. The iron core linear motor has a large thrust suitable for point-to-point positioning. The ironless movement is smooth and suitable for trajectory work. The application is different. Iron core linear motors are mainly used in machine tools, laser processing machines, and semiconductor equipment industries, such as iron core linear motor electronic equipment, semiconductor equipment, medical machinery, textile machinery, packaging machinery and other industries. From the price point of view, the iron core linear motor is more affordable than the ironless linear motor, as shown in Figure 3.
C. Segment by region
The linear motor market is mainly concentrated in the three regions of South China, East China and North China. As shown in Figure 4, South China accounts for 44%, mainly in semiconductor and electronics manufacturing industries, mostly concentrated in South China. East China is mainly engaged in large-scale manufacturing, machine tools, laser processing and medical equipment industries. The demand for linear motors is also large, accounting for 27.8% of the overall market. North China accounted for 19.5%, mainly from machine tools and laser processing equipment.
