I. Lithium battery production and manufacturing process and core equipment

(1) Production process

The production process of lithium batteries is divided into three stages: front, middle and second stages. The purpose of the first process is to process raw materials into poles, and the core process is coating; the middle stage is to process the electrodes into inactive cells; the second stage is to detect and package, and the core process is to be transformed and capacity.

Lithium power equipment is divided into front equipment, middle equipment and back equipment according to the battery production and manufacturing process.

The value of the equipment in the front section accounts for about 40%, of which the value of the coating machine accounts for 75%, and the value of the roller press is greater than that of the cutting machine. The performance requirements of ternary materials for the front equipment are higher, and the proportion of the value of the equipment in the front section will gradually increase.

The value of mid-stage equipment accounts for about 30%, of which the value of winding machine accounts for 70%. At present, the market concentration of winding machines is relatively high, with CR3 reaching 60%-70%. The high-end market of winding machines is competed by South Korea's KOEM and Japan's CKD, accounting for 50% of the domestic high-end market.

The value of the equipment in the latter stage accounts for about 30%, of which the chemical component capacity system accounts for 70% and the assembly accounts for 30%.

(2) The first paragraph: Create a polar sheet coated with positive and negative active substances

1. The previous process

The front process mainly includes slurry stirring, positive and negative polar coating, roller pressing, cutting, polar plate making and die cutting.

Stirring: First, use a lithium battery vacuum mixer. Under the action of special solvents and adhesives, mix the powdery positive and negative active substances. After high-speed stirring uniformity, it is made into a slurry positive and negative electrode substance with no bubbles at all.

Coating: The made slurry is evenly coated on the surface of metal foil, dried, and made into positive and negative poles respectively.

Roll pressure: The roller press extrudes the coating surface of the electrode through the pressure generated by the phase operation of the upper and lower rollers. The electrode is changed from the original fluffy state to a compact pole under high pressure. The roller pressure is obviously quite critical to the energy density.

Cutting: Cut the electrode belt pressed by the roller into the length and width required to assemble the battery according to different battery models, requiring no burrs when cutting.

2. Coating machine

The main purpose of coating is to coat the slurry with good stability, viscosity and fluidity evenly on the surface of the positive and negative poles. Its significance for lithium batteries is mainly reflected in three aspects: consistency, cycle life and safety. During the coating process, if the thickness of the positive and negative slurry coating in the front, middle and rear positions of the polar sheet are inconsistent, or the parameters before and after the polar sheet are inconsistent, it is easy to cause the battery capacity to be too low or too high, and lithium precipitation may be formed during the battery cycle, affecting battery life. During the coating process, it is necessary to strictly ensure that there are no particles, debris, dust, etc. mixed into the polar sheet. If it is mixed with debris, it will cause a slight short circuit inside the battery and cause the battery to fire and explode in serious cases. Therefore, in order to make the winding process of the middle section as thick, uniform and compact as possible, the coating error of the positive and negative electrodes is required to be as small as possible. The advanced degree of the coating machine will directly affect the advantages and disadvantages of the chemical properties of the battery and the yield of the final product (battery manufacturers usually require more than 99%).

Coating machine is the core equipment of the front process. The coating machine has undergone the evolution of three structural types, followed by scraper type, transfer type and slit extrusion coating. Scraper type is mainly used in laboratory conditions; transfer coating is mainly used in the production of 3C batteries; slit extrusion coating is mainly used in power batteries, which has increased rapidly in recent years due to the outbreak of power battery production demand. As the best of these three technologies, extrusion coating technology can be used for high viscosity fluid coating to obtain high-precision coating. Judging from the structural splitting of the coating machine, the design of the coating head has an extremely important impact on the coating accuracy. The core components of such high-precision control still need to be imported. The localization rate of the coating machine is relatively high, reaching more than 70%-80%, but the coating head of high-end products is still mainly provided abroad. For example, the coating head of the leading Xinjiatuo was once mainly provided by Panasonic.

The technical advancement of coating machine equipment mainly investigates four aspects: coating technology, tension technology, deviation correction technology, and drying technology. Coating technology needs to meet the production requirements of different thicknesses. Now the thickness of cathode lithium electroluminum foil has been thinned to 6-8 microns, the thickness of negative lithium electrocopper foil has been thinned to 4.5-6 microns, the diaphragm coating only a few microns, and graphene coating is even thinner. Different thicknesses also need to be developed for customers to ensure that the coating thickness accuracy of slurry is controlled below 2 microns. In tension technology, because the tension movement of the material along the direction of the coating inevitably occurs uneven, resulting in the lack of consistency in the coating quality, it is necessary to ensure that all sections of the circuit have good tension control during the operation process.

Correction technology, because the length of the coating equipment is mostly dozens of meters, and there will be a position deviation during the operation of the lane. In order to ensure that both the copper film aluminum film and the very thin diaphragm can run smoothly and effectively on the road, and to achieve precision coating, it is necessary to choose different driving forms to cooperate with the response control system to correct the deviation. Drying technology, the bottleneck of the speed of coating production lies in drying. The most direct means is to lengthen the bellows, but it will bring increased costs and floor occupation. After strengthening, it is also necessary to strengthen deviation correction and tension control. In order to further improve the drying efficiency, we need to improve the control of the wind field, temperature field control and layout form, and try to reduce the length of the bellowssis while ensuring the coating speed.

Coating efficiency is an important standard for leading enterprises to further compete for technical strength. Under the premise of ensuring the above technology, the leading coating machine equipment mainly focuses on improving the coating efficiency. The main means include improving the operation speed and coating width of the coating machine. The coating speed of leading enterprises can reach 120m/min and the coating width can reach 1400mm.

3. Roller press

The significance of roller pressure is to compact the electrode and improve the energy density of the battery. After the pole is coated and dried in the previous process, the peeling strength of the active substance and the foil is very low. At this time, it needs to be rolled down to enhance the bonding strength of the active substance and the foil to prevent peeling during electrolyte soaking and battery use. Appropriate compaction density can increase the discharge capacity of the battery, reduce internal resistance, reduce polarization loss, extend the cycle life of the battery, and improve the utilization rate of lithium-ion batteries. The polar roller pressure is generally completed by a double roller press, which is composed of two cast steel compaction rollers, as well as a motor and a transmission shaft. After turning on the roller pressure mode, the motor drives the upper and lower rollers to rotate at the same time, and the pull pads of the winding mechanism will steadily pass through the roller pressure gap and finally be pressed to the required compaction density.

The roller pressing process has a great impact on the performance of the cell. There will be several typical problems in the roller pressing process: 1 The thickness of the pole is inconsistent. Inconsistent thickness means that the density of living materials is inconsistent, and the transmission and conductivity of lithium ions and electrons in poles will be different. When the current density is different, it is very easy to cause the precipitation of lithium dendrite, which is not conducive to the performance of the cell. In addition, when the thickness of the electrode is different, the contact resistance between the active substance and the collector is also different. The thicker the electrode, the greater the internal resistance, the more serious the battery polarization will be, affecting the cell capacity. 2 There is overpressure in part of the pole. Because the thickness of some positions is too thick when coating, overpressure may occur after roller pressing. At the position of overvoltage, the living material particles are broken, and the contact between the living material particles is close. In the process of cell charging and discharging, the electron conductivity is enhanced, but the ion movement channel is reduced or blocked, which is not conducive to capacity development. During the discharge process, the polarization increases, the voltage decreases, and the capacity decreases. At the same time, it affects the infiltration effect of the electrolyte after overvoltage, and also has a great impact on the performance of the cell.

From the perspective of process flow, the roller pressure quality will also directly affect the subsequent pole machining effect. The ideal state of the electrode after roller pressure is that the surface of the electrode is flat, the gloss is consistent, the white part has no obvious waves, and the pole is not warped to a large extent. However, in actual production, operation proficiency, equipment operation, etc. will inevitably cause some problems, affecting the polar segmentation in the subsequent process, resulting in inconsistent width of the segmentation and burrs in the polar. The roller pressure result will also affect the winding of the electrode. Severe warping will cause a large gap between the pole and the diaphragm during the pole winding. After hot pressing, some parts of the multi-layer diaphragm superimposed will be formed, which will become a stress concentration point and affect the performance of the cell.

Measure the advanced technology of the roller press, mainly looking at the surface density and compaction density. At present, the leading equipment can make the specific capacity of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials reach 200 mAh/g, and the compaction density of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials reaches 1.5 g/cm3.

4. Slitting machine

The function of the cutting machine is to cut the poles after roller pressure to the required width, which is a key process for winding. The mechanical accuracy of the low-end cutting machine is low, the tension control is simple, and it cannot be adapted to the cutting of ultra-film materials. With the improvement of users' requirements for cutting efficiency and cutting quality, the high-end cutting machine gradually has a wave edge cutting function, and has a good tension control technology to optimize the cutting speed and cutting quality. According to Haoneng's acquisition book, the domestic high-end cutting speed has reached 70 meters per second.

The main technical difficulties of the polar cutting process are to deal with burrs, wave edges and powder drops. Burrs, especially metal burrs, are very harmful to lithium batteries. Large metal burrs directly pierc the diaphragm, causing a short circuit between positive and negative poles. The pole segmentation process is the main process of burr generation in the lithium-ion battery manufacturing process. The burr is usually required to be less than 12 microns, and the collector burr formed by process defects in the figure below, with a size of 100 microns. Wavy edge and powder loss: The following figure shows the drop and wave edge defects during pole segmentation. When the wave edge appears, the edge correction jitter will occur when the polar slices are cut and winding, thus reducing the process accuracy. In addition, there will be a negative impact on the final thickness and morphology of the battery. Powder loss on the electrode will affect the performance of the battery. When the positive powder drops, the battery capacity decreases, and when the negative electrode drops, the negative electrode cannot wrap the positive electrode, which is easy to cause lithium precipitation.

(3) Middle section: complete the winding and injection of the cell

1. Proces

The middle process mainly includes winding/stack of electric cells and liquid injection of electric cells. The equipment involved is winding machine, stacking machine and liquid injection machine. When winding the electric core, it can be further divided into cylindrical winding and square winding according to the needs of downstream manufacturers. The stacking machine picks up the poles in the positive and negative electrode boxes. After secondary positioning, the positive and negative electrodes are alternately placed on the stacking table. The diaphragm actively unwinds, and the laminated table drives the diaphragm to move left and forth to form a Z-shaped overlap. After the stack is completed, it will be cut off according to the set length and the artificial glue will be automatically sent out. Through the liquid injection machine, the electrolyte is injected into the cell after winding or stacking.

The middle equipment of lithium batteries emphasizes personalization than the previous section, and requires very high accuracy, efficiency and consistency of the process. For square, cylindrical and soft package batteries, the middle equipment will use a winding machine or a laminated machine respectively. At present, winding machines are more commonly used. The outstanding advantages are that the production speed is fast and the product consistency is high. The laminated machine has a complex process, the yield is low yield, and the production efficiency is low, but the soft package battery produced is more flexible in size, the heat dissipation design is reasonable, the energy density is high, and it has many advantages that cylinders and squares do not have. At present, most domestic enterprises use small and medium-sized winding machines, and the proportion of stacking machines is not high.

2. Winding machine

Tension control is the core technology that affects the advancedness of the winding machine. During the whole winding process, in order to ensure the high consistency of the battery assembled by the cell, special attention should be paid to the tension control of the winding. The elasticity difference caused by tension fluctuation will cause uneven tensile deformation of the winding cells, causing the cell material to be layered or S-shaped folds, which seriously affects the consistency of the product. Uneven folds on the surface of the diaphragm and polar plates will increase the internal resistance of the battery. Winding tension control is a high-speed dynamic balancing process. The winding machine is very demanding in electrical and software control. It requires the servo control system to react quickly, and the programming of the software also requires a unique level of experience. For the winding of square lithium batteries, the winding line speed needs to remain unchanged, and the angular speed needs to be automatically adjusted. Therefore, the tension control of square lithium battery winding has higher technical requirements. At present, leading domestic enterprises can control the tension fluctuation of cylindrical batteries to less than 5%, and the tension fluctuation of square batteries can be controlled to less than 10%.

The automatic deviation correction technology and winding speed of the winding machine are also crucial. The deviation correction system can ensure that the polar diaphragm is coiled neatly during the battery winding process, and the relative position between the positive electrode/negative electrode/diaphragm is accurate. At present, the industry usually requires that the upper and lower deviations of the positive and negative electrodes or diaphragms after the reel are less than 0.5mm. Exceeding this value will affect the deformation of the battery. At present, the cylindrical cells of leading domestic enterprises can reach a high-speed winding speed of more than 18 meters per second. Due to the need to ensure a constant line speed, the corner winding speed is relatively slow, and leading domestic enterprises can reach more than 0.8 meters per second.

3. Stacking machine

The laminated machine is used for the production of soft-packed cells, which can achieve higher performance and safety than cylindrical and square batteries. The laminated machine is to stack the positive, diaphragm and negative electrodes into a small cell monomer in order, and then stack the small cell monomer in parallel to form a large cell. The advantages of the cells produced by the laminated process are: because they are equivalent to multiple small electrodes in parallel, the internal resistance is low, and the discharge platform is high; the stress area between the cell polar diaphragm is the same, and there is no obvious stress concentration point; the internal space is fully utilized, and the volume ratio is higher than capacity and energy density; the laminated process is equivalent to multipole parallel connection, which is easier to complete high current discharge in a short time, and the magnification performance is good.

The disadvantages of the laminated process are high operation requirements, cumbersome production control, high defectivity, and the biggest bottleneck is low production efficiency. At present, there is a big gap between the efficiency of domestic power battery laminated machines compared with South Korea. Domestic equipment is mostly in dual-stations, with an efficiency of 0.5-0.8 seconds/piece, while the efficiency of imported laminated machines is 0.17-0.2 seconds/piece. The electrochemical performance of the cells produced by the winding process is slightly worse than that of the laminated type, but the advantage is that the degree of automation is high, easy to make, and suitable for mass production. Therefore, square batteries on the market, especially cylindrical batteries, are generally produced by winding process.

(4) Later paragraph: chemical composition capacity and test sorting equipment

1. Process

The later process mainly includes packaging, chemical component capacity, test sorting, module assembly and PACK.

Encapsulation is to put the cell into a metal or soft package housing.

Through charging and discharging, the positive and negative electrode substances inside the battery are activated, so that the battery can be charged and activated.

After the capacity is divided, the battery is charged and discharged, the parameters of the battery are detected, and the battery is grouped according to the measurement parameters.

Module assembly and PACK include on-line detection of battery modules, pack assembly of battery packs, offline detection of battery packs, etc. After this process, the battery basically meets the factory requirements.

2. Chemical composition capacity

The chemical component capacity and detection system is the most critical link in the later process. The chemical composition capacity of the lithium battery cell realizes the initialization of the battery by charging and discharging, and activating the active substances of the cell is a process of energy conversion. The chemical composition capacitance principle of lithium cells is relatively complicated, but it is also a very important process to affect the performance of the battery, because when Li+ is first charged, Li+ is inserted into graphite for the first time, and electrochemical reactions will occur in the battery. During the first charging of the battery, it is inevitable to form a passivation film or SEI membrane covering the surface of the carbon electrolyte on the surface of the carbon electrode.

The performance of the SEI membrane directly determines the performance of the battery, such as self-discharge, etc. In order to stabilize the state of the battery, multiple charges and discharges, constant temperatures below 60°C will be carried out during the normal composition capacity process. The lithium battery component capacity system can charge the monomer lithium battery with constant current. When the voltage reaches the maximum charging voltage of the lithium battery, it is converted to constant voltage charging until the charging current gradually drops to 0. Then discharge the battery with constant current until the battery voltage reaches the discharge cut-off voltage.

There is a slight difference in the principle of separation and capacity, but both can be completed by a charging motor. Transformation is just a charging process, and there is no need to discharge the cell, so when transforming, a separate charger can be used, so the charger is often called a transformer. Because the appearance of the charger is often in the form of a square cabinet, the charger is also called a cabinet. Although the melting does not require discharge, the melting process of some cells needs to be charged more than once, followed by the capacity separation process after the melting, and the cells need to be charged before discharged. After being converted into charging, the cells must also be discharged. The need for this process has also led many battery manufacturers to directly use charging and discharging motors with charging and discharge functions to transform them.

The significance of capacity separation is to screen and group qualified batteries. Due to the process of the battery manufacturing process, the actual capacity of the battery cannot be exactly the same. The "full charge-discharge" cycle is carried out through a certain specification, and the cycle time multiplied by the discharge current is the capacity of the battery. As long as the capacity tested meets or exceeds the designed capacity, the battery is qualified. By classifying batteries of different capacities, the consistency of battery packs can be optimized. During the chemical composition capacity of lithium batteries, the requirements for charging and discharge voltage and current are very strict, and the high-precision control of voltage can avoid overcharge and overdischarge of batteries. In the process of capacity separation, the main equipment to be used is the lithium battery charging motor. The charging and discharging motor with "energy feedback" technology can better solve the heat dissipation problem of the capacity charging and discharge module, which saves 60%-80% of the power compared with the traditional component capacity system.

The filling and discharging motor is the key equipment in the chemical composition capacity, and it is also the most used equipment in the back section. The smallest working unit of the charging motor is the channel. A channel can charge or discharge a cell. In the actual use of the filling motor, a "unit" is composed of a certain number of channels (such as 24, 32, 64, etc.). The unit contains several "channels", which is the smallest unit in the manufacture and installation of the charging motor, which is called BOX by Japanese and South Korean enterprises. In principle, a charging and discharging motor can be composed of countless BOXes. Under the influence of the habit of more manual operation in China, the number of BOXes of a charging motor is generally not large, and the back section of a production line often requires more than a dozen to hundreds of charging and discharging motors.

II. Characteristics of Lithium Equipment Industry

(1) Customized research and development, the gross profit margin is generally high

The R&D model of lithium equipment manufacturers is mainly to meet the needs of customers, and equipment manufacturers set up a special R&D team for customized development. Due to the large differences in production equipment of each customer, equipment manufacturers need to develop different types of equipment with similar functions. Some large equipment enterprises will summarize and develop multi-functional machines that integrate different processes in the production process of lithium batteries according to the needs of various customers, such as welding winding machines.

At present, the average gross profit margin of the lithium power equipment industry is 35%-45%, which is slightly higher than other lithium power raw materials except diaphragms. Equipment quality is the prerequisite for making good products, and downstream battery manufacturers recognize the premium of equipment manufacturers. Considering that lithium battery products and equipment are in the process of technological upgrading, and the depreciation cost of equipment accounts for only about 6% of battery production costs, it is expected that the high gross profit margin of lithium power equipment can be maintained in the next step.

(2) The production is determined by sale, the inventory is small, and the proportion of goods issued is high

In order to reduce production costs, most large equipment enterprises continue to promote product standardization, improve the standardization level of equipment on the basis of meeting the personalized needs of customers, and gradually realize that the equipment produced is composed of "standard components" and "customer non-standard components". For some equipment with large market demand, after obtaining customer orders, the production of standard components will appropriately increase the amount of materials, so as to realize the large-scale production of standard components, which can not only reduce procurement costs and production costs, but also improve the company's production efficiency and achieve faster delivery to customers (usually Delivery in 2-6 months).

In the future, as an example, lithium-ion battery equipment, as part of the lithium-ion battery production line needs to be trial produced together with the entire lithium-ion battery production line when building or transforming the production line, with a long time interval from delivery to acceptance. After the equipment manufactured by the equipment manufacturer arrives at the battery factory, it needs to be installed, debugged and trial produced first. After it can steadily meet the customer's production needs, the income can be confirmed after passing the acceptance of the battery factory, generally from 9 months to 1 year. During this period, the inventory of the back-end equipment provider will be formed. The amount of inventory is large. On the one hand, it occupies a large amount of funds from back-end equipment vendors, which reduces the efficiency of capital use. On the other hand, it also increases the pressure of back-end equipment vendors on management and cost control.

(3) Enhanced trend of high efficiency and integration

With the improvement of the efficiency of equipment in each process link, the production capacity of the same monomer equipment increases, resulting in a continuous decline in the value of equipment per GWh. Taking the coating machine as an example, the penetration rate of the high-speed double-layer coating machine increased rapidly in 2018, and the coating speed was greatly increased from 50-60m/min to 120m/min, and 150m/min coating machine products are also under development. In terms of integration, the production efficiency of production lines can be improved by integrating lithium electric equipment from several adjacent processes. For example, Pioneer and Yinghe have launched products such as laser cutting and winding all-in-one machine (integrated die-cutting machine and winding machine) and roller splitting machine (coating, roller pressing and slitting machine integration). The advantages are reflected in saving space and time. (The floor area is smaller, which reduces the time of rewinding and unloading, reducing labor costs and raw material losses (improves the automation rate).

(4) The entry threshold for the lithium equipment industry is high

1. Capital threshold

In terms of business model, most lithium equipment businesses adopt the "3331" collection model, which may lead to a longer payment cycle. The so-called "3331" means that the customer only pays 30% when signing the contract, 30% after delivery, 30% after installation, commissioning and trial operation, and 10% after the warranty period (usually one year). Customers are free to choose the payment time. Within the scope permitted by the contract, they can determine when to accept and pay according to their cash flow. Now some customers adopt the "163" model, that is, they pay 60% after acceptance, and 30% after the warranty period. Therefore, lithium equipment factories often need to make a large amount of advances when handling business, and the business repayment is slowing down, which leads to the tight cash flow of enterprises and puts forward high requirements for the financial strength of new enterprises.

2. Automation rate threshold

On the one hand, the government has continuously improved the access standards of the lithium battery industry and has higher requirements for the safety and consistency of lithium battery products. On the other hand, the production capacity of battery manufacturers is constantly expanding, and large-scale production must rely on highly automated and intelligent equipment. At present, the automation rate of domestic lithium battery first-line manufacturers is about 50%, and that of second-line manufacturers is only 20%. Compared with the automation rate of nearly 80% of international first-class manufacturers, there is still a big gap. Newly entered lithium power equipment enterprises will be difficult to gain a foothold if they cannot have a high level of automation.

3. Customer stickiness threshold

Lithium battery manufacturers are extremely sticky to equipment suppliers and are extremely cautious when selecting equipment suppliers in the early stage, focusing on whether the supplier's R&D and design level, production process mastery, after-sales service ability, product sales records, product quality records, etc. meet the standards. After the successful development of the equipment, it must go through the user's on-site operation, installation and debugging, prototype use and other links before it can finally be recognized by customers. In order to ensure the consistency of lithium battery product quality, once a supply relationship is formed, unless the technology is updated or expands too fast, customers will generally not easily replace the supplier, but give priority to the equipment of the original supplier. In the future, Hangke Technology, a leading supplier of equipment, shows strong stickiness to its main customers LG and so on.

4. Threshold for technology accumulation

The concentration of the downstream lithium battery industry continues to improve, driving the leading position of upstream equipment to become more and more stable. To become a high-quality supplier, its main products must go through long-term technical improvement and knowhow accumulation. The most important coating machine equipment in the previous process is an example. The domestic leaders Xinjiatuo, Haoneng and Yakang have been focusing on the research and development of coating equipment for more than ten years, gradually approaching the level of Japanese and Korean enterprises, attracting the acquisition of large-scale lithium power equipment enterprises that want to cover the whole line and enjoy a relatively high gross profit margin. In contrast, most low-tech equipment manufacturers are concentrated in the highly homogeneous low-end product market, with fierce competition and declining profit margins year by year.

(5) The localization rate of the industry has increased, and the profitability of equipment in the middle and late stages is relatively high

1. The localization rate of the industry has increased

In recent years, the localization rate of lithium power equipment has been increasing, from 20% in 2008 to about 50% in 2016. Since 2016, the process of replacing the import of domestic equipment has begun to accelerate. Based on long-term technological accumulation, a few domestic enterprises have formed a certain advantageous position in high-end equipment fields such as winding machines, cutting machines, chemical component capacity systems, etc., gradually catching up with foreign giants. While the product performance of domestic enterprises is constantly improving, the price and service advantages are obvious compared with foreign giants. According to the research of the Gaogong Lithium Power Research Institute, if domestic equipment is used in the 1GWh lithium battery construction project, it will cost about 500-600 million yuan, of which the equipment accounts for 50%-60%, and the corresponding domestic equipment cost is about 250-360 million yuan, while the foreign price of the equivalent equipment is about 480-540 million yuan. The foreign price of some important equipment is more than twice that of China.

2. The profit level of middle and backstage equipment is relatively high.

The technology-leading domestic equipment enjoys higher bargaining power, and the profitability of the front, middle and back equipment is improved in turn.

Among the front equipment manufacturers, Xinjiatuo and Haoneng's main products are coating machines. Yinghe Technology's front-section business accounts for a certain proportion, and Naknoll focuses on the front-stage roller press, and the gross profit margin of these enterprises or businesses is relatively low. There are three reasons: first, there is a large gap between domestic front-stage equipment and foreign countries, and the main lack of high-end precision equipment and control technology. For example, key components such as coating heads rely on imports, control systems and electrical control software parts need to be strengthened, resulting in domestic equipment to be middle and low-end, and their accuracy and stability are weaker than foreign countries; second, because key components of high-end products rely on imports, customers often designate supplier brand lists of PLC, servo, coating heads and other parts, resulting in a high import ratio of these parts and compressing profit margin; third, the front equipment is standardized, while the flexibility of middle and rear equipment is relatively flexible. Customers will give a high premium to the design of customized solutions, but there is less premium to standardized and partially assembled front-section equipment.