Zirconium oxide ceramicsWhen it comes to consumer electronics represented by mobile phones, there are three subdivisions. The main application area is the back cover, which mainly upgrades and supplements plastic, glass, and metal materials. Followed by patches or wearable device casings for fingerprint recognition, which mainly benefit from the increase in the installation rate of fingerprint readers and the replacement of sapphire. Finally, it is used for small structural parts such as lock screens and volume buttons. This is a continuation of the ceramic button business that existed in the feature phone era. The relative disadvantage is that the density of zirconia ceramics reaches 6 grams/cubic, which is the heaviest of all materials. Fortunately, zirconia ceramics can be controlled by thickness to control the total weight to a lighter level than glass; in addition, because Ceramics have excellent wear resistance, so fine CNC processing of the back cover requires long hours and high costs. Therefore, areas such as fingerprint recognition and wearable device back covers, where zirconia has obvious cost-effective advantages, are exploding faster; while it will still take time to enter the mobile phone back cover market, but the differentiated competition of domestic Android phones has made zirconia ceramic appearance parts< /strong>Becoming an important competitive tool, the Huawei P series limited edition and Xiaomi Mi 5 exclusive edition with ceramic casing have become key catalysts to detonate the market.
In April 2015, Apple Watch was launched, using zirconia ceramics for the first time< /strong>The material is used as the appearance part of the back cover. Although previously Gionee W808, Coolpad ivvi S6, and Huawei P7 Collector's Edition all used zirconia ceramic appearance parts, the application of Apple Watch has pushed ceramic appearance parts to a climax. Compared with metals and plastics,zirconia ceramics are wear-resistant and skin-friendly, making them more suitable for use in wearable devices. Coupled with the airtightness and waterproofness of wearable devices, most of them adopt wireless charging methods. Ceramic materials are used as back covers, which have small signal shielding and are obviously better than metal materials.
Due to aesthetic and waterproof considerations, most wearable devices have wireless charging Function, the wireless charging solution for the non-metallic back shell is easier to design. From the perspective of shielding efficiency, zirconia ceramics, as a non-metallic material, has no shielding effect on electromagnetic signals. It will not affect the internal antenna layout at all and can be conveniently integrated. It does not have to be made into an unsightly segmented structure like aluminum-magnesium alloy. It can be said that Apple’s Apple Watch has led the trend of using zirconia ceramics as the back cover of wearable devices. In addition, zirconia ceramics are used as wearable devicesAppearance parts also have the following advantages. As mentioned earlier, zirconia ceramics have a higher dielectric constant, which can make the fingerprint reader work more sensitively, and the cost is significantly lower than sapphire; it is acid and alkali resistant and does not age; zirconia The Mohs hardness of ceramic is around 8.5, which is very close to the Mohs hardness of sapphire, which is 9. In view of the various types of zirconia ceramics Advantages, it is expected that in the field of wearable devices in the future, it will become the preferred back cover material.
