After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the demand for the server market has also changed. The reporter of “Magnetic components and Power Supply” recently interviewed relevant practitioners in the industry chain about the latest development and confusion of servers. Which magnetic components are used in servers under the cloud economy? , there is more room to play, under the epidemic, where should their prospects in the server market go?

In recent years, with the vigorous development of mobile Internet companies, especially the continuous emergence of e-sports platforms, e-commerce platforms, short video platforms, live broadcast platforms and social networking platforms, the demand for cloud computing, cloud storage, and servers has been stimulated. The volume also increased sharply.

In this context, the growth of some magnetic components and soft magnetic materials in the server market has become more and more obvious in recent years. After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the demand for the server market has also changed. The reporter of “Magnetic Components and Power Supply” recently interviewed relevant practitioners in the industry chain on the latest development and confusion of servers.

The new look of servers in the cloud economy

In recent years, the state has encouraged the development of 5G and the industrial Internet, and encouraged the use of a new generation of information technology in the manufacturing industry, so that industrial production has an informationized language.

The construction of the 5G network is a good opportunity and driving force for the current network transformation. The arrival of the new generation of communication technology has led to an explosive growth in the amount of information, which has greatly driven the construction of data centers and the demand for server usage.

The development of more edge services based on 5G networks will place higher requirements on server performance. For the future 5G, the general server platform is adopted after the network is ITized, and the consistency of performance must be guaranteed. For example, the requirements of high bandwidth, low latency, and stability are more critical.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC) data, global server shipments in 2019 were 11.75 million units, a slight decrease of 0.79% year-on-year. Among them, the global server market grew strongly in the fourth quarter of 2019, with shipments of 3.4 million units, offsetting some of the decline in the first three quarters.

The data shows that compared to the same period in 2018, global server revenue increased by 7.5% in the fourth quarter of 2019, reaching a scale of $25.4 billion.

Revenue from x86 servers increased 6.3% to $22.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019; revenue from non-x86 servers increased 17.7% to nearly $3 billion. In general, the server market is still dominated by x86 servers.

In the first quarter of 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic not only hit the global economy hard, but also had a certain impact on China’s overall IT market and even the server market. The global server market is also facing severe challenges.

In the first quarter of 2020, worldwide server market revenue fell 6.0% year over year to $18.6 billion, according to IDC. Worldwide server shipments fell 0.2% year over year to 2.6 million units in the first quarter.

In the server category, volume server revenue fell 2.1% to $15.1 billion; midrange server revenue fell 23.0% to below $2.6 billion; and high-end systems fell 9.1% to below $1 billion.

IDC believes that as the COVID-19 epidemic is effectively controlled in China, the impact of the epidemic on the server market in 2020 will be mainly concentrated in the first quarter, and will gradually recover in the second quarter. It is expected that some delayed demand will be released in the second half of the year and make up for the first half of the year. Declining market demand.

At present, the supply chain of domestic server production basically does not have shortages after the Spring Festival holiday, but from the demand side, the demand of some users in traditional industries such as retail, transportation, manufacturing, and energy has been delayed or reduced.

At the same time, under the influence of the epidemic, the number of online live broadcasts and video conferences has exploded, resulting in continuous growth of data traffic in Internet and public cloud services such as online education, corporate communication, online medical care, and games, and the “cloud economy” has become more and more popular. Attention, the data center and server industry chain are also getting more and more attention.

Nowadays, global epidemic prevention has become normalized, and scientific epidemic prevention also requires “technological anti-epidemic”. Analysis of virus structure, information epidemic prevention, etc. are inseparable from new-generation information technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and AI. Open server support. Big data and computing power supported by servers have become an indispensable infrastructure for society, and servers have also become one of the important industries of the national economy.

Liu Linqun, sales manager of Shenzhen Megmeet Electric Technology Co., Ltd. believes that with the advent of 5G, data has skyrocketed, and servers also need to be iterated and added. “The server will definitely be given a new lease of life. At present, the trend I see is that the server is integrated and managed in a centralized manner.”

Sunlord mentioned in this year’s latest semi-annual financial report that with the growing demand for servers in the cloud computing business, driving the demand for downstream Electronic components, the server business has a huge demand for electronic components, related products such as inductors, microwave devices, and transformers. With the continuous expansion of market applications and continuous innovation of product series, these products are expected to gain more development opportunities in the future market.

Liu Jiahao, a senior analyst at the semiconductor Research Center of TrendForce, pointed out that with the commercialization of 5G, both telecom operators and network service providers will gradually increase the demand for servers. It is expected that server shipments will reach a peak in 2020.

In the future, with the continuous deepening of “Internet +” and the trend of Internet of Everything, the construction of government smart public security, information center and other projects will also become a major driving force for China’s server industry.

“The server market, I think it will be quite big in the future,” Liu Linqun said. The server has been developing for a long time, and there will still be many new growth points in the future.

IDC expects China’s X86 server market shipments to grow by 2.9% in 2020. With the recovery of market demand after the end of the epidemic and the country’s acceleration of the construction of new infrastructure in seven major fields such as 5G, big data centers, industrial Internet, and artificial intelligence, the demand for China’s X86 server market will still be relatively strong in the next few years, with a compound annual growth rate. The rate will be around 9.1%.

Data center construction boom continues to drive server demand

At present, domestic server manufacturers mainly include Inspur, Lenovo, Huawei, H3C, and Sugon. In addition, Huaqin, Lianbao, Inventec, Wistron, Great Wall Computer and other manufacturers also undertake the production of many domestic servers.

For server manufacturers, high-volume enterprise servers are their most important target market.

In fact, the market’s demand for servers is more of enterprise-level demand, and the price is incomparable compared with consumer-level ones. Zeng Bin, manager of the engineering department of Shenzhen Huade Electronics Co., Ltd., said, “For consumer products, upstream manufacturers Prices have been crushed, it’s hard to see profits, and it’s more lenient in terms of costs relative to industrial products.”

Data Center Energy Consumption Forecast (Global) Source: Green IT Promotion Council, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan

In recent years, the market of public cloud and private cloud has grown rapidly, and a large number of big data centers have been built. Big data centers are also one of the places where servers are most intensively used. The “new infrastructure” includes big data centers into the development scope, further stimulating the demand for servers in big data centers. From the infrastructure level, the construction of large-scale data centers emphasizes centralization. Once it faces the edge side, the construction of data centers will be relatively scattered and the construction cost will be high. Each large data center has tens of thousands or more of servers.

Cisco predicts that the number of hyperscale data centers will grow to 485 by 2020, up from 300 in 2016. In addition, hyperscale data centers will account for 47% of all data center server installations in the future. It will continue to drive the server market in the future.

According to data from China Business Industry Research Institute, global server shipments will reach 10.8 million units in 2018. Global server shipments are forecast to reach 13.1 million units in 2022.

As the country’s first national big data comprehensive pilot zone, the development of Guizhou’s big data industry started early, and the proposal of “new infrastructure” has brought new development opportunities for Guizhou’s data industry.

Wang Jun, a member of the Party Group of the Economic Development Bureau of Gui’an New Area in Guizhou Province and deputy director of the Big Data Office, introduced that taking Gui’an New Area as an example, the development of the big data industry will drive the development of upstream and downstream industries. “There is a market of hundreds of billions of yuan for servers alone.” Wang Jun calculated that after the data center under construction in Gui’an New District is put into operation, the number of servers in Gui’an New District will reach 3.6 million, with an average of The price of a server is 50,000 yuan, and the driving effect is very obvious.

Hu Zhijie, a staff member of the Big Data Office in Gui’an New District, introduced that at present, the big data center in Gui’an New District is under steady construction, and data centers such as Huawei, Apple, and Tencent will be completed and put into operation as planned.

Server power supply is required to be more digital and intelligent

In large-scale equipment gathering places such as big data centers, servers are not as lightweight as consumer-grade computer hosts. They also need to be equipped with more auxiliary modules, such as server power supplies, which are mainly used in servers, storage and other equipment.

The investment in data center fixed assets is the main driving force for the server power supply market, and its market development prospects can directly reflect the supply and demand status and changing trends of the server power supply market.

According to the “China Server Power Supply Market Status and Investment Prospect Forecast Report (2019 Edition)” released by Limu Information Consulting, in the server power supply field, the market share is mainly occupied by Delta, Lite-On, Emerson, China Great Wall and other companies for a long time.

Magnetics soft magnetic products have been supplying servers and power supplies for many years. Ma Zheng, director of the company’s Greater China region, said, “The demand for server power supplies has grown rapidly in recent years, especially from the second half of last year to the first half of this year.”

Under the background of green energy-saving development of the overall industry, the challenges of high-density scenario application requirements, energy consumption, resource integration and other aspects have put forward higher requirements for the current data center industry. Therefore, driven by market demand, server power supplies are required to be more energy-efficient Environmental protection has further stimulated the demand for digital and intelligent server power supplies.

At this stage, with the advent of the “AI+5G” era, the demand for servers is also showing a rising trend, driving the industrial chain of server power supply and magnetic components to find a breakthrough in this field.

At the beginning of this year, Artesyn announced the launch of a new CRPS server power supply series at the Open Computing Summit. This series of power supplies provides different powers ranging from 550W to 2400W for selection. Different models have different rated powers, allowing the production of computing systems. , network accessories and storage systems and other infrastructure equipment manufacturers can respond to different needs.

Zhu Qiaosheng, the first person in charge of the Transformer Division of Shenzhen Hangjia Chiyu Electric Co., Ltd., told reporters, “Our server power supply has been relatively mature, mainly focusing on communication, security and other fields. Lenovo, DJI, Haikang Security and other companies have Huntkey server power supply products are widely used.”

Liu Linqun said that Megmeet Electric also has some power products dedicated to supplying servers in the fields of electricity, communications, medical care, and data centers.

Eagle toroidal vertical wound power inductors are also commonly used in power supply devices such as communication power supplies and server power supplies, mainly for various high-frequency switching power supply equipment ranging from 1KW to dozens of KW.

Solve the power consumption, from the source of the device material

A data center is a facility dedicated to maintaining and managing servers that store large amounts of data. With the rapid growth of information volume, the increase of power consumption and power cost has become a serious problem that data centers must face.

Data centers often require a large number of high-speed communication environments, advanced security assurance, reliable seismic equipment and internal generators, and space for servers. Power consumption is a challenge to maintain operation under these conditions.

Power consumption in a data center comes primarily from IT equipment, including servers and air conditioners for cooling and cooling. The power consumption from the operation of these devices is expected to increase further.

While data centers are also working to reduce power consumption, including promoting DC power and improving the efficiency of air conditioning throughout the center, the fundamental solution is to reduce the amount of heat generated by the servers themselves.

To this end, it is necessary to improve the power efficiency of electronic circuits. To solve this problem, some magnetic components or magnetic materials start from their own products to reduce power consumption from the original source.

TDK introduces a compact power solution that reduces heat generation in data center servers. They recently developed a small DC-DC converter using 3D packaging technology that integrates the IC with TDK’s inductors and reduces size and height. Capable of achieving ultra-high current density in a small size, it can be placed close to the IC to avoid power dissipation due to routing, helping to prevent server heating.

Improve the reliability and practicability of server power inductors

Since the development of the Internet industry, servers and server power supplies have been one of the key markets for magnetic components and magnetic material manufacturers. Multiple magnetic components are used in servers and server power supplies. Some well-known magnetic components and magnetic material manufacturers Market demand, and launch products that are more in line with the current server technical characteristics.

Sunlord mentioned in its semi-annual financial report released last month that with the growing demand for servers in the cloud computing business, on the one hand, related products such as inductors, microwave devices, and transformers are expected to gain more development in the future market. Opportunities, but on the other hand, it also puts forward higher requirements for the reliability and efficiency of electronic components.

At present, the miniaturization of products in the electronics industry has become a development trend. The huge market pressure and potential demand have prompted the rapid emergence of terminal components with better performance and less volume. The wide application of high-power terminal components on circuit boards has also increased the The need for finer inductors.

In the prior art, the power inductance supplied by the server power supply mainly includes two parts: a magnetic core and a coil. The lead-out positions of the two coil terminals are generally set in the middle of the side edges of the magnetic core, and end electrodes are respectively connected. When shrinking, the terminal electrodes will also shrink accordingly, which will bring about problems such as increased impedance.

The main problem currently faced is that it is necessary to meet the demand for increasing current and save the usable area of ​​the circuit board, which means that in the limited design space of the power supply design, the volume and impedance of the Inductor must become smaller and smaller. , to ensure that the increasing saturation current demand is met.

It is difficult to reduce the size and reduce the impedance of the power inductor in this arrangement, which leads to the difficulty of increasing the saturation current, the effect is not good, and the reliability is low.

In view of the deficiencies of the existing technology, industry insiders provide a server power inductor configuration method. On the basis of ensuring the original electrical performance of the power inductor, by reasonably optimizing the shape and position of the terminal electrode, the overall power inductor can be effectively reduced. The size and resistance are reduced, and the terminal electrode area is increased at the same time, which is more conducive to the heat dissipation of the power inductor during operation, which can further increase the temperature rise current of the inductor, thereby improving the overall reliability and practicability of the power inductor.

Inductors under cloud computing

A cloud computing service is an online application that can be accessed from another web service or software, using both software and data stored on a server.

In fact, people living on the Internet have inadvertently used cloud computing services. It is not only based on a single server, but also interconnects multiple servers and cloud computing architecture components, providing a solution that can replace or supplement UPS solutions. Managed and virtual backup services.

The current development of cloud services is still in its infancy and is gaining momentum. It may become a mainstream technology in the future, bringing us new applications that are currently unimaginable.

Shenzhen Haiguang Electronics mainly provides product types in the cloud computing market: high-frequency transformers, high-frequency inductors, transformers, and power inductors. In addition, Haiguang Electronics also provides power inductors, high-current inductors, and integrated inductors for server boards.

In recent years, Molding Choke has been favored by many server manufacturers due to its multiple technical characteristics such as miniaturization and high power. Cheng Rong, product manager of Boen’s Electronics Co., Ltd. in the Asia-Pacific region, said that Boen’s current cooperation with server manufacturers is mainly to provide integrated inductors.

Compared with traditional inductors, Dr. Qian Xiaolong, the person in charge of integrated inductors of Anhui Bowei Tamura Electric Co., Ltd., believes that the advantages of integrated inductors are mainly reflected in: First, large current and high power, the amount of current passing through the same volume is very high, which is traditional The inductance is 4-5 times; the second is that the EMI will be better, and the electromagnetic characteristics will be stable. The copper wires of many traditional inductors are outside, which has a large leakage inductance and will interfere with other components. In the integrated inductor, its entire copper wire is wrapped in the material, which is a fully enclosed structure, which can effectively reduce electromagnetic interference.

In addition, the integrated inductor still maintains excellent temperature rise current and saturation current characteristics under high frequency and high temperature environments, and has a wide range of operating frequencies. Due to its good technical characteristics, the application of integrated inductors has gradually spread from computers to servers and server power products.

In recent years, Sumida has introduced new inductor products many times, and the technical characteristics of these products are generally applicable to servers.

Sumida said that in order to achieve high electrical performance and high magnetic shielding, the CDMC series uses metal composite materials and one-piece construction. Therefore, this type of product has the characteristics of low loss and high current, and is suitable for tablet computers, notebook computers, and servers.

Xiao Yuanzhi, product center manager of Shenzhen Huntkey Chiyuan Electric Co., Ltd., said that in addition to supplying server power products, they also established a magnetic component performance testing team to escort the search for better quality magnetic components.

network transformer under server

Since the server involves data transmission requirements such as transmission network, switching network and access network, Fang Zhengtao, general manager of Jingweida Technology, pointed out that in the communication type server equipment, the key magnetic component is the network transformer.

He revealed that for a long time, Jingweida has closely cooperated with the major server manufacturers Great Wall, Inspur, and Huawei-related manufacturers, mainly supplying them with components such as network transformers and power transformers.

The network transformer is a link in the two-way AC data voltage signal chain between computer servers. When the signal passes through this link, there will inevitably be some attenuation, and insertion loss is an indicator to measure the degree of signal attenuation.

For the same network transformer, the degree of signal attenuation is related to the frequency of the signal. The network transformer plays a role in signal coupling, impedance matching, waveform repair, signal clutter control and high voltage isolation.

In a wired local area network, a twisted pair (UTP) connection is used between servers, routers, computers and other devices. Since the connecting cables and twisted pairs are very long (possibly up to tens of meters), directly connecting the electronic equipment at the two places will bring many problems.

In order to ensure the safety of the integrated circuit chip of the network card, reduce the bit error caused by external EMI and suppress the electromagnetic noise inside the computer from transmitting energy into the air, it is necessary to add a network transformer at the connection between the network card and the UTP to better solve the above problems.

At present, there are many types of network transformers on the market, mainly including single-port, dual-port, multi-port, 10/100BASE, 1000BASE-TX and RJ45 interface integrated network isolation transformers. These transformers generally have problems such as many types, many manpower, and complex manufacturing processes.

To solve such problems, Taiqing Northwest has launched the X’former transformer. Compared with traditional transformers, X’former transformers have the advantages of stable characteristics, fixed component arrangement, low network delay, good EMI-RE effect, good lightning resistance, and low overall cost.

As network equipment requires more miniaturized, modular and high-quality installation components, network transformers, as a key component, are also necessary for their characteristics to correspond to the next generation of Ethernet. Yang Jinjin, chairman of Mingpu Optoelectronics, revealed that from the perspective of customer design requirements, the shape and style of 5G equipment network transformers have undergone great changes. In response to the technical requirements of the server, the network transformer needs to further meet the requirements of high-speed correspondence and high reliability.

In order to solve the problems of traditional network transformers such as low manual yield rate, unstable delivery time, and many safety hazards, Mingpu Optical and Magnetics has increased the market promotion of its new network transformer-chip network transformer in recent years. Yang Jinjin believes that the chip network transformer has solved the problems existing in the traditional technology very well, and it has made significant improvements in product structure, process design, raw material improvement, and production automation.

Servers have become part of soft magnetic manufacturers and account for a relatively heavy business

On July 25, Hengdian East Magnetics released its semi-annual performance report. The report showed that in the first half of this year, the company’s total operating income was 3.173 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%; its net profit was 344 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%.

Hengdian East Magnetic said that the revenue of their soft magnetic industry sector has increased, mainly due to the increase in demand in 5G, cloud computing, data centers, high-end consumer electronics and other fields. According to reports, Hengdian East Magnetic soft magnetic materials are mainly used in transformers, PC power supplies, wireless charging modules, 4G, 5G communication base stations, routers, servers and other fields.

Ma Zheng, sales director of the Asia-Pacific region of the American Magnetic Materials Company, said that from the perspective of the development of server hardware, the server power supply field is already a relatively traditional market for the magnetic materials industry. According to him, “Server power accounts for a relatively large proportion of Magnetics. Basically, many of our small-sized products are used in servers.”

The WSM series inductors launched by Chuangrui Technology and the DR series drum core inductors launched by Eaton are also used in desktop computers and servers.

Servers are the most important end market for Diamond Magnetics products. They attach great importance to material development and technology R&D investment in 5G, big data centers and other market fields.

Liu Guansheng, general manager of King Kong Magnetics, said that at the beginning of its establishment, King Kong Magnetics focused on communications, big data centers, and server markets. Driven by 5G, they are more optimistic about the future development of this market. In 2019, their magnetic materials accounted for more than 80% of the production capacity in the communication market and high-current inductors. In recent years, in order to meet the technical needs of the downstream server and other terminal markets, they have continuously developed and launched new materials that are suitable for market needs, and have achieved relatively gratifying returns.

Liu Guansheng said: “We have made a series of breakthroughs in material technology. At present, our newly launched JCP28 and JCP38 materials have received very good response from clients.”

It is understood that the JCP28 material of Diamond Magnetics is a manganese-zinc soft ferrite material with excellent DC superposition performance, which has reached the first-class level in the industry. The high-current power inductor made of JCP28 material can be widely used in base stations. Transceiver station (BTS), server, voltage regulation module (VRM) and many other fields. At present, they have established cooperative relations with many well-known domestic manufacturers on this product.