Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

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funny i dont see your claim in the article below

Only 5 years after its establishment, it has taken the lead in realizing the industrialization of liquid metals abroad. What killer is this company?
Source: New Materials Online | Time: 2020-05-15

At a recent press conference of a folding screen mobile phone, the experiencers fully felt the visual enjoyment brought by the flexible screen that can be folded freely, and a new material called "liquid metal" was used to solve the problem of the shaft performance.


This "liquid metal" is not a magical robot that can be automatically repaired after being hit by a bullet in "Terminator" and deformed randomly according to the environment.

In the academic field, everyone prefers to call it an amorphous metal alloy. Because of its superior performance of high hardness, high elasticity and high strength, it has become a difficult "terminator" in the production of mobile phones, automobiles and other products.

Dongguan Yihao Metal Material Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yihao Metal"), which provides a hinge solution for this folding screen mobile phone, is currently one of the few energy products and has the equipment manufacturing, raw material smelting and production, molding and One of the full-process enterprises such as post-process.

This year is the fifth year of the establishment of Yihao Metal. This young enterprise is leading the liquid metal industry to compete in the major terminal markets. Every successful application is stimulating the excitement of the industry.

In more and more fields, China has transformed from "imitators" and "chaser" to "leaders." Leading means to assume the role of industry pioneer and innovator.

Liquid metal is one of the representatives of cutting-edge new materials. Chinese companies are expanding their territory as a "leader", but at the same time, they have encountered the dilemma of many innovators.

A glimpse of the leopard in the tube. Through the observation of Yihao Metal, this issue of "The Material of Great Powers" explores the arduous process of industrializing China's liquid metals and even cutting-edge new materials.


Difficult industrialization exploration


In 2014, liquid metal set off an industrialization trend in China.

This year, Yihao Metal, Changzhou Shijing, Pamti Haoyu and other liquid metal enterprises were established successively.

Before this, few people in China had heard of liquid metal. The team at which Gao Kuan, general manager of Yihao Metal was, was one of the earliest domestic companies studying liquid metals.

As one of the earliest representatives in the domestic research and development of liquid metals, Gao Kuan witnessed the process of industrialization of liquid metals in China.

"The magic of liquid metal is that it can be die-casted like plastic, and the shrinkage rate of the material is small, and the product can be formed by the mold at one time. Because of the rapid cooling to form an amorphous structure during the die-casting process, Product performance with high hardness, high wear resistance and high corrosion resistance."

Gao Kuan, who has more than ten years of experience in the industry, talked about liquid metal, and his speech speed was obviously accelerated, and his eyes showed excitement.

Liquid metal has hardness and wear resistance far beyond stainless steel and even titanium. Taking a mobile phone as an example, whether it is a screen or a case, the harder the constituent material, the less likely it is to produce scratches.

Secondly, liquid metal has good gloss and high corrosion resistance. No need for diamond highlight chamfering or complicated anodizing process. This puts liquid metal into the supply system of the luxury watch industry.




? Liquid metal products


In addition, in terms of accuracy, liquid metal die-casting products can compete with the process of machined products, and there is no additional cost and waste materials.

In June 2015, a piece of news added another fire to the liquid metal industry. According to the news, Apple and its liquid metal material partner Liquidmetal (hereinafter referred to as "LQMT") have been granted two new patents on liquid metal technology.

For a time, the speculation that liquid metal is expected to be applied to the next generation of Apple mobile phones has spread everywhere.

The ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny. With the launch of the next generation of Apple mobile phones, liquid metal did not appear as scheduled.

Netizens were in an uproar.

"Chewing glass while staring at the abyss of death" is a true portrayal of cutting-edge new material innovation. The liquid metal that has been discovered as early as 1959 has gone through a long and tortuous road in the process of industrialization.

The world's first LQMT engaged in the industrial development of liquid metals has been exploring for many years. Despite having many expert teams in the field of liquid metals, LQMT was once in a difficult position in commercialization.

At the technical level, the bulk forming technology of amorphous alloys has been difficult to break through for a long time. There are few large liquid metal products above 20 grams on the market, which greatly limits the development of liquid metal products. In terms of equipment and materials, LQMT relies on Germany Engel and MATERION in the United States.

The same is true of South Korea on the other side of the ocean, and some of the teams devoted to early R&D have completely withdrawn.

In China, after experiencing the climax of industrialization in 2014, it gradually returned to rationality and only added the company of Shanghai Chisheng. Compared with industries such as 3D printing and graphene, which have emerged almost at the same time, the industry's attitude towards liquid metals can be described as indifferent.

"The capital and technical thresholds for entering the liquid metal industry are relatively high. Small companies simply can't get in, and large companies are more concerned about the significant market demand. If the market demand is not open, they will not invest." Years of precipitation have made Gao Kuan A thorough understanding of the liquid metal industry.

From Gaokuan's point of view, the development of liquid metals must achieve three points at the basic level: independent research and development capabilities at the material end; non-standard equipment development capabilities; and process optimization capabilities.

It is not easy to meet the technical capabilities of these three levels at the same time. "Survival first, and then find the market." This sentence became the survival portrayal of the liquid metal industry at that time.


As one of the super materials that will lead the future high-tech competition, liquid metal is expected to spawn a trillion-scale blue ocean. The "Liquid Metal Application Address Book" aims to build an online communication and cooperation platform for upstream and downstream enterprises in the liquid metal industry. At present, there are already from Womute, Fulangshi, Ruijiake Group, Shandong Iron and Steel Group, Ningbo Fenghua Ronglian , The elite of Sankesi Electronics and other enterprises joined. More and more people in the industry are welcome to join, together with information interconnection, to jointly promote the development of the industry!




Click or long press to identify the QR code
To join the "Liquid Metal Application Directory"


Industry collaboration break


In March 2016, Professor Yi Yangde of Yi'an Technology acquired 46% of LQMT's shares and became CEO, which made Yihao Metal, a subsidiary of Yi'an Technology, closely linked with LQMT in business.

The industrialization of liquid metal of Yihao Metal has begun to move towards a coordinated development.

Despite the twists and turns in the early industrialization attempts, LQMT still has the world's most core and comprehensive intellectual property rights related to bulk amorphous alloys.

The Yihao metal team has nearly 20 years of experience in new material development, mold, mechanical preparation, molding and production. It has advanced new material production technology, mature production technology and a complete industrial chain. Mature, but also has the production capacity of large-scale molding products.

"The combination of the two complements each other's strengths and has a strong synergistic effect."

When talking about the industrialization advantages of Yihao Metal, Gao Kuan talked eloquently.

Leveraging LQMT's international visibility and influence, Yihao Metal began to vigorously promote the application of liquid metals in many industries and fields such as consumer electronics, automotive industry, medical equipment, and sporting goods. In communicating with overseas target customers such as Tesla and Apple, the LQMT team has given great help. In the second half of 2015, Professor Li Yangde of Yi'an Technology visited the headquarters of Tesla in the United States. They were unsure about the choice of Model X door lock material. Because the door is very heavy and has a strong impact on the door latch, the existing materials cannot meet the test requirements. After understanding the situation, Professor Li Yangde immediately arranged the team of Yi'an Technology and Yihao Metal to complete the door lock of the finished product to the United States for one month, and passed the test of Tesla at one time. At present, all series of Model X door locks are jointly produced and supplied by Yi'an Technology and Yihao Metal.

In the promotion of liquid metal, Yihao Metal has clearly positioned several key research directions, one of which is the automotive field.

Through communication with Tesla's R&D department, Yihao Metal found that Tesla's door design has particularly high requirements on the performance of the lock. The ordinary materials and processes cannot meet the product requirements. The high hardness and high toughness of the liquid metal, The high-strength characteristics just meet their needs.



? Liquid metal products


With the excellent performance of liquid metal products, the engineers of Yihao Metal successfully persuaded Tesla designers to use liquid metal as the raw material of the lock.

"We have also achieved our own market expansion based on solving customer problems." Yihao Metal applies this style of play to other fields such as consumer electronics and medical devices.

The "face recognition" technology applied on the mobile phone has very high requirements on the lens bracket, and a slight deviation will lead to failure of recognition. Yihao Metal successfully entered the supply chain of domestic TOP5 mobile phone manufacturers with its liquid metal performance and comprehensive cost advantages , Won 90% of the market share in one fell swoop.

Every small step taken by Yihao Metal in automobile, mobile phone and other fields is a big step for the development of the liquid metal industry. Compared with imported substitute materials, there are mature target customers and markets. As a brand-new material, liquid metal is still blank in many application markets.

"I hope our colleagues can also accelerate their pace and continue to accelerate the industrialization of liquid metals."

Only one tree is difficult to grow into a forest. Diversified competition and new blood injection will make the liquid metal industry full of vitality. In the manufacturing industry, he has been familiar with the high and wide for decades.

Innovation cost of the front runner


When R&D enters an unmanned state, when the market application is blank, the success and failure of each step of exploration are precious. The industrial exploration of liquid metals is the epitome of the development of thousands of new materials. Its commercial model is worth pondering.

Whether it is automotive or consumer electronics, every step of the market space expansion depends on the terminal manufacturers' knowledge and recognition of liquid metal technology, and new material R&D personnel are essential for the active participation of downstream product development.

"New materials are designed, not purchased."

Gao Kuan particularly emphasized that only by participating in the development process of the end product from the design stage can the performance requirements of the product be ascertained and the opportunity to break into the product supply chain. Once the product design has been completed, it is almost impossible to break through the market from the procurement side.

For companies such as Yihao Metals, which are engaged in the development of cutting-edge materials, entering the "unmanned" innovation means greater costs.

In the past, China's consumer electronics product design has always catered to market hotspots. Product design floats on the surface and lacks continuity, which is extremely unfavorable for the promotion and application of new materials.

Yihao Metal has invested heavily in the product development of the Face ID bracket that supports "face recognition" technology. This optical bracket has a very important role in ensuring the security of payment level face recognition. However, after a brief outburst, the liquid metal brackets that were hard to develop became useless as terminal manufacturers abandoned the Face ID solution.

And such cases are everywhere in the new materials industry, and it becomes an indescribable pain to become a material person.

As competition in consumer electronics intensifies and innovation enters the deep-water zone, it is no longer feasible to rely on business models and product function innovation, and the design concepts of terminal manufacturers themselves have also quietly changed.


From vivo, which co-developed chips with Samsung, to TCL, which divests traditional businesses and focuses on panel technology innovation, a series of actions by terminal manufacturers reflect the importance that product design places on upstream materials.

This may bring more opportunities for innovators such as Yihao Metal.

According to statistics, the global amorphous product market has about 30 billion US dollars of development space, of which, only liquid metal mobile phone frames, the market size is expected to reach 5 billion US dollars.


Zirconium-based liquid metal may become the mainstream application material of mobile phones in the future, and the demand will increase rapidly. "10000+ Global Mobile Phone Industry Address Book" aims to build an online communication and cooperation platform for upstream and downstream enterprises in the mobile phone industry. More than 2,400 industry elites have joined. They come from mobile phone terminal OEMs, processing companies, equipment companies, and raw material companies. Well-known enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo, Foxconn, BYD, Changying Precision, Corning China, Xuhong Optoelectronics, Kelishi, CSG, Saint-Gobain, Orient, Han's Laser...Welcome more and more people in the industry to join, together with information interconnection, and jointly promote the development of the industry!




Click or long press to identify the QR code
You can join the "10000+ Global Mobile Phone Industry Directory"

Yihao Metal, which has advantages in the entire industry chain from material research and development to equipment development, is clearly ready. Gao Kuan said that in the future, he will dig deeper into the fields of automobiles and consumer electronics, base on the development of liquid metals, and expand the fields of magnesium and aluminum alloys.

It is gold that will eventually shine.

——Heavy recommendation——


?2020 Liquid Metal Industry Research Report?


Year of data: 2020
Number of pages: 30 pages
Information format: pdf format


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