In 2025, Oppo continued the “lightness and finesse” of mobile phones, while 3D printing opened a “window” in the consumer electronics.
In 2023, Honor Magic V2 introduced 3D titanium alloy printing technology for the first time in the folding of mobile phones with folding screen. Thanks to the light design of the tree covering parts, the closed thickness of the body was reduced to 9.9 mm, becoming the thinnest folding flagship at the time. In 2025, Oppo Find N5 still made a breakthrough, using the printed hinge in alloy in titanium of 0.15 mm thiniest in the world, reaching a new industry record of only 8.93 mm in the thickness of the body, becoming the new “thinnest king” in the field of foldable mobile phones.
On February 13, Oppo officially released to Marina Bay ParkThe slimmest folding flagship phone in the world, find N5Its main breakthrough lies in the first mass production in the worldHinges in printed titanium alloy of 0.15 mm 3D. The technology was developed jointly by Oppo and Berlit, the leader of the 3D printing industry. Thanks to 28 precision processes and continuous printing of 25 hours, the minimum size of the structural parts in 3D commercial printed titanium is reduced from 0.3 mm to 0.15 mm, reaching the ultimate light and high resistance of the hinge wing plate.
It should be mentioned that traditional hinge manufacturing processes cannot meet the strict N5 research requirements for slimming and precision, and 3D titanium alloy technology can build with titanium alloy structures in the smallest units. Oppo and Berlit work together, after a year of hard work, managed to increase the strength of the 120%hinge plate, the impact and the downward resistance in the 100%exterior shaft, and the overall hinge stiff was increased by 36%, which has passed a more reliable and durable user experience.
Xue Lei, President and Managing Director of Bolite, said during the press conference: “0.15 mm is only a small step in the thickness of a thin plate, but it is a big step in the manufacture of precision of the whole industry. This strong alliance in the precision manufacturing industry has been the subject of the same scale. The manufacturing industry to meet the needs of the field of consumer electronic products.”
The production of Oppo hinges finds N5 is an “extreme challenge” of precision manufacturing.
The use of a whole new 3D printing process requires not only solving technical problems such as deformation of ultra-thin parts and control of residual constraints, but also requires balanced cost and efficiency requirements. Finally, after optimizing the process, the long -scale mass production strangulation bottleneck has been successfully broken, and the molding time in one room has been shortened to 2 to 3 minutes, and 100% recycling of titanium powder has been carried out, considerably reducing production costs.
Let’s review the production process of 3D printing hinges in titanium alloy, which can be almost divided into three main stages:
1 and 1 Printing and training: Using laser powder powder fusion technology (LPBF), titanium alloy powder is a layer sprinkled by layer at a high temperature of 3500 ℃ to obtain an integrated high precision manufacturing of complex geometric structures (such as wing plates).
2 Post-processing: Including 28 processes such as suppression, heat treatment and precision polishing. Among them, polishing and grinding are the greatest difficulty. It is necessary to combine high precision equipment and technology to ensure that surface roughness is ≤ 0.8 μm to meet the strict requirements of the structural parts of the mobile phone.
3 and 3 Assembly and test: Assembly of the hinge must spend 500,000 folding tests, fall impact tests and waterproof certification to guarantee its long -term reliability.
According to a research report published by Great Wall Securities, it is expected that the size of the 3D printing equipment in titanium alloy in industry 3C will reach 7.248 billion yuan in 2026, an increase of almost five times in three years. According to previous IDC forecasts, foldable screen mobile phones will represent 40% to 50% of the high -end market in 2025, which will lead to the explosion of 3D printing demand in titanium alloy.
According to the resource database, in addition to honor and OPPO, many manufacturers also accelerate the layout of 3D printing technology in titanium alloy. In the second generation Apple Watch, some mechanical titanium parts use 3D printing technology. Samsung and Huawei are testing titanium alloy hinge technology and should be applied to products between 2025 and 2026.
Why do mobile phone manufacturers turn to 3D printing hinges?
The main reasons mainly include the following points: first,Material factorsThe titanium alloy (Ti-6al-4V) has double the resistance of ordinary stainless steel, and its density is only 60% steel, which is very in accordance with the demand for “light + high resistance” of mobile phones with folding screen. Second, 3D printing can create what traditional processes cannotSpecial shape structureLike hollow wing plates, optimizes not only the mechanical properties of the hinge, but also reduces the number of parts and reduces the complexity of the assembly. Finally,Cost reductionIt is also a key factor. The price of the titanium alloy powder fell to 0.3-0.4 yuan / g, and the yield in the production process has been considerably improved, which makes the marketing of chinques in alloy printed in 3D printed in 3D.
As you can see, 3D printing technology is gradually changing the development of prototypes in mass production. From Honor Magic V2 to Oppo Find N5, this marks that the manufacturing technology of metal additives has officially become a key technical path for components of electronic consumer public, and the manufacture of consumer electronics is also entered into “the additive era of precision”.
