The Zhitong Finance App learned that Dongwu Securities released a research report saying that a screw is a common mechanical transmission movement used to convert rotational motion to linear motion. It can be divided into trapezoid, ball, roller screw, etc. In terms of performance and barrier ranking, roller screws > ball screws > trapezoidal screws, rollers and trapezoids will benefit from the explosion of humanoid robots. Currently, the roller screw market space is less than 1 billion yuan. It is estimated that in 2030, the sales volume of humanoid robots will be 1.1 million units. The price of roller screws will drop to 3k yuan, and the corresponding space will exceed 30 billion yuan. As yield efficiency increases, future costs will reach less than 1k. The bank believes that the Tesla humanoid robot will use 8 inverted planetary roller screws. With scaling up, there is plenty of room for cost reduction.
The views of Soochow Securities are as follows:
In terms of performance and barrier ranking, roller screws > ball screws > trapezoidal screws, rollers and trapezoids will benefit from the explosion of humanoid robots.
A screw is a common mechanical transmission motion used to convert rotational motion into linear motion. It can be divided into a trapezoid, ball, roller screw, etc. Among them, a trapezoidal screw is a type of sliding motion, which is suitable for slow speed and low accuracy requirements. It is mainly a cutting process. It is mature and widely promoted. The price is about 4 in Tesla humanoid robots; the ball screw and roller screw have similar movement principles, all rolling motion, and the processing equipment is basically the same. The process is homologous, but roller screws have better overall performance, including high bearing capacity, long life, small size, and fast speed. The processing process is difficult, and the market demand is far less than that of balls (less than 1 billion vs 10 billion) The cost is much higher than ball screws. The Tesla humanoid robot will use 8 inverted planetary roller screws. With scaling up, there is plenty of room for cost reduction.
Equipment and process are the core barriers of roller screws, and yield and efficiency are the key points that roller screws need to break through.
The three core components of a planetary roller screw are screw, roller, and nut. The processing process is divided into cold rolling and grinding. The core is thread processing. In particular, humanoid robots use inverted roller screws. The thread is long and has an internal thread, which requires a grinding process and is very difficult. The cold rolling process is simple, but the accuracy is low (generally C7 grade or above); the grinding process is long, but the accuracy is high. The process includes preheating treatment, rough processing (turning, milling, rough grinding), semi-fine grinding, and fine grinding. The front and rear processes total 10-20 steps, which take more than 10 hours. Among them, heat treatment and fine grinding are the core links. In particular, fine grinding has an absolute impact on the accuracy of ball screws. It is highly dependent on equipment, and the process requirements are high, and requires know-how accumulation. Currently, high-precision thread grinders rely on imports, and the order cycle is as long as 1-2 years. Manufacturers include Mitsui from Japan, Drake from the US, SMS from Germany, etc.
Roller screws will leverage the 100 billion market for humanoid robots. Localization is poised to begin, and they are more optimistic about owning imported precision grinding equipment manufacturers.
Currently, the roller screw market space is less than 1 billion yuan. It is estimated that in 2030, the sales volume of humanoid robots will be 1.1 million units. The price of roller screws will drop to 3k yuan, and the corresponding space will exceed 30 billion yuan. As yield efficiency increases, future costs will reach less than 1k. Looking at the pattern, Germany's Schaeffler relied on its subsidiary Swiss GSA and successively acquired Swiss companies ROLLVIS and Ewellix to almost monopolize the roller screw market, and the rest of the manufacturers have not formed a large scale. Referring to the development history of ball screws, as demand exploded, technology spilled over to East Asia, forming a fragmented pattern (CR5's share is 46%). Currently, domestic manufacturers are increasing the development and layout of roller screws. There are three main types of manufacturers. One is the expansion of ball screw manufacturers, the second is the purchase of new manufacturers of fine grinding equipment (Best, Hengli Hydraulic), and the third is OEM assembly methods (Beite, Wuzhou, Siling, etc. of Sanhua Chain). On the equipment side, the bank expects to increase the market space for screw equipment by 100-15 billion dollars in 2030, or 60 billion dollars in the future. After improving the accuracy of domestic grinding machine companies, they may benefit from localized replacement. In addition, using car grinding to improve efficiency, lathe equipment is also expected to benefit from process improvements.
Investment advice:
1) Roller screw manufacturers: Actuator integrators Sanhua Intelligent Control and Tuopu Group are recommended, followed by potential screw suppliers for Sanhua Chain. It is recommended to focus on Best (300580.SZ) and Beite Technology (603009.SH). Both are highly flexible. At the same time, it is recommended to focus on Wuzhou Xinchun (603667.SH) and Siling Co., Ltd. (301550.SZ).
2) Equipment: Equipment comes first, but it still takes time to improve the accuracy of localized equipment. There are two main lines. One is to replace the high-precision thread grinder with domestic production, focusing on the beneficiary Rifa Seiki (002520.SZ), and the other is grinding with a car instead of a lathe to replace the rough grinding process, improving production efficiency, and focusing on the beneficiary target Zhejiang Heidman (688577.SH).
Risk warning: humanoid robots have fallen short of expectations; localization of roller screws has fallen short of expectations; future competition will intensify, and prices will fall short of expectations.