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MAY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 75 lems and opportunities for PCB manufacturers as well as materials suppliers to address these underlying technical challenges. Despite the fluctuations in the general mar- ket demand today, what's exciting to see is there's continued investment in addressing technology. We can look forward to the de- ployment of 5G technologies as well as more advanced automotive electronics, including safety and high-temperature applications and greater electrification to continue to demand innovation in our industry. Johnson: So there is a definite push into need- ing some new materials. What's on the road- map for product development to make the next sweet spot for Isola? Mirshafiei: We've done our best to narrow our focus on those two end markets: telecommu- nications and automotive electronics. For tele- communications, we have focused on solu- tions for backhaul and wireless applications. More recently, our focus has been to develop next-generation, ultra low-loss materials that are suitable for 400-G applications as well as offering alternatives to RF/MW materials for 5G antennas. For automotive, we have had a long history of offering high thermal reliability materials and leading through the lead-free as- sembly transition. More recently, our product development focus in automotive electronics has narrowed to automotive safety with prod- ucts positioned for radar and high-temperature, high-power, and high-current applications that are being considered for automotive electrifi- cation. One noticeable change in our industry is that the traditional high-speed digital applications have continued to evolve and require high-per- formance materials, which are now encroach- ing on the performance of more exotic RF/MW materials. This convergence will allow the in- dustry to benefit from increased flexibility in material choices and flexibility in design. Johnson: You're suggesting that there may be a bit of convergence in materials somewhere down the roadmap? Mirshafiei: Yes, and we're seeing that today. A lot of the requirements that have traditionally been present for RF and microwave applica- tions have far exceeded what was necessary in the past for routers, switches, and servers, and as you said, there is a convergence—a conflu- ence of those two markets. Although they may share a similar platform, the individual re- quirements differ. The platform of the product may be similar, but you can't just take product X that has been used in high-speed digital ap- plications and simply badge engineer it to use in RF/MW. Johnson: It seems like we're on the verge of a philosophical shift. Until now, the substrate was a substrate. Now, engineers have to think of the material they're using as an active par- ticipant in the behavior of the circuit. Mirshafiei: Absolutely. The advancements in materials, such as more building blocks gener- ally found in digital applications, may allow designers flexibility to integrate more digital and RF/MW applications into the same design. It enables designers to rethink how they can build their packages and systems. Meanwhile, it creates quite a bit more complexity. One of the things that is often very difficult in this sit- uation is how does a designer get an objective view of materials and a better sense of how to decide what category of materials they need for the design. In the past, when materials suppliers en- gaged with OEMs, they did it on their own, and the OEMs took the information directly, and the PCB fabricator wasn't as involved. That was to the detriment of the OEM as well as the materials supplier because the best way to understand how these materials function is to establish a relationship with the three parties. There should be a representative of the OEMs and a representative of the PCB manufacturers to ensure the design is manufacturable, plus a materials supplier to understand what charac- teristics need to be controlled and managed to arrive at the performance that's necessary for these OEM designs. The PCB manufacturer is a crucial element