Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/565949
September 2015 • The PCB Magazine 63 CARMAKERS NOW EMBRACING PLASMA TREATMENT 10 years, was lasting one to two years. It's a disposable thing now. Now, with cars, the perception in the past was we would swap out a car every four to five years. That's where the mindset came in that we're only going to build a component to han- dle four or five years. As you see now, people are keeping cars up to 15 years or longer. They need the electronics lasting at least as long. That's where companies are changing their mindset now. They can't build the way they used to. It's not really a cost factor, it's more of a mentality or shift in how they see where they need to manufacture. You have to look at a car as a commercial good. It's no longer a consum- er-grade good; it has to be on the same level as, say, a military-based commercial good that's go- ing to last some time. That's more or less how the end-user perceives it, too. When you're pay- ing a certain amount of money, you want that feel of quality and durability, with minimal time taking it to the shop. That's where the change is coming in. The cost isn't really there. We have automotive customers that, for a long period of time, we didn't see plasma orders from. Sudden- ly, now we're seeing orders. It's really the shift in their mindset. Matties: Is it something that the OEMs—the car producers themselves—are requiring in their specs? Doan: I think so, but I think it's also driven, as you were mentioning earlier, from a legality aspect. You're seeing huge lawsuits, especially with the airbag recall, for example. Even the manufacturer of the airbag doesn't really know the root cause. There's no tracking and such. If you look before that with Toyota and the gas pedal incident, there was not enough tracking to understand exactly where the failure oc- curred. What they want to do now is also being reinforced from the legal side that says, "If we're going to look at trying to find out the core of the problem, then we need to have better track- ing from our component suppliers." I think the component suppliers are saying, "Okay, if we're making these electronics, we might as well be proactive and prepare ourselves. If it falls on us and we're the ones that have to figure out if we're the cause, it's better if we have all the capabilities and we manufacture for minimal failure." Matties: Right, so it's to cover your ass and improve your quality. That's the mentality that we're seeing. Doan: Yes. It's not just on the automotive segment, either. I think it's most electronics. Matties: Anything in the high-reliability area where there's catastrophic failure or consequence to catastrophic failure, like ignition switches or airbags, or jets falling out of the sky. Doan: I think that's the key. Now, all of the various safety boards in the world, as soon as there's any minimal issue, try to mitigate any dangers to the consumer or the person. A good example is Boeing with the battery issue and the minor smoke. They took it out of service com- pletely because they don't want to put people at risk. It's a catastrophic thing that you don't want to have. It goes back to them having to look at the battery manufacturer. How did they build it? What kind of coatings did they use? Those are the types of things that, as a manufacturer, you have to look at how to better control your quality. Sometimes it's really the minute con- taminants in between that you're not removing that cause the problems. That's where having some way to microscopically clean materials helps. I'm not against wet. I believe firmly in the use of wet chemicals, because wet chemicals are good for bulk removal. If you have some- thing extremely thick and you need to clean it off, it's great, but it's not going to clean down to the microscopic level. Even the bulk chemical leaves residue. That's the downside. Matties: Have you done any analysis with and without plasma on A and B products? Doan: Yes, we have done that. A good ex- ample is the packaging of a sensor. Usually, the typical packaging of a sensor is molded on. Us- ing the example of a car, you have stages where the car is parked and it's relatively cool, then suddenly the temperature can easily escalate to FEAturE IntErvIEw