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FEBRUARY 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 25 ment of digital twin tools you're going to start seeing improvements in those simple things such as product failures due to connector lo- cation. Shaughnessy: Have you done a lot of work with ceramic substrates? Gamota: Yes, but that work has been mostly for photonics modules. It's interesting that you ask because we're updating the iNEMI Road- map chapter on flexible hybrid electronics, and there was a comment regarding the inclusion of ceramic substrates in the chapter. We orig- inally included ceramics in the roadmap be- cause if you go back in time, ceramics were the preferred substrate for the first generation of printed electronics. Ceramic and metal inks were screen printed on a ceramic substrate and subsequently fired. Ultimately, a decision was made to remove the established ceramic sub- strates from the next edition of the roadmap chapter and instead focus on novel flexible glass substrates and glass/polymer composite substrates. I'm intrigued by the potential of these mate- rials to withstand high dynamic loading in ag- gressive temperature, humidity and liquid en- vironments. These substrates will provide de- signers with new product opportunities. Shaughnessy: I remember right after 9/11, we started seeing a lot more of these round designs on ceramic, and they couldn't tell us what it was for because it was for a Tomahawk missile that had to withstand Mach 2. Do you know of any other material that is that durable? Gamota: I have to admit that the answer is no. I sometimes am concerned that we may not be as open to trying new things as we once were. Today we are limited by how much time we are given to succeed due to the shorter product commercialization cycles, and there- fore, we haven't tried to exercise the limits that have been placed on some of the materials we use. I'm not sure who's actually responsible for leading the development of those high per- formance materials outside of the traditional defense and aerospace suppliers. I believe that IMRE in Singapore at one time included the de- velopment of these materials in its R&D proj- ect roadmap. In the United States, perhaps the national manufacturing innovation institutes such as NextFlex may be investigating poten- tial material compositions to provide the nec- essary durability. A possible catalyst to accelerate the develop- ment of these substrates is the desire for space exploration. I don't know how long it's going to take, but we've already started hearing about the supply chain to Mars and what that supply chain will require. People are debating ques- tions such as "Are you going to build products here on Earth and ship them up to Mars? Or will you ship the BOM to Mars and build the product there?" That's going to be a game changer. I don't know when that's going to happen, but if we continue to have visionaries such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, we are going to see more challenges placed on the materials that we use for electronics. Perhaps most of the R&D ac- tivity will be performed by companies such as Boeing, Rockwell, and the other large compa- nies that provide electronic systems to go into space. However, limited information has been discussed regarding the advancement of these high performance materials. Goldman: That's a relatively small market. Gamota: Agree. Today it is a very small market, but everybody says, "Don't look at the acorn today; look at the oak tree tomorrow. The oak Are you going to build products here on Earth and ship them up to Mars? Or will you ship the BOM to Mars and build the product there?