Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1116895
38 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 Feature Interview John Andresakis, senior marketing technolo- gist in the Interconnect Solutions (ICS) Group of DuPont, and Jonathan Weldon, RF applica- tions engineer also in ICS at DuPont, spoke with the I-Connect007 editorial team about trends the company is seeing, what challenges their customers are facing with materials to- day, and future opportunities with new tech- nologies, including 5G, electric cars, IoT, etc. Andy Shaughnessy: Starting with John Andresa- kis, could you talk about materials from a high- er level, and then we'll go to Jon to hear about some of your work with 5G in more detail? Patty Goldman: Also, can you tell us a little bit about your division at DuPont? I'm interested in that and your perspective regarding flex cir- cuits. John Andresakis: Dow and DuPont merged Au- gust 31, 2017; now, we're doing the spinoff into three different companies. In April, Dow split off and became their own company. In June, DuPont and Corteva—which is the agricultural business—will split off, which will complete the transition to three separate companies. We are going to be part of the new DuPont, which has several different divisions. Our di- vision is Electronics and Imaging, and within that, we are part of Interconnect Solutions (ICS), which includes Pyralux® laminates for flex ma- terials and Kapton® films. It also includes the Riston® photoresist and the combined chemis- try of Dow and DuPont for plating, final tran- sitions, etc.—overall, the chemical processing for making PCBs. Jonathan Weldon: In addition to the plating, we handle final finish, so for the most part, ICS contains everything for making a flex PCB from the ground up from Pyralux® flexible copper-clad laminate through the final finish of the board. Goldman: Okay, so what's coming down the pike with new materials? Andresakis: Everybody is looking for lower loss materials; that has been the major focus, espe- cially in the rigid market. Customers are look- ing at what they can do to keep driving the losses lower to the point where they're getting materials that are thermostats with properties getting close to Teflon-based (PTFE) materials. There has been a lot of work on resin chemis- tries. And when you get into this type of per- formance, the number of choices you have DuPont on Materials Challenges and New Opportunities John Andresakis