Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1153097
92 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2019 Flex007 Feature Interview by Mike Creeden INSULECTRO I recently spoke with Insulectro's Chris Hun- rath and DuPont's Steve Bowles at the DuPont Technology and Innovation Center in Sunny- vale, California. We discussed a variety of top- ics related to flex design, including the support structure that's needed in flex design, the ever- changing world of flex materials, and the need for working with a flex fabricator as early as possible in the flex design cycle. Mike Creeden: Welcome, gentlemen. Today, I'm with Chris Hunrath of Insulectro, the vice pres- ident of technology, and Steven Bowles, circuit applications engineer at DuPont. Today, we're visiting the DuPont Technology and Innova- tion Center in Sunnyvale, California. This is an impressive facility. To provide some background on myself, I'm now the Technical Director of Design and Edu- cation at Insulectro. I'm an EPTAC IPC master instructor teaching CID and CID+ programs, and I'm also the founder of San Diego PCB— a company I sold to Milwaukee Electronics Screaming Circuits in 2016. Today's designers and engineers are finding the need for using flex, rigid-flex, and print- ed electronics in all market segments. As we start approaching the next generation of elec- tronics, materials matter. So, the IPC Designers Council Executive Board created and recom- mended a definition for the profession of de- sign layout that would be published in the first page of the IPC-2200 series designer specifica- tions. The definition explains what a design- er needs to do to make revision 1 work. It has been referred to as, "The Designer's Triangle," explaining three perspectives for success. The first perspective is DFS (designing for solvabil- ity): Truly solving HDI with micro devices as best you can by using any of the CAD tools in front of you. The next perspective for success that the designer needs to accomplish is DFP (design it for performance). As we route our circuits the copper plays a part, and the materi- als that exist between the copper play a signif- icant part. I'm hoping Chris can address that. The third perspective is DFM (designing for manufacturability), and much of that is why this Technology and Innovation Center exists at DuPont. I'm hoping Steve can tell us about that because people need to be able to discover what the next step is as they consider flex de- sign and how it can be built. Steve, can you tell us a little bit about your background and your role at DuPont? Steven Bowles: I'm a flex circuit applications engineer at DuPont Silicon Valley Technology Center. I've been with DuPont for a little over a year now. Before that, I manufactured flex, rigid, and rigid-flex circuits for about 15 years. I worked at a few different board shops, all do- Industry Experts Talk Flex Design Mike Creeden