Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1467744
76 PCB007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2022 Johnson: We recently learned that that our cars are becom- ing data centers on wheels. Kelley: Yes. It's reasonable to assume that the number of vehicles sold may decline, but the electronic content per vehicle will keep going up. When you net it all out, there's still an increase of electronics in automotive applications and the range of requirements is growing in automotive as well. You still need the high Tg FR-4s but you also need lower loss materials for these data centers on wheels. Johnson: And the collision avoidance, ADAS and high voltage stuff for the drive train. Kelley: Right. If you look at vehicles of the near future, they could be using a pretty broad range of materials in every single car. Johnson: Any closing thoughts? Kelley: Some of the fundamental trends are not going to change. We're always looking to develop lower loss laminates and prepregs that you can easily build complex printed circuit boards with. We're looking at alternative types of reinforcements. When you talk about CAF, so much of it's the glass fabric. Well, what if you get rid of the glass fabric? And if you do, what do you replace it with? Do you use a film-based material? If it's a film, it likely can't be used in every layer of a rigid multilayer circuit board. How do you solve those types of questions? ere's going to be a lot more hybrid construc- tions, not just with different materials and dif- ferent loss parameters, but hybrids with some layers of glass-reinforced, some no reinforce- ments, some alternative reinforcements. Skew mitigation is still is a hot topic. Isola was working on a product that was pretty good in terms of skew mitigation. But as we vetted the product performance, we found that it solved a unique electrical performance challenge, but we had some issues with thermal reliabil- ity properties. We haven't given up on that, and we're evaluating an alternative approach. ere are always these types of problems to solve. We want to be the guys who solve prob- lems for customers. And as we talked about,we have to make sure that we're talking together with the fabricators, the OEMs and, in many cases now, the chemistry suppliers. ere is an increasing number of people who need to work together to address some of these real challenges. Johnson: With way more choices, configura- tions, and permutations than ever before. Kelley: Yes. Johnson: ank you. Kelley: My pleasure. PCB007 Read more about the importance of material selection in The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... High Performance Materials. Isola's analytical services workstations.