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our product development process. When we're talking about low- ering the curing temperature, the energy consumption would decrease as curing is less than that for conventional polymers. This also helps in the cost savings in energy consumption. Furthermore, it low- ers your carbon footprint. Addition- ally, most of our chemistries are RoHS-compliant. So, at the lower cure time, is the cycle time a bit longer? Rehman: Yes, it does take long to cure, but at the same time you're looking at the energy consumption, which is not being spiked, but con- sistent. So again, reduction of car- bon footprint is the goal here. Provided you have the cycle time, right? What about the recycling of metals? Rehman: MacDermid Alpha has one of the biggest metal reclaim pro- grams. Our products offer custom- ers a guarantee of recycled mate- rials. We take it and offer a good value for those reclaimed metals, and then we reintroduce them in our products to be reused. In terms of performance, we found no differ- ence between the recycled tin and virgin tin. We have data to support that claim, endorsed by the Interna- tional Tin Association, which states that tin can be recycled 60 times. If the lifespan of a PCB is 10 to 15 years, we're talking about something beyond my lifetime that can be recy- cled and still be used in the PCB. How easy is the reclamation process for the manufacturer? Rehman: We have a service, so we can pick up all the PCBs, the solid solder dross, or whatever electron- ics waste a customer has. This ser- vice has been really helpful for our customers. You also mentioned that another advantage of these reinforcement solutions is less warpage. Rehman: Warpage is a big fac- tor, especially when we talk about our thinner chip-scale packages. That's where we see warpage come into play, causing defects like head-in-pillow and bridging or non-wet opens. Some of these wind up being in- field defects as well? Rehman: Yes, because they're hard to detect during the functional testing. How do protective polymers con- tribute to sustainability, and what steps has your team taken to advance that further? Turner: When people discuss sus- tainability with me, I usually explain that any protective polymer con- tributes to the cause by extending the lifespan of a device, which in turn reduces e-waste in landfills. In general, protective polymers play a key role in promoting sustainability. However, we take it a step further by incorporating bio-based raw materi- als into many of our polymer formu- lations. During the development of new products, we prioritize sourc- ing bio-based materials whenever possible, all while ensuring that there's no compromise on quality. Who's driving the R&D for your product lines? Turner: We have different teams for each product line, but we all work closely together, particularly when understanding how our materials " " We have a group of amazing people all across the world, bringing experience from lots of different backgrounds.