Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1546933
18 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2026 But now, in many cases, automotive is at the fore- front of those changes, and other industries, like data centers, are borrowing some of what's being learned from the EV world. I can easily imagine data center designers looking to current automotive technologies to better un- derstand how to manage heat, just as an example. That's always been a challenge for the automo- tive industry. It's not only the operation of the elec- tronics; sometimes the electronics are adjacent to the engine or other assemblies that produce very high heat. What we're seeing, especially in power elec- tronics, where fast switching is occurring in power dies, is that new 800-volt architectures are being employed by the EV industry. Those architectures are now also being considered by data centers, which are using a similar approach to design power electronics, power die stacks, and cooling solu- tions. These similar approaches could create syner- gies for the automotive industry with other indus- tries like data centers. What are the implications for electronics manufac- turing long term, based on what's developing in EVs and how that's trickling out into the rest of the industry? One long-term implication is that the process window for acceptable variation will become tighter. Higher voltage, higher power density, faster switching, smaller packaging, and longer expected service life can turn what once seemed like a minor manufacturing variation into a long- term reliability issue. So, topics we're familiar with, like ionic cleanliness, solder joint quality, coating coverage, insulation spacing, material compatibility, voiding in intercon- nects, thermal interfaces, and process consistency, all take on a greater significance. At 800 volts, for example, contamination or insulation weaknesses that may have been tolerated in lower voltage elec- tronics can become much more consequential. I also think manufacturing will become increas- ingly data-driven. Inspection tells us whether an assembly meets requirements today. The larger reliability question is whether we understand the materials and process variables that determine how that assembly will perform five, 10, or 15 years from now. That moves electronics manufacturing from simply building to a specification toward manufac- turing for lifetime performance. There's always been this belief that our electron- ics are generally fragile. The effective life of a cell- phone is about four years, for example. Do we ex- pect much more out of our vehicles? You raise a good point. Even today's qualification methods and standards usually point to an automo- bile's service life of approximately 8,000 hours, as you know. But now we're seeing that electronics requirements call for operation or monitoring over periods exceeding 120,000 hours. This will require a different thought process. Basically, the vehi- cle's electronics are always on, even when you're not using it. The battery management system, for example, monitors the batteries' state of health and other information. There's no rest for the electronics. Yes, exactly. I like that. All this means is we need to take a different approach to how we view elec- tronics and applications. This always-on type of environment creates combinations we haven't seen before: high voltage, temperature, humidity, contamination, vibration, and the long-term elec- trical bias effect. The industry will be forced to evolve in how it qualifies and tests products. Earlier, you called this a paradigm shift. Can you explain what you meant? Automotive has always really lagged other indus- tries in adopting new components and electronics technologies. We were basic; we relied on tried- and-true solutions. You mentioned that cellphones have a different lifetime expectancy than automo- biles, but some of the components available to the automotive industry are the very same components that might be used in a cellphone, say, for a network access device. Now, the challenge is how to make some of these components that were originally developed for the consumer marketplace reliable in an electric vehicle, where conditions can be much more severe, and lifetime and safety expectations