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22 The PCB Magazine • July 2014 DEvICE EMBEDDING IN PCBS: EvOLUTION OR REvOLUTION? continues place connectors and flexible PCBs, and may even change the automotive assembly technol- ogy. In addition, RFID components have be- come cost-effective alternatives to store impor- tant information about the assembly processes and environmental requirements and other unique device information. This technology will offer even more options for the software developers and system designers of the future. Advanced Projects in Europe Europe is strong in automotive, industrial, medical, photovoltaic, avionics and space elec- tronics. In addition, power electronic devices are needed in many of the new electronic auto- motive application. As indicated in the begin- ning of the report, the PCB market is at present a buyers' market and the purchasing managers and/or agents define where the order is placed. For them, cost reduction is one of the key ob- jectives, but will, in many cases, not go in line with innovation, reliability, traceability and en- vironmental requirements. The European industry depends on leader- ship through innovation in electronics. Com- promises between cost-reduction and innova- tion are key drivers for the PCB fabricators and OEM/EMS industry in Europe. Today, PCB costs are calculated on a square meter or square deci- meter level. The smaller the PC board, the low- er the selling price for it will be. One example is the EU-sponsored consor- tium project "HERMES" (High density inte- gration by Embedding chips for Reduced size Modules and Electronic Systems). The follow- ing companies have cooperated as partners: AT&S Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG, Atotech, Bosch, Circuit Foil, Fraunhofer IMZ, IMec, Infineon, Rood Microtec, Siemens A&D, Thales Communications France (Thales Figure 5: Project supported by the european commission under the name herMeS. industrialisation was carried out at at&S in austria together with Fraunhofer iZM in Berlin. the project partners came from the fields of acadæmia, oeMs, silicon fabricators, and the chemical, electro-plating and packaging industries [7] .