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16 The PCB Magazine • September 2015 V2V and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication are highly anticipated near- term innovation areas. One thing that is unique about this is that we are talking about a signifi- cant amount of data. We are looking at non- stationary systems pushing 10 Gb/s of data or more. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication is crit- ical for self-driving vehicles, and NHTSA's Level 4 Vehicle Automation criteria, so we can expect this to gain traction as ADAS and the compo- nent technologies of driverless systems become more prevalent. This extensive growth affects all aspects of the electronic supply chain. According to IC Insights, the growth for automotive ICs be- tween 2013 and 2018 will lead the industry with a 10.8% CAAGR vs. 5.5% for the industry average, resulting in a total market size of $4.2 billion by 2018. Companies such as Freescale, Renesas, Avago and Infineon are positioned to capitalize on this extreme growth opportunity. There is also significant innovation hap- pening with printed conductors on both low- temperature and high-temperature substrates. Many of these can be seen in contact switch technologies for cabin lighting or climate con- trol, as well as advanced projective capacitance touchscreen solutions for in-dash control, navi- gation and infotainment systems. There are even numerous printed electronics parts you don't see, from emissions sensors to mirror de- frosters to seat heaters (Figure 4). Whether the system uses additive conduc- tors, new silicon technology or ceramic-based sensors, nearly all of these systems must incor- porate a PCB to function. As a result, the au- tomotive PCB industry is expected to grow to $8.5 billion by 2020, with companies like Mei- figure 4: flexible self-regulating seat heater element made with DuPont printed inks, courtesy of DuPont. FEAturE DETROIT VS. SILICON VALLEy continues