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June 2017 • The PCB Magazine 41 stalled our own component assembly capabil- ity, as well as soldering and test know-how, in our factory in Regensburg. This enables our product development team to get involved in advanced products with unique product perfor- mance, product features and application at rea- sonable cost. Also, the time to market enabled our team to become a valuable resource for our European customers. In addition, the in-house manufacturing ca- pabilities enabled us to participate in joint in- dustry projects that are partially sponsored by funds provided by: • Local authorities in Bavaria • German government • European Union funding from the EU commission in Brussels Project Examples The ZIM 3D microsystem [3] (Figure 12) was an innovative three-dimensional stack of indi- vidual sensor modules that are connected by magnets. This was a model for the electronics industry to create technology demonstration modules that enable development engineers to test different functions and application in new product development laboratories. This enables development engineers, for example, to test out interface options in new product developments without soldering components to a test board. For the highly-connected industry, this can be a helpful tool to shorten development time in automotive and industrial electronics. In Figure 13, a new project for the automo- tive industry in Europe is shown. Within the framework of a BMBF collaborative project, re- search will focus on the areas of performance, cooling, miniaturization and reliability in auto- motive and lighting applications. System integration technologies for highly integrated power logic modules use the exam- ple of drive and lighting technology—in the project "ProPower" [4] . The next generation of electro-mobility very much depends on cost-effective and high-reli- ability solutions that meet the very high perfor- mance criteria of the automotive industry. In this context is important to understand that flammability and electrical safety are key factors that will be considered in the projects as well. Automotive electronics is not made for a national or a European market. These standards must be compliant with global safety specifi- EMBEDDING ACTIVE AND PASSIVE COMPONENTS IN ORGANIC PCBS Figure 12: Demonstrator made for the ZIM3D microsystem project.