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42 The PCB Design Magazine • December 2017 starting in my opinion, but we're still working away on our signal integrity materials as well. But thermal management is going to be a big, big driver for us. And if you look at the profile of it, the real change and the real growth is going to be in the next 10–15 years. It's not something that's got a two-year life cycle. Goldman: I read your recent interview with Barry about where Ventec was headed, which was inter- esting because you guys seem to be really moving. Goodwin: We are moving! We haven't got ambi- tions to be the biggest in the world, but we've got ambitions to be in all the right places at a level that makes sense, which isn't always the biggest. Because you can't react quickly enough to market change. See, that's the thing I see in automotive now. Automotive never used to change anything, and even the automotive market now is starting to push change. Goldman: That's what I meant by being pushed. Things are changing so rapidly and they can't have their three-year design cycles because they'll be left in the dust. Goodwin: Exactly. Goldman: It will be interesting to see how that's going to play out. Anything else we should mention? Goodwin: We touched on collision avoidance. Some of the big players in the market have got some patents expiring in the next few months, so I think we'll start to see some "me too" prod- THAT'S HOT: VENTEC'S GOODWIN ON THERMAL MANAGEMENT ucts produced by companies such as Ventec who have the right cost position, have the right attitude towards customer service, and a strong supply-chain that ensures required lead-times. We all know where people have a position in the market that allows them to get away with long lead-times and high prices. Well, some of the guys producing in Asia have got their eyes on some of that business. It'll be a long haul because a lot of that's specified at an OEM level, but all the laminators in Asia now have OEM teams. We do, so it'll start to happen. Goldman: Things don't stand still. They don't stay the same. They change very rapidly. In fact, more and more rapidly… Goodwin: Absolutely. Goldman: We'll have to talk every now and then about the automotive industry. I find that very intriguing. Because you're right, they had long design cycles and were very conservative in what they did. Goodwin: When I was with Isola 15 years ago, I was supplying the materials to the automo- tive guys and you couldn't talk about changing anything, and now you don't always get the change, but you can have the discussion now and it's not just shut down immediately. It's very different. Goldman: Mark, thanks for speaking with me today. Goodwin: My pleasure. PCBDESIGN An international group of physicists, among them UvA-Institute of Physics researcher Philippe Corboz, has now made important progress in simulating unconventional materials which are superconducting at higher temperatures. It was proposed that a very simple model of interacting electrons moving on a two-dimen- sional lattice—called the Hubbard model—could capture the relevant physics of high temperature superconductivity. By combining the latest numerical methods in large-scale simulations, the researchers have found a definite answer, namely a so-called "stripe" state in which the electron density is not uniform, but modulated in space. Stripes had also been found in previous studies, but not with the required level of precision to distinguish them from solutions with uniform density. Simulating High-Temperature Superconductors