Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/992528
20 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2018 because the current yields are relatively low on these tiny, complex, build-up boards that are going into this generation of cellphones. Cullen: To turn that into an actionable item for your question, Barry, it would be that so much of our tech service calls come down to "Fol- low the operating parameters." They tend to share engineers between processes, and I get it; but if they just took the operating conditions to heart, it would save a lot of frustration. Jor- dan touched on it before. We try to simplify the processes, so you don't need so much in- struction. I'm in communications, so I under- stand that people will read a 30-second email and they won't read a three-minute email, so we try to make the instructions concise. That would be number one. Matties: It seems like that's where the IOT would have a great benefit—being able to do real time and look and provide operational feedback and make sure they are following the proper steps. Andy Shaughnessy: Do any of you have any ad- vice to give to circuit board designers and the EEs up front? Anything they should stop do- ing? Cullen: Right now, mixed construction is a problem. It's a problem and an opportunity. We have PTFE on exterior layer on both sides and then epoxy in the middle. You know, rig- id-flex is always a challenge for material han- dling and yield. Kologe: Thermal management is a big problem in high-density circuits utilized in a lot of the automotive designs and mobile. If you get the heat away from the chip, device reliability and performance increase. We really feel that the designers should be open to new ways to mit- igate thermal exposure of the chip. They have to think outside the box. There are ways to re- duce costs that are out there too. Cullen: Yeah, these guys are trying all kinds of weird stuff with copper coin, or with thermal- ly conductive film material, and planarization. We do have a copper through-hole fill tech- nology. The adoption of it is a one-time cost with equipment and some process time, but then you end up with solid copper. You can fan those out in layers by increasing dimensions, so you can start with a very fine path out of your chips and then spread it through your cir- cuit board to a much larger dimension. Their conductivity is unrivaled. We're kind of hop- ing that will head in that direction this year. Thermal management, of course, is getting very, very important as the voltages of the electric vehicles and just any vehicles are go- ing up. Then, as you said, 50% of the auto- motive is going to be electronics value. That means a whole lot of circuitry at higher layers, more sophisticated circuitry operating in high- er temperature environments, so we've got to do a lot more of the thermal management on the design side. Shaughnessy: I guess you'd want the designers to work with you guys and with the manufac- turing partners as early as possible, but a lot of them don't do that. Cullen: It can be frustrating because we'll have a meeting with the fabricator, and the fabrica- tor will have a meeting with the designer or with the OEM. Then, we meet with the OEM, and it's he-said-she-said about what happened. We must do a lot more joining up and having smart conversations to connect all those stake-