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FEATURES

Conformal Coatings
Protecting Silicon with Silicone
Silicone chemistry is a unique combination: neither purely organic (i.e., carbon-based) nor purely inorganic (i.e., silicon-based), but a molecular-level hybrid of both. The nature of the Si-O bond in the polymer backbone creates low rotation barriers and large bond energies. This inorganic polysiloxane backbone provides the foundation for building materials with superior thermal properties, environmental resistance and flexibility, even at temperatures below -70oC. New systems are more robust, faster curing and require less energy than conventional chemistry.
by Brian Chambers

Data Transfer
Viasystems’ Approach to CAD-to-CAM Data Transfer
At Viasystems, the top issue is the amount of time required to successfully import, analyze and prepare design packages for production tooling. With full utilization of ODB++ files, the board fabricator has found it can greatly reduce the amount of manual time-consuming human interaction, and reduce opportunity for quality errors.
by Kent Balius, Stephan Hackl and Julian Coates

FIRST PERSON

• Caveat Lector
  Happy anniversary.
  Mike Buetow
  
  
  

MONEY MATTERS

• ROI
  Secret to success.
  Peter Bigelow

TECH TALK

• Designer’s Notebook
  Improving the design to fabrication handoff.
  Max Clark

• The Flexperts
  Plane layer epoxy.
  Mark Finstad

• Tech Tips
  Component whisker mitigation.
  ACI Technologies

• Technical Abstracts
  In case you missed it.