EIPC Winter Conference Review: From Innovation to Qualification

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Refreshed after a reasonably early night and a restful sleep, delegates dutifully re-assembled for Day 2 and Session 4 of EIPC’s Winter Conference in Aix-en-Provence on Feb. 4, “Driving the Future: Innovation, Energy, and Sustainability in PCB Technology.”

The theme of this session, moderated by EIPC board member Martyn Gaudion, CEO of Polar Instruments, was “From innovation to qualification: New materials, processes and applications.”

His first speaker was Steve Driver, whose presentation was entitled “Ideation > Certification > Qualification > Integration” and subtitled “The journey of a disruptor.”

Driver, CEO of Jiva Materials in the UK and quite well-known as a disruptor himself, shared experiences of the challenges that Jiva has addressed in progressing a pioneering materials concept toward commercialisation while surviving the real world of standards, qualification, and manufacturing. He quoted the Dalai Lama: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito!”

“Are you the disrupter, or are you disrupted?” he asked, suggesting that the evolution of the electronics industry has resulted from taking advantage of new discoveries, new ideas, and new technologies. He believes that disruption and disruptors play a fundamental part in the pace of change, and that although materials, processes, equipment, and people are adapting to the changes, the industry standards are not keeping step and are potentially stifling innovation.

One example of how our industry can be disrupted is the effect of the 2006 lead-free legislation.

He categorised Jiva’s Soluboard product as “disruption in progress” as he discussed his strategy, progress, and how he has overcome obstacles along the way, “while ignoring the naysayers.”

His first challenge was to position the product, and although Soluboard had one remarkable attribute—its recyclability—it was not an appropriate laminate for all applications. But the OEM had a choice, and sustainability was a new criterion to consider. Flammability certification had consumed time and money. Qualification focused on documented, defendable verification against key metrics and standards, selecting and validating suppliers, and preparing for validation in a commercial environment.

Driver reflected on the obstacles hampering the integration and adoption process, and considered resistance to change as the main reason, but also that the boundaries set by some standards were prohibitive. Now could be the time to “change the narrative.” In a context of huge price increases in raw materials, should the industry just accept these increases or do something different? There were already some choices, and more were coming.

He believes the IPC-4101 classification system is out of date, for example, with no provision for the natural or biodegradable reinforcements now beginning to enter mainstream production. The industry urgently needs to move to performance-related standards, he said, giving designers more clarity in design choices and not excluding novel or innovative solutions from the market.

The final step of Driver’s suggested integration process involves a seamless introduction into large-scale production, ensuring that the whole supply chain, together with approvals and certifications, is aligned with the requirements of the industry, ensuring compatibility and full functionality in the final operational context.

He gave examples of realistic applications for the Soluboard product and listed OEMs committed to net-zero. He believes that, with the right resources, Jiva could drive a meaningful transformation and lead the shift toward sustainable electronics in an industry demanding innovation and change.

Out of curiosity, Driver asked AI what a ban on E-glass would do. The response was that it would cause a sudden and massive disruption to the global PCB industry and force the entire electronics industry to re-engineer its foundational material science, leading to a temporary crisis followed by significant innovation in alternative substrate materials.

Returning to current realities of high-end laminate applications, Andreas Folge, OEM Marketing Europe for Nan Ya Plastics Corporation, gave an update on PCB base materials as a strategic performance driver for AI hardware.

“Today, we transmit more data per second over a single trace than an entire data centre did 15 years ago,” he said. “At this point, the main challenge is no longer design, but the base material itself.”

Hyperscale data centres! Folge’s following slide revealed two more astonishing statistics illustrating the reality of market trends in the AI era: “Every 2–3 days, a new hyperscale data centre is built worldwide, each larger than several football fields and packed with high-speed electronics,” and “The top four AI-focused U.S. companies spend approximately $70 billion per quarter on IT infrastructure, primarily on AI data centres.”  

Further graphics illustrating dramatic increases in Ethernet and PCIe speeds were an appropriate intro to a discussion of the requirements for high-speed PCB materials.

Folge reviewed the significance and effects on signal integrity of the electrical parameters dielectric constant (Dk), dissipation factor (Df), controlled impedance, and dielectric thickness, together with the considerations of thermal and mechanical reliability, manufacturability, and process window, ultra-thin laminates, and HDI stackups. What are the resulting challenges for a manufacturer of copper-clad laminates in choosing the right combination of copper foil, glass cloth, resin matrix, and filler, and how are these challenges addressed in the design of ultra-low-loss laminates when all of the component parts could be considered “special?”

How to face all these challenges? Nan Ya has the benefit of complete upstream vertical integration, and Folge demonstrated that through intensive research and development, a product portfolio could be created that is targeted at addressing the specific requirements of individual sectors such as automotive, high layer count, microwave and IC substrate.

Folge gave examples of the laminate characteristics required for infrastructure solutions in AI and general servers, network switches and telecom applications, as well as for data-centre switches and high-performance computing solutions.

His PCB market outlook figures from 2025 to 2029 indicated forecast growth of 61% in the server and data-storage segment, 52% in wired infrastructure, and 17% in automotive. In terms of PCB technology, the forecast growth figures for the same period were 30% in multilayer, 35% in HDI, and 36% in package substrate.

Folge considered that the development of specialised copper-clad laminate materials, characterised by low dielectric constant and dielectric loss, and incorporating advanced copper, specialised glass, and specific glass weave patterns, are imperative for HDI applications. He is aware of supply chain stress on the materials required to support elevated data rate designs, and recommended engaging with material suppliers at an early stage to ensure successful OEM design outcomes.

Session moderator Martyn Gaudion became a presenter with a thought-provoking presentation on the accuracy of field solvers at UHDI dimensions. Gaudion has a talent for holding the audience's attention while addressing a technically challenging subject, keeping it informative and entertaining.

What are UHDI dimensions? Ultra high density interconnect represents the next generation in density and miniaturisation of PCB design geometry. It is not simply “smaller HDI,” because it generally involves fundamentally different manufacturing processes. Lines and spaces are typically less than 65 microns, sometimes much less.

Gaudion’s opening slide put a perspective on dimensions. It is a set of engineers’ feeler gauges, 0.05 mm being the thinnest—50 microns! He followed with cross-sections of a human hair, 50 to 70 microns, down to 2 microns for a spider’s web. His example of a UHDI trace was 25 microns wide and 10 microns thick.

To illustrate time-domain reflectometry (TDR) measurements, he showed a couple of typical distributed-resistance discontinuities and their reflections dating back to 1970, and compared them with a contemporary 50 ohm plot from one of Polar’s test systems, followed by the results of a series of tests on a 75 ohm line.

Using a dimensioned schematic cross-section of an offset differential stripline, he demonstrated how the measured differential impedance compared with the originally calculated value, and qualified the results by correlation with careful microsectioning.

“Is what you made what you designed?” he asked, displaying a microsection showing conductors of 32 microns and 33 microns with a 97-micron space between them.

Gaudion commented on the influence of foil roughness, and stressed the importance of compensating for the effect of DC resistance on TDR impedance measurement to avoid the TDR reading being higher than predicted. He further advised to “ensure you made what you think you made,” “Turn on the imbalance check on your TDR,” and “If in doubt, microsection!”

The final technical presentation came from sustainability-driven innovator Victor Verlinden, founder and CEO of Virenti in Belgium. He was spreading awareness of a breakthrough technology that has advanced into a viable PCB application and is now moving toward scale-up and market entry. His presentation, “Towards sustainable PCB substrates: system-level considerations for bio-based laminates,” was meant to secure a green future for electronics by replacing fossil-based circuit boards with European bio-based alternatives.

Reviewing the current situation, Verlinden noted several areas of concern regarding the sustainability of traditional laminates, including environmental concerns about certain aromatic brominated flame retardants, shortages of raw materials, particularly glass fabric, increasing geopolitical tension and strain, and, not least, the erosion of local European laminate production.

Although the system-level framework was shifting, the core concept of laminates has not. He mentioned IPC-4101 and showed a chart of its slashsheet variants and their properties. FR-4 is a known and stable system with known limits, known compatibility, known work-arounds when it fails, large-scale supply, and over 50 years of de-risking.

By comparison, bio-based substrates, where a significant part of the material originates from renewable feedstocks, are not necessarily lower in performance, nor biodegradable, disposable, or experimental, but there are notable design constraints and differences to their performance envelope.

Are they good enough to be used as drop-in replacements for FR-4, even if matching the main specifications of FR-4? They have no universal compatibility, and new workarounds are needed when they fail. They are novel materials, so there is no 50-year track record. But scale follows adoption, and they have significant potential to improve the bottom line across the value chain.

Verlinden admitted that bio-based materials have performance-window constraints regarding moisture, thermal limits, mechanical strength, and durability, and are initially more suited to lower layer-count boards, non-HDI designs, and moderate reflow exposure. Their introduction should follow risk-profiles and he gave examples of realistic applications.

His charts of available constituent biomaterials and their properties demonstrated that reinforcing fibres could reach exceptional strengths at low densities and that resin components span the full range from degradability to long term durability.

The conference ended with a discussion on supply chain improvements, weaknesses, and sustainability by a distinguished panel comprising Andre Bodegom of Adeon, Chris Haley of Amphenol-Invotec, Vincent Dronnet of Elvia Electronics, Joachim Verhegge of Group ACB, Thomas Michels of ILFA, and Hugo Tang of Ventec. The knowledgeable and informative conversation was centred on the question, “How do PCB manufacturers incorporate EU regulations,” and was skilfully moderated by Rico Schluter.

Schluter brought proceedings to a close, thanking all who had participated, and extending an invitation to attend the upcoming EIPC Summer Conference, June 9–10, in Vilnius, Lithuania, which will include a visit to Teltonika.

My personal thanks to Tarja Rapala-Virtanen for organising an outstanding programme and to Kirsten Smit-Westenberg and Carol Peltzers for their expert management of another excellent event. And thank you Kirsten for sharing your photographs.