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Conference focuses on polymers in electronics

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 23, 2006

Rapra is organising a new International Conference on Polymers in Electronics to be held in Munich on 30th and 31st January 2007.

Rapra is organising a new International Conference on Polymers in Electronics to be held in Munich on 30th and 31st January 2007.

The conference will have a practical focus on a number of key subject areas including applications, the impact of legislation and markets.

Polymers are widely used in the electronics industry and they are fundamental components of both manufacturing processes and final products.

Material selection is a vital skill and keeping up to date with developments can be difficult.

This conference will offer a practical approach to the use of polymers in a diverse range of applications from semiconductor fabrication to final products.

With their widely varying electrical and mechanical properties, polymers have been traditionally employed as insulators and dielectrics but, increasingly, the development of new materials has broadened their utilisation into areas where their semiconducting and conducting properties have encouraged use in many novel applications such as in displays, corrosion resistant coatings, sensors, solar cells, textiles and capacitors.

The conference will have a pragmatic focus on the use of new and existing materials in a wide range of electronics applications, giving delegates the opportunity to learn more about just how essential polymers are for the future of the world's electronics industry.

In Europe, environmentally focussed legislation is increasingly impacting all parts of the electronics industry supply chain from design to end-of-life.

For example, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive aims to reduce the quantities of waste arising, as well as encouraging reuse, recycling and recovery.

This in turn is placing demands on manufacturers not only to choose materials that can be recovered and reused but also to design for disassembly.

The Restriction of use of certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directive limits the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and two polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

These proscribed materials are sometimes found in polymers used in electronics.

The new REACH Directive will also have an impact.

The conference will have a themed session that focuses on polymer research to address these issues and novel solutions for future electronic products.

Traditional markets for polymers used in the electronics industry have largely developed around their excellent dielectric properties and their ability to provide insulating protective coatings to conductors ranging in sise from those found on semiconductor devices up to those used in large area mouldings.

Other markets have developed for conductive polymers produced by compounding conductive fillers into thermoplastic materials.

However, over the last twenty years, the move of intrinsically conducting polymers from the laboratory to mainstream applications has lead to new markets as more traditional materials have been replaced.

Part of the conference will be dedicated to the changing nature of the markets for polymers in electronics and the opportunities for these new materials.

This conference aims to bring together presentations from all parts of the electronics industry's materials supply chain, from raw materials to finished products and will offer delegates an opportunity to learn more about both traditional and new polymer materials, their markets, manufacturing processes and applications.

It will also cover the impact of legislation, the need to recycle and other polymer related challenges and opportunities for the industry.

Potential presenters are invited to submit papers on key topics including: developments in polymers for electronic applications; material formulation, properties and selection criteria for specific application requirements; novel and future uses of polymers in electronics; environmental legislation related issues and the opportunities and challenges for polymers; and market trends and future opportunities for polymers in electronics.