The Direction of MacDermid Alpha’s Automotive Initiative

Reading time ( words)

Nolan Johnson speaks with Lenora Clark about MacDermid Alpha’s automotive initiative, where her role fits into the company’s focus on supporting carmakers in various business areas, and where the future of automotive is heading.

Nolan Johnson: We did an interview at SMTAI 2019 about your new role as director of autonomous driving and safety technology at MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions. Refresh us on that role. How is it going?

Lenora Clark: It is going very well, thank you. I am learning every day, and I enjoy working in the automotive space during this exciting time. My role is to understand the technical and strategic challenges of the automotive market. This is to see how a chemical supplier can make automotive Tier 1s and, ultimately, carmakers successful during a time of change, specifically with respect to advanced safety from a systems level.

Johnson: How did you arrive at this role? Give us a little background on the start of your career.

Clark: I started in this organization fresh out of college with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. My focus was surface finishing, which gave me a lot of exposure to end-users. At the time, we worked closely with all market segments, testing immersion silver. It was a time of transition away from leaded hot-air solder level. Immersion silver was my introduction to alternative surface finishes.

Through this, I learned assembly and the importance of collaboration through a supply chain from a chemical supplier to a PCB fabricator. This included the assembly facility and finally testing and execution of a final product in end-use. This experience in surface finishing laid the perfect foundation for my role today in the automotive initiative.

Johnson: Is the automotive initiative new to MacDermid Alpha?

Clark: MacDermid made the decision 15 years ago to give the automotive industry the next level of support, particularly with respect to corrosion-resistant and decorative coatings. We hired a group of people who understood the large carmaker organizations. The work they did helped promote further penetration and collaboration on all levels of the supply chain, including electronics. We provide technical support for our products and also help develop their global supply chains.

To read this entire interview, which appeared in the February 2020 issue of PCB007 Magazine, click here.

04/08/2020 | Nikolaus Schubkegel

A circuit board is made of copper. Usually, final finishes are applied after the solder mask process. In some cases, for special applications, the final finish may be applied before solder mask. In this case, we have solder mask on ENIG or galvanic nickel-gold. It is also possible to have tin or tin-lead under solder mask; this was an old technology that no longer plays a role today.

03/04/2020 | Matt Kreiner, Hitachi High-Tech

One of the main challenges in PCB manufacturing is to create a stable, long-term coating of the copper surface to perform critical functions throughout the expected lifetime of the part. The surface coating is there to do two things: prevent the copper from oxidizing by coming in contact with the air and form a reliable contact for a soldered joint or wire-bonded connector.

11/08/2019 | Nikolaus Schubkegel

As a general rule, the tack-dry temperature should be as low as possible; in other words, it should only be as high as necessary. If the temperature is too low, the evaporation rate for the solvent will be to slow, and the solder mask will not dry in a reasonable amount of time. If the temperature is too high, however, the dry time certainly will be excellent, but it could create a solder mask lock-in with repercussions by the developing time.