Productronica 2025 brought a rare blend of urgency and clarity: AI is turning heat into the defining constraint, and materials science is the lever that keeps performance on track. In this show floor interview EMSNOW Publisher Eric Miscoll sat down with Indium Corporation CEO Ross Berntson to unpack what’s truly scaling, where costs can be designed out without cutting reliability, and why thermal strategy is now a core product decision rather than a late-stage patch.
We start with the momentum in India, where PCB, packaging, and fab are building in parallel—an uncommon, gutsy approach that forces suppliers to localize and learn fast. That global context leads into the heart of the episode: high-reliability alloys like Durafuse HR moving from pilot to volume, and the practical trade-offs between sintering and advanced solders for power modules. Europe, especially Germany, is pushing design-for-cost while demanding mission-grade reliability, and it’s changing how teams choose materials, profiles, and interface stacks.
Then we go deep on AI servers, where big BGAs, warpage, and end-of-line yield collide with thermal realities. From liquid and immersion cooling to liquid metal interfaces, the heat path is now a competitive advantage. We talk about the limits of sockets at high frequencies, why low- and mid-temp profiles matter for yield, and how formic acid reflow could rise as a cleaner, scalable alternative. Along the way, we touch on encouraging signals in automotive, the niche-but-important role of defense and aerospace, and the importance of resilient supply for critical elements like gallium.
If you care about reliability, throughput, and total cost in AI, automotive, or power electronics, this conversation gives you a practical roadmap: where to double down, what to trial next, and how to align material choices with mission profiles.
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