Packaging Material Development for Automotive Systems

In order to materialize more safe vehicles, active safety systems are being developed. On the other hand, to mitigate environmental threat, electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles become widespread. This contributes to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. To realize low emissions, safety driving and comfortable compartments, electrically-powered and electronically-controlled systems will be widely introduced in automotives in future. Consequently, automotive systems should integrate many electronics such as sensing devices, electronic control components, inverters and control units. These electronic components have to be not only small, lightweight and inexpensive but also highly reliable. Because small-packaged components have higher power density, it is necessary to develop technologies to achieve high heat dissipation and heat resistance. Advanced materials are now being expected to be a breakthrough to provide such technologies. In this paper, we describe such advanced materials and approaches to integrate them into automotive components.