"One-stop Service for Complex Solutions" - Field report from a 15-Year-Collaboration with Fraunhofer IZM

Berlin, /

Bernhard Schuch
Bernhard Schuch

Cars without electronics is unthinkable these days. Nowadays 90% of all innovations for automobiles are directly or indirectly influenced by electronics. Control components for power-saving drives, safety features such as the airbag and ABS or comfort features such as electronic data transmission or hands-free systems - the constant flow of innovations is ensuring that soon electronics will comprise 40% of an automobile’s production value. The increasing importance of electronics is highlighting three sometimes contradictory tasks: The employed electronics must be more reliable, more cost-efficient to produce and decrease in size with each new generation of automobile. Fraunhofer IZM is an ideal technology partner along this path. We spoke with Bernhard Schuch, Head of the Competence Center Materials & Packaging of Continental AG, Division Powertrain, BU Transmission, about his experience with cooperative projects. Harald Pötter, responsible for Marketing at Fraunhofer IZM, conducted the interview.

IZM: Herr Schuch, Continental and Fraunhofer IZM have developed a relationship of trust through their many years of mutual collaboration. Why does a company that is so successful internationally work with Fraunhofer IZM?

Schuch: Continental has expanded rapidly in the area of automobiles over recent years and technological development in vehicle electronics has been progressing at breakneck speed. Consequently, part of the development activity has to be carried out together with external service providers, for a start due to limits in capacity. Fraunhofer IZM has assumed a key role in this area over the last 15 years, not least thanks to the wide spectrum of know-how and services offered in terms of materials, electronic packaging and reliability.

IZM: Which do you value more - the breadth of our services or their comprehensiveness?

Schuch: Both. I remember our first collaboration very well. We introduced the first engine-mounted electronic control units in PCB technology (Printed Circuit Board) for truck applications. Until then the golden rule was that an electronic control unit destined for the engine mounting place must be realized on ceramic substrates. If it was going to be used somewhere else, it could be a Printed Circuit Board. I was heading the project at the time and had to prove to the customer that this solution was more and sufficiently reliable. We proved the reliability of the solder joints together with you. The experimental setups you had available, together with the simulation of the creep behavior and knowledge of the technological parameters assisted us with this and so, even back then, we were able to determine the deformation of individual solder joints using DAC (Deformation Analysis via Correlation) experiments and then re-use the data for more detailed FEM simulations. This confirmed our own test results. 

IZM: And the long-term collaboration developed out of these positive experiences?

Schuch: Exactly. The project showed us the advantaged of working in collaboration with a competent research partner that has the respective know-how and skills and - very important to us - develops these further independently. This was the key to ensuring that we would receive support quickly when we had concrete questions but also receive feedback and inspiration for our long-term problem-solving. Thus, we’ve continually expanded the collaborative areas over the years. Nowadays Continental works together with most IZM departments, particularly in the development area in Nuremberg, to directly support specific product developments and as well as new materials and assembly solutions in general. Simultaneously, IZM has been our partner for years in numerous research and funded projects to develop new solutions for our products.

IZM: Your point about collaborative development over a longer timeframe is an important topic for us. On the one hand, you require solutions to concrete daily problems, on the other, you act as our partner in long-term research aims. This means we have a direct line to what is required of our technology during day-to-day use in industry, but we also have the space to develop future technologies. Technologies, that our customer might use in their every-day tomorrow.

Schuch: You have to look at it like this: at Continental we focus on concrete product developments; the prerequisite basic developments get valuable impulses through research institutes, too. That’s why we seek out collaborations with research institutes such as yours. These types of projects have another advantage for us as well. We come into contact with suppliers and competitors that often have to solve the same types of problems. Everyone wins in these collaborations, as long as the issues don‘t relate to particular products specifically. We get more results for the same amount of effort and expenditure. 

Working groups even evolved out of these projects that extended far beyond the project period, for example on the topic of high-temperature electronics.

IZM: What other advantages became obvious once you’d actually embarked on the collaboration?

Schuch: One of Fraunhofer IZM’s advantages is also the continuity in staff. Sure there‘s problems now and again when an team member moves on. But overall you’ve been very good at developing areas such as wire-bonding, encapsulation or solder joint reliability further in the long term. At the same time, it‘s really valuable for us, as clients, to be able to define the tasks with generally only one Fraunhofer IZM employee. The complete task, including coordinating the other team members, is carried out by IZM – a really customer-friendly solution. Of course, Continental has to be able to describe the task very accurately.

IZM: What has worked really well, what could have been better?

Schuch: In individual cases, we’ve had the experience that additional contracts have not been possible due to a lack of staffing of equipment capacity. All in all, however we can say that our over 15 years of cooperation, the collaboration has been organized extremely pleasantly, efficiently and successfully – thanks, too, to the active cooperation by colleagues from the respective departments. The project results have been specific, directly applicable and usable for designing and optimizing our automobile electronics. 

IZM: Mr. Schuch, thank you for your time.

About Bernhard Schuch
Bernhard Schuch studied Physics at Giessen University. He has been employed in Continental AG’s, or that is, in its forerunner companies such as Nuremburg’s TEMIC’s, automotive electronics branch since 1984. 

Having started his career in semiconductor technology, Bernhard Schuch first came into contact with assembly and interconnection technology for automotive control units four years later and became captivated by the topic. 

Today he is worldwide responsible for the development of materials and packaging technologies for the Business Unit Transmission, Division Powertrain.

He also represents Continental in numerous committees concerned with electronic packaging, for example in the advisory board of the Micro Materials Center Berlin.

About Continental AG
Continental AG, based in Hanover, developed from tire manufacturer to one of the world‘s leading automotive industry suppliers almost unknown in the broad public sphere. As a supplier of brake systems, systems and components for drives and chassis, instrumentation infotainment solutions, automotive electronics, tires and technical elastomer products the company contributes to road safety and climate protection. Continental is also a competent partner in networking automobile communication. 

The company presently has approximately 150 000 employees at almost 200 sites in 36 countries.

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