Henkel has always had a competitive advantage in terms of innovation and the depth of our materials portfolio; 2014 will be no different. We see huge opportunity in certain market sectors (automotive and handhelds, for example) and will continue to advance electronic materials capabilities to address green manufacturing, smaller and more capable devices and increasing requirements for effective thermal management.
We have invested significant resource in the development of some game-changing materials and anticipate introducing several of these to the market next year. New solder paste materials with more flexible storage requirements and a very long, stable stencil life; novel thermal absorbent film materials; high reliability solder alloys for automotive devices; reworkable underfills which provide high board level reliability; sustainable halogen- and lead-free materials; advanced semiconductor underfills for TC bonding and 3D stacking; all of these will become commercially available from Henkel in 2014.
Our commitment to innovation is unwavering and, even as we are launching several new materials, we are investing in additional R&D resource to accelerate our development efforts.
Henkel is very positive about the coming year and, if the analysts are correct, the electronics assembly market will experience some modest growth in 2014. The industry is also beginning to see a bit of geographic re-balancing, with many major EMS and OEM firms establishing new manufacturing facilities and/or expanding existing manufacturing in North America. I think this is all good news and am very encouraged about what lies ahead!
