Injection molding economic comparison

The use of thermoplastics and their selective metal plating opens a new dimension in circuit carrier design to the electronics industry 3D molded interconnect devices (3D MIDs). MIDs are injection-molded thermoplastic parts with integrated circuit traces. They provide enormous technical and economic potential and offer remarkably improved ecological behavior in comparison to conventional printed circuit boards which they wiU, however, complement, not replace. 

Table 9.2 Examples of economic comparison of structural foam molding, injection molding, and sheet molding compound...

For many electro-technical and automotive applications plastics components have to fulfill enhanced demands on their electrical and thermal conductivity. A novel material eombination of metal fiber reinforced thermoplastics and low melting metal alloys allows a significant increase in the maximum filler content and therefore in the electrical conductivity in comparison to just solidly filled polymers, because the low-viscous alloy is already molten during manufacturing. The material can be processed economically to complex shaped parts by conventional injection molding. The material composition, the processing behavior and the resulting part characteristics will be discussed in this paper. 

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