Sabic reveals here at K 2019 (Hall 6, Stand D-42) its ambitious global growth strategy for its Specialties business, targeting the company’s vast array of vital technologies that help address hard problems in emerging markets such as electrical mobility, 5G infrastructure and remote healthcare. Sabic’s goal is to grow its Specialties business into one of the top five multi-segment premium specialty chemical companies in the world. Within the high performance engineering resins space, the company will continue to invest in innovation, sustainable technologies and global supply capacity. Sabic’s Specialties business will further enhance the overall customer experience through world-class service and enhanced regional customer support, while strengthening collaborations with OEMs, designers and molders worldwide.
“Today’s global challenges – from e-mobility to improved connectivity as well as remote healthcare – demand specialized materials that can contribute to the effective performance, durability and sustainability of tomorrow’s technological solutions,” said Ernesto Occhiello, Executive Vice President, Sabic’s Specialties Business. “Sabic intends to play an increasing, significantly broader role in accelerating the growth of these technologies worldwide, not only with differentiated materials, but also with our full spectrum of services, systems and capabilities. We are deploying our resources towards better support and collaboration with customers, addressing their hard challenges and delivering on the opportunities we uncover together.”
Materials Innovation
Sabic’s portfolio of specialty materials are key enablers in emerging technologies that are driving the 4th Industrial Revolution.
5G wireless technology is the combination of various new frequency ranges and protocols to enable increases in data transmission speed and lower latency - or the less delay in transferring data. 5G is critical to enabling many new application areas such as autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things, remote medicine, and augmented and virtual reality systems, and requires material technologies that provide superior dielectrics, electromagnetic shielding, and thermal management.
5G technology requires the development of a new infrastructure designed to handle the high data throughput and low latency.
5G Infrastructure
Sabic’s Noryl oligomers are a key enabler of next-generation high-performance electronics systems, such as 5G infrastructure, which can handle high data transmission rates with low latency. They are used by printed circuit board (PCB) laminators to help lower the dielectric constant and loss factor in new products. Applications for Noryloligomers include high-speed servers, wireless base stations and antennas.
Chip and component demand for 5G related applications, including network equipment, and antennas for handsets and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is expected grow significantly from 2020 onwards. In Asia, major suppliers of PCBs are expanding production capacity while driving higher specification levels to meet expected explosive demand when 5G is commercially available.
Copper clad laminates - or CCLs - are considered a crucial material for high-end PCBs. Sabic’s High Purity BISDA, a curing agent in epoxy thermoset systems, has been developed for polyimide applications in flexible CCLs such as adhesive layers, coverlays, and varnishes. This specialty additive allows significantly lower processing temperatures, better adhesion to low profile, smoother copper surfaces and lower moisture absorption in comparison to alternative dianhydrides to enable lower power dissipations in flexible circuits.
5G and Remote Healthcare
Thanks to lower latency, 5G will provide an almost instantaneous transmission of high volumes of data between devices, enabling surgeons in the future to conduct procedures as if they were right next to the patient in the operating theatre. This evolution will stimulate the increasing adoption of robotics in surgical instrumentation, allowing doctors to perform surgery remotely from anywhere in the world. This trend can lead to a growing demand for Sabic’s Ultem resins, LNP compounds and copolymers to be specified in internal and external parts of the next generation of surgical instruments, due to their sought-after properties such as, biocompatibility, lubrication, stability to Gamma and Ethylene Oxide (EO) sterilization - combined with regulatory compliance certification.
Autonomous Driving
Rapid innovation in advanced driver assistance systems (ADASs) has created a need for thermo-optical resins that provide advantages over conventional materials in applications such as Light Detector and Ranging (LiDAR) lens covers. Sabic’s Lexan CXT copolymers provide greater freedom to design complex shapes for LiDAR lens covers and superior resistance to impact and abrasion versus glass, and better impact and resistance to UV and abrasion compared to standard plastics.
Ultem and Extem resins are also recognized by designers of optical sensors and lenses as new material choices that can replace glass and epoxy resins. Inherent flame retardance, high strength and dimensional stability, high light transmittance in the infrared spectrum range, extreme high-temperature resistance and high flow for miniaturized, complex or thin-wall parts are some of the major advantages these high-performance resins have over traditional materials – which can enable designers meet specialized requirements for innovative ADAS design.
