Mosaic Solutions (Norway)

BackgroundAlthough pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) rarely metastasizes to the skeleton, disseminated tumor cells have been detected in bone marrow samples from patients with this disease. The prognostic value of such findings is currently unclear. Thus, the current study aimed to clarify the prognostic information associated with disseminated tumor cell detection in samples from patients with PDAC.MethodsBone marrow aspirates were obtained from 48 patients with locally advanced (n = 11) or metastatic (n = 37) PDAC, before and after 2 months of chemotherapy. Disseminated tumor cells were detected with an mRNA panel and quantitative reverse transcription PCR. We used the highest levels measured in healthy bone marrow (n = 30) as a threshold to define the positive detection of disseminated tumor cells. Progression-free and overall survival were analyzed with Kaplan–Meier and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses.ResultsDisseminated tumor cells were detected in 15/48 (31%) bone marrow samples obtained before starting chemotherapy and in 8/25 (32%) samples obtained during chemotherapy. Patients with disseminated tumor cells detected before therapy had significantly shorter progression-free (p = 0.03; HR = 2.0) and overall survival (p = 0.03; HR = 2.0), compared to those without disseminated tumor cells in the bone marrow. When restricting disseminated tumor cell detection to keratins KRT7 and KRT8, the prognostic information was substantially stronger (p = 1 × 10–6; HR = 22, and p = 2 × 10–5; HR = 7.7, respectively). The multivariable Cox regression analysis demonstrated that disseminated tumor cell detection prior to treatment had independent prognostic value. In contrast, disseminated tumor cells detected during treatment did not have prognostic value.ConclusionsDisseminated tumor cells detected before commencing chemotherapy had prognostic value in patients with inoperable PDAC.

A very compact and rugged 2.5-D integrated data logger has been built and tested. The data logger is capable of measuring accelerations exceeding 70 000 g. Microcontroller and flash memory as bare dies have been mounted onto a silicon interposer with through silicon vias using anisotropic conductive film and Au stud bump bonding. A microelectromechanical system accelerometer is mounted onto the interposer, using a robust customized flip-chip mounting approach. The interposer is mounted into a 16-pin leadless chip carrier package using isotropic conductive adhesive, where the conductive part is made of metallized polymer spheres. The ceramic package was mounted onto an application printed circuit board (PCB) with filters, power management, and an interface contact, using soldered plastic core solder balls (PCSBs). The diameter of the data logger is less than 9 mm, and the height is approximately 5 mm. The data logger fits within 12.7-mm (0.50 cal.) projectile, and acceleration measurements have been performed during firing, flight, and recovery. The measured accelerations have been verified by comparing the calculated projectile muzzle velocities with Doppler radar measurements.

ABSTRACTIsotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs) filled with metal‐coated polymer spheres (MPS) have been proposed to improve the mechanical reliability compared to conventional ICAs filled with silver flakes. The electrical properties of MPS play an important role in the electrical performance of macroscopic MPS‐based ICAs. This article deals with the electrical characterization of individual MPS using a nanoindentation‐based flat punch method, in which the resistance and the deformation of single MPS were monitored simultaneously. Four groups of silver‐coated polymer spheres (AgPS) with identical polymer cores but different silver coating thicknesses were tested. The resistance of AgPS decreases gradually with increasing deformation degree of particles, and increases when the deformation of particles is reduced. In addition, the resistance of individual AgPS is dependent on the physical properties of the silver coating, such as thickness, uniformity, and porosity. The thicker the silver coating is, the lower and more stable the resistance of AgPS is. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci.2016,133, 43764.

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in silver thin film coated polymer spheres as conductive fillers in isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs). Such ICAs yield resistivities similar to conventional silver flake based ICAs while requiring only a fraction of the silver content. In this work, effects of the nanostructure of silver thin films on inter-particle contact resistance were investigated. The electrical resistivity of ICAs with similar particle content was shown to decrease with increasing coating thickness. Scanning electron micrographs of ion milled cross-sections revealed that the silver coatings formed continuous metallurgical connections at the contacts between the filler particles after adhesive curing at 150°C. The electrical resistivity decreased for all samples after environmental treatment for 3 weeks at 85°C/85% relative humidity. It was concluded that after the metallurgical connections formed, the bulk resistance of these ICAs were no longer dominated by the contact resistance, but by the geometry and nanostructure of the silver coatings. A figure of merit (FoM) was defined based on the ratio between bulk silver resistivity and the ICA resistivity, and this showed that although the resistivity was lowest in the ICAs containing the most silver, the volume of silver was more effectively used in the ICAs with intermediate silver contents. This was attributed to a size effect due to smaller grains in the thickest coating.

Novel isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs) filled with metal-coated polymer spheres (MPS) have been introduced in order to improve the mechanical performance, and hence the reliability, compared to conventional ICAs filled with solid silver (Ag) particles. This paper summarizes a number of characterization studies on the electrical, the mechanical and the rheological properties, as well as a study on the reliability, of MPS-based ICAs. The feasibility of the ICAs filled with MPS has been demonstrated in terms of potential processing capabilities, improved mechanical performance and competitive electrical properties (compared to conventional ICAs with Ag flakes). Therefore, the MPS-based ICAs have a good potential for demanding environment applications, in which electronic products (e.g., hand held devices) are subjected to thermal shock and thermal cycling, mechanical vibration and mechanical shock.