JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #100 - Special JEC Asia - October 2015 - 5

have seen a major disruption of
the Internet, landline telephone,
and computer industries as
consumers have migrated
to Internet/data connected
devices with ever larger screens
and ever-improving design and
portability.
JCM: How did you get started
with composites, and what has
that changed for you?

T. V. : Motorola has had a
legacy of impressive new products introducing new materials
and form factors to the market.
Starting with the Dyna TAC in
the 1980's, the first portable cellular phone, and continuing on
with the first flip phone, MicroTAC, which was designed with
polycarbonate and no screws,
to rotating and sliding form
factors, the first metal phones,
etc., Motorola's been a pioneer
in industrial design.
Motorola's design leader, Jim
Wicks, recognized the benefit
of bringing Kevlar composites
to the smartphone back in
2010 due to its great weightto-strength ratio, great RF
characteristics, and beautifully
authentic woven appearance.
Being the first to dive into
DuPont Kevlar composites for
cellphones allowed Motorola to
offer an exclusive look, feel, and

performance to our customers
that appealed to their needs for
superior toughness and durability. Since the initial Verizon
Droid launched with Kevlar
in the fall of 2011, we have
continued to utilize composites for our phones with the
most demanding specification
requirements. Since 2011, we
have developed high gloss and
soft feel authentic woven Kevlar
products, expanded into Kevlar
+ PET/PC composites for the
original MotoX (2013) and
the white version of the Droid
Ultra (2013), and most recently,
launched the Droid Turbo with
Kevlar + metalized glass fibre
and ballistic Nylon (2014 +).
Motorola is very proud to have
won the JEC Innovation awards
for both the MotoX and Droid
Ultra White products in 2014 in
Paris, and for the Droid Turbo
in 2015 Houston.
JCM: Would you say that
composites and marketing
are compatible?

T. V. : Composites, and specifically our exclusive ability to deliver DuPont Kevlar composites
to the mobile phone industry,
have given Motorola a great
marketing edge versus our competitors. Our most demanding
customers expect us to deliver

industry-leading products into
their line-up. Kevlar-based
composites enable Motorola to
deliver devices to our customers
that can be advertised as "Kevlar
Strong," and fit very well with
innovative products that are
marketed as using "space age"
materials.
JCM: What brought you
to use RocTool technology?

T. V. : As our experience with
composites grew, and we began
designing the Moto X product
with Kevlar + PET and PC,
we needed to find a forming
solution for a polycarbonate
thermoplastic at high volume
and low cost. I investigated
many options for the forming
of thermoplastic composites,
and RocTool, with their 3i-Tech
technology, quickly became my
choice.
JCM: What were
your choice criteria?

T. V. : For thermoplastic
forming, I needed a solution
that optimized the important
production metrics of cycle
time, tooling cost, and number
of cavities per cycle. But also, I
needed to employ a system that
would provide a high quality,
consistent, high gloss surface
that would allow the beauty of
the woven fabric to be visible
to the consumer. RocTool was
chosen due to the great combination of production metrics
and surface quality.

T. V. : Motorola has been
producing and shipping a
combination of thermoset and
thermoplastic composites since
the Q4 of 2011. We continue to
do so today, with literally tens of
No100 October 2015 /

millions of composite housings
already produced.
JCM: Are you planning
to serve other markets
besides the American one?

T. V. : Yes. Actually, in 2011,
we launched our first Kevlarbacked smartphone globally,
with China being one of the
largest customers. However, in
2012, as Motorola was acquired
by Google, we withdrew from
many international markets,
including China. Now that
we are successfully integrated
with Lenovo, we are anxious to
expand back into international
markets where the Motorola
brand still retains great equity.
JCM: Are there other potential
opportunities for this technology
within your group?

JCM: When and by what
means are you going to
start up production?

Droid Turbo has won at the JEC Americas 2015 Innovation Awards with Roctool and COMPLAM Material CO., LTD in the "Consumer Electronics" category

Hybrid composite and plastic
combination

T. V. : Motorola does not
disclose unreleased products,
but it is safe to say that we are
constantly trying to deliver
ever lighter, tougher, thinner,
and larger screen, technologically-advanced products to the
smartphone market. Composites have been a key mechanism
for Motorola to deliver on those
metrics, and I expect that to
continue on into the future. n
More information:
www.motorola.com

jec composites magazine 5

http://www.motorola.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #100 - Special JEC Asia - October 2015