ABSTRACT
Delco Electronics was getting started in the air bag deployment device business, and was having trouble finding an encapsulant, which could survive the environment of the engine compartment. Delco Electronics made air bag sensors for millions of cars per year in a competitive industry. The assignee was Delco Electronics Corporation and Hughes Aircraft Company. On December 31, 1985, General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with its Delco Electronics unit to form Hughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary. General Motors Corporation bought Hughes Aircraft Company from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1985. Concurrently, Delco Electronics was absorbed into Delphi Automotive Systems. Although the general properties of Aerospace electronic materials and automotive electronic materials are very similar, they differ greatly in two important ways: acceptable cost and acceptable speed of application. Aerospace production rates are usually small, whereas automotive production rates can be immense.
