Nearly 15 years have passed since Solyndra went out of business, but its specter hangs over the US government to this day as a warning of the risk of federal intrusion in a capitalist world.

Solyndra, of course, represented the US’s attempt to bolster the sustainable energy industry, specifically solar. The intentions were noble: solar was seen as a safe respite from combustible sources like oil and natural gas, which are expensive, nonrenewable and dirty.

But corruption and mismanagement conspired to drain its coffers. The resulting bankruptcy ultimately cost taxpayers more than $500 million in unreimbursed loans.

The financial hit, however, was nothing compared to the surgical job it did on the collective congressional spine. “Strategic investments” became a fool’s term, something you said if you wanted to be primaried.

Consider the landscape today. The debate over critical industries is negligible. Forget a national roadmap. Yes, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, maintains a list of critical industries, but it’s hard to take seriously any plan that neglects electronics in general and semiconductors in particular.

The absence of electronics in this mix is particularly acute because it is fundamental to almost every industry identified by CISA, be it defense, energy or even public health. And while perhaps as a horizontal industry its standing is diminished, sectors such as chemicals manage to rate, which suggests that electronics is simply being overlooked.

All of this is crystallized in a recent editorial by Michael Dunne, an automotive executive who oversaw General Motors’ entry into China in the 1990s. Dunne notes the rapid ascent of Chinese automakers, whose output scaled from knockoffs and clunkers to state-of-the-art electrics vehicles in barely 20 years.

Says Dunne: “We need the courage to recognize how badly we are falling behind, shake off complacency and adopt an urgent government-led effort – think of a Manhattan Project but for cars – to restore US competitiveness.”

I agree, but automotive is just one piece of the picture. Every first-world nation – and most others as well – shares similar domestic concerns: energy, communications, logistics and healthcare. But they can’t solve those issues in-house, let alone become profitable technology exporters, if they lack the basic infrastructure, including world-class manufacturing and resilient supply chains.

Yet as David Schild of the Printed Circuit Board Association of America noted recently on the PCB Chat podcast, the latest draft of the fiscal 2026 defense bill lacks funding for US-based PCB producers, reversing the trend of the past few years when roughly $100 million was doled out to help steady the supply base. Given that each of the top handful of the largest fabricators in the world is now more or less larger than the entire US bare board industry, TTM notwithstanding, that’s a big miss, in my opinion. The industry needs a boost that only a well-thought-out industrial policy can provide.

Best practices from a governmental standpoint are to determine how to approach these issues through classical modes of definition and debate. In other words, Congress needs to, you know, congress. As a start, our leaders must overcome their fear of failure.

As a Boston Celtics fan, it pains me to quote Michael Jordan, but his famous statement on overcoming adversity rings true: “I failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Institutionalized risk-taking is the Silicon Valley mentality. In Washington, by contrast, politicizing failure seems part of the job description. That must change.

As the saying goes, the only ones who never fail are those who never try. To that, I add the Buetow postulate: Those who never try have already failed.

Managers wanted. Speaking of resilient business strategies, I’ll plug the debut of the PCB Management Forum at PCB West this fall. This new, all-day executive program will feature expert-led discussions on automation, managing businesses under fast-changing market conditions, PCB facility development, materials procurement challenges and more.

Attendees will gain valuable insights into risk mitigation and navigating supply chain complexities in an era of evolving trade policies and technological advancements.

The PCB Management Forum takes place Sept. 30, as part of PCB West, which will be held Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, 2025, at the Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center. Hope to see you there!

Mike Buetow is president of PCEA (pcea.net); mike@pcea.net.

The question was put forth at Siemens’ EDA Tech Day in May: Which of the following can be replaced by AI?

• Input
• Schematic
• Footprints
• Placement
• Routing
• Deliverables (DfM, validation, etc.).

It was posed by a user who indicated that routing takes up about 30% of the time of a typical design spin. In classical Pareto thinking, that makes it the best target for process improvement.

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