Leveraging local and state stakeholders for future growth.

One positive of the last election is that the Trump administration is pro-US manufacturing and is considering tax incentives to reward companies that manufacture in the US and tariffs to punish countries restricting US-made goods. That creates both opportunities and challenges for the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry.

Tariff policy is definitely a looming challenge. The earlier China tariffs had the net effect of driving production to Mexico since components imported into Mexico were typically not subject to tariffs and could be reimported without duties once transformed in Mexican-made products. That may change, as Chinese companies have invested heavily in Mexican manufacturing to avoid tariffs. Tariffs may also impact the attractiveness of facilities in countries subject to them.

Planning for future updates can save customers a headache.

“Unplanned obsolescence” can happen to a PCB, so the printed circuit board designer must provide a few hooks to give the project a second chance.

Once upon a time, car stereos were almost universally interchangeable, so you could get a new, improved one off the shelf from your local specialty store. Upgrading car sound systems was my “side hustle” as a teenager. There were no how-to videos back then, but there are now.

That’s because it’s necessary! For my car, it starts with vents and the display screen at the top of the center stack and works through the HVAC control module. Then, you can pull the infotainment system out and hope it all clicks back into place afterwards. Who’s got time for that? (Life in the auto repair trade.)

No user-serviceable parts inside? Give me a break! The head unit is tough to get to, but the PCBs within the chassis use active components in quad-flatpack (QFP) packages rather than ball grid array (BGA) packages, which are more difficult, but certainly not impossible, to solder or desolder. The QFP’s perimeter pins are more accessible for the do-it-yourselfer. Functionally, these circuits provide entertainment to the driver, which is unrelated to safety, so a Class 2 PCB should be fine. Still, the BGA package is avoided as it doesn’t fit the high-reliability mindset of the auto industry. QFP devices permit more robust Class 3 circuit boards if the voice navigation aspect is considered a vital system and integrated with the audio.

The demand for products that last is innovating design, processes and materials.

As the technology in our pockets, homes and offices becomes increasingly critical to our daily missions as individuals, we all value the reliability of these complex electronic devices. We depend on smartphones, communication networks, home office equipment, automobiles, contactless payment terminals and more to be ready for action every time we call on them. To meet our expectations, these systems must deliver high reliability.

Product manufacturers and brand owners understand the market value gained from establishing a reputation for reliability. They also understand that product reviews and social media channels give consumers immense power to make or break that reputation.

In general, the reliability of consumer-grade and industrial products has improved remarkably as the electronics industry has matured. This is due to a number of important factors. Component and interconnect technologies have improved enormously. Digital electronics offer much greater repeatability and robustness to changing operating conditions than ancient, predominantly analog circuits. And opening the enclosure of almost any consumer device typically reveals a tidy and minimalist assembly as integrated components internalize many interconnections and functions. On top of this, standardization of specialized functions such as RF transceivers as plug-and-play modules has made complex systems much easier to design and build using hardware that’s already proven in existing designs. Moreover, the vendors continually refine and improve these modules from one generation to the next.

Worldwide collaboration still has a place in the printed circuit board supply chain.

As time marches on and technology, as well as economic and geopolitical events, change and evolve, one thing is as true today as it was decades ago: It is still a small world, after all!

Being in a technology-driven industry, I often marvel at how small refinements to materials, processes and equipment, together, over time, are catalysts that enable truly significant technological advances. One person’s – or team’s – brilliant and possibly radical idea can become reality only when the little things are done in the way of refining existing materials, tweaking known processes and tuning the equipment necessary for its manufacturing. In almost all cases I can think of, the hype over so-called “game-changing” materials or processes, was for naught; the game did not change.