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JULY 2021 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 33 Group what you learn into categories for easy reference. We recommend: • Manufacturer tolerances • Operating environment • ermal issues • Size and weight constraints • Frequency considerations • e relationship between connections and board thickness Your design can be spot on in every respect, but if it's the wrong thickness it will likely fail and create costly rework. Before you send your design to your manufacturer, be sure your board is the right thickness for your needs. DESIGN007 Matt Stevenson is the VP of sales and marketing at Sunstone Circuits. To read past columns or contact Stevenson, click here. better at dissipating heat. at's because vias are shorter and pass through a smaller amount of insulation • If your vias are very small and the board is too thick, drill bits will break before they make it through the board, making manufacture slower and more costly Since cost is always a factor in our indus- try, we should note that standard thicknesses are less expensive. But if a standard thickness is not right for your design, we highly recom- mend customizing. Initial cost savings can go up in smoke if the boards aren't durable enough because they're too thin or prone to overheating because they are too thick. Remember What You Learn About Board Thickness And write it down. As you consider thick- ness in your design more oen, we encourage craing an easily replicated checklist approach to make this challenge easier in the future. Researchers at Linköping University, together with colleagues from Rise and the Royal Institute of Technology, have developed an electronic paper that can be manufactured on an industrial scale. In the pilot project, rolls of length 10 metres and width 20 centimetres have been successfully manufac- tured, which means that full-scale production is fully possible. The paper has high conductivity, and long-term uses include energy storage and the con- struction of electronic components. "We have been trying to take printed electronics, in which paper is used to support electronic com- ponents, to the next development stage, which is to incorporate the components into the paper. This pilot project shows that it is possible, on a scale that transcends the slow and small-scale experiments in the research lab," says Isak Engquist, associate profes- sor and head of research in the Labo- ratory of Organic Electronics (LOE) at Linköping University. The paper is made from a mixture of cellulose, conducting polymers and charcoal from coconut, which makes the material flexible, durable and electrically conductive. In addition, the production is cheap and environmentally sustainable, which is a great advantage over traditional electronic com- ponents. These often contain scarce metals and toxic substances. Tw o p r o j e c t s a r e b e h i n d t h e d i s c o v e r y : 0D+1D+2D=3D, led by Linköping University, and the Digital Cellulose Center, DCC, led by Rise. "It will be interesting to see the new applica- tions that our creative researchers can come up with when they get their hands on this mate- rial. The paper is functional through its complete thickness, which means that it can conduct much more current and store much more energy than thin layers printed onto conventional paper," says Engquist. (Source: Linköping University) Electronic Paper on an Industrial Scale