Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1392944
14 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2021 day, but people in this business are conserva- tive. ey just do not like change. We're talking about overall thickness; forget multilayer cir- cuits for a minute. Let's just think about a dou- ble-sided rigid circuit. Why 1.6? Why not 1.2? Why not 1.4? You could take one or two piec- es of 7628 fabric out, and the board would still be rigid enough to support the components. Why not? Johnson: Can we list out what some of those adjustments could be? ere is a list of things that can be done to change how you approach the material selection to improve this. What can the designer do to help reduce the use of resources and spread the copper, so to speak? Goodwin: To be honest, thinner coppers, thin- ner layers, the thinner overall thickness of a printed circuit board. It's so obvious, but I'm a materials guy. I'm not an electronics guy. I can't tell you how easy it is for some of these things to be done. I'm sure some things can't be done, but I'm pretty sure there's a number of things that can be done to conserve resourc- es. e one I would be fundamentally worried about for the next five years or more is copper. I think copper is going to be a real problem. Barry Matties: What's your worry behind that, Mark? Goodwin: Everybody wants copper. e whole world is trying to take carbon out of its infra- structure. You need copper for electric vehi- cles. You need copper for the high-layer count infrastructure boards for 5G. en you've got all the internet-of-things devices that will be developed to go on that 5G that are going to need copper. People want to store energy from the sun when the clouds come along, or they want to store energy when the wind turbine stops turning, and for this we need copper for batteries. e demand for copper is every- where; it is well-published. For example, Gold- man Sachs is saying "Copper is the new oil," and they called a bull market in copper at the end of 2020 for the next five to 10 years. We're seeing a little bit of fluctuation at the moment. at's where people are taking some profit in speculation, but the run on copper is not over, and it's going to be a huge problem in my opin- ion. Matties: Are you seeing an increase in mining for copper? Goodwin: It's starting, but that's copper, and then the other problem in this industry is we've got to have plated copper, electrodeposited copper foil, that's also required. e demand for batteries is far higher than the demand in our business, the lead time for building these plants to produce copper is very long, and the demand is increasing far faster than the manu- facturing capacity to fulfill that demand. I think the pressure on copper is going to be there be- tween now and when I finish in this business. Matties: How much increase in pricing do you expect over the coming year? Goodwin: You've seen what the LME has done. e LME broke the 2011 high, and I've seen numbers where Goldman Sachs and these guys who know better than me say they think raw copper can go at least 50% higher than it is to- day. So that's huge, but then you've got con- version costs of copper as well. And if it's eas- ier to produce battery foils and thinner foils The one I would be fundamentally worried about for the next five years or more is copper. I think copper is going to be a real problem.