Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1426508
90 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 the industry when vertically integrated manu- facturers built everything "under one roof " and ties between design and manufacturing were much closer and stronger. Today's IC packages and PCB substrates must work flawlessly together to meet require- ments, and designers must become increas- ingly attentive to mechanical concerns along- side the electrical concern. Matters such as CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) and Tg (glass transition temperature) need to be part of their design calculus. So, also, will use of pre- dictive modeling to look for prospective fail- ures in advance and address them before they happen. Such analytical soware is becom- ing more common as electronic products find their way into products which must perform in harsh environments. In summary, the electronics industry at its core is a partnership between semiconductors and printed circuits and the importance of the PCB designers' work cannot be overstated. ey are the "drum majors" of the printed circuit industry in many ways and it is incum- bent upon them to be continuously learning to make certain they keep current on the lat- est developments in PCB technology, to keep pressing the industry forward. I hope to be around for another 50 years to see what has changed. One thing that seems certain is that the lines between semiconductors and printed circuits will continue to blur as their domains seem destined to continue to merge into the future. FLEX007 Joe Fjelstad is founder and CEO of Verdant Electronics and an international author- ity and innovator in the field of electronic interconnection and packaging technologies with more than 185 patents issued or pending. To read past columns or contact Fjelstad, click here. Download your free copy of Fjelstad's book Flexible Circuit Technology, 4 th Edition, and watch his in-depth workshop series "Flexible Circuit Technology." price. If high-performance carbon materials were plentiful enough to compete with metals in terms of price, market forces would take over and we could eliminate metals that today require 12% of our annual global energy budget to mine, process and refine." In the PNAS paper, Pasquali and Mesters say the transition to a world where hydrocarbons are split rather than burned "will generate robust growth in manufacturing jobs, most of which will stay at the local level where oil and gas are already established." "We're in a position similar to solar energy a few decades ago: We know we can deliver performance, but man- ufacturing and scale have to improve to drive costs down," Pasquali said. "Like solar, this is not a transitional technology: It's a sustainable future industry. We must get there faster than solar did." (Source: Rice University) In an opinion paper published in the Proceed- ings of the National Academy of Sciences, Matteo Pasquali, a professor of chemical and biomecular engineering, and Carl Mesters, retired chief scien- tist for chemistry and catalysis at Shell, discuss how to transition from burning hydrocarbons to splitting them into hydrogen and solid carbon. Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel that produces no carbon dioxide, and the solid carbon could become a cheap and plentiful source of high-performance materials used by a wide range of industries. Pasquali said the technology already exists to both split hydrocarbons and make solid carbon materials for broad industry adoption. "The know-how is there," Pasquali said. "We can make nanotube fibers and composites that outperform met- als, but we need to scale manufac- turing processes efficiently so these materials can compete with metals on Using Carbon Key to Decarbonizing Economy