Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1475604
40 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 Do I see a lot of people thinking that way? No, but as someone pointed out in our email thread, on the average, our typical board is four or six layers, and 0.062" thick. Why can't we make it 0.050"? Why not? We would save material. at's very interesting. e industry needs to change the way we think. Shaughnessy: As Happy was saying, if you start making the board itself thin- ner, you may run up against ultra HDI prob- lems, as well as changing things like imped- ance, too. You'd have pros and cons. Korf: Yes. In a traditional board shop, you're trying to use the entire sheet size that the lami- nator makes, so they don't throw away or have to recycle anything. en you get to the panel, and you try to use everything because you pay for the entire panel whether you receive it or not. at work has been going on for a long time just to help reduce costs related to throw- ing material away. As I like to say, "Minimizing that effect to save money." A lot of it is already recycled anyway. I haven't been in any meetings with design- ers who say, "I'm trying to use fewer materi- als to save the environment." I've really never heard those words. Maybe in the back of their head they're thinking that, but not in the fore- front. Nolan Johnson: It makes an interesting spin. Korf: Yes. It's a good, new way of thinking if you're trying to lead the industry a little bit. It would be great to get people thinking about it more. Johnson: is is yet another place to shave your margins, be more efficient, make more money, and release capacity to the whole industry. Korf: From a cost standpoint? Absolutely, it's true. You must go to the next level of expen- sive technology for the line width and space and/or inter- connects, vias. It could be very true. One time, I was working on a design where the customer had specified just one blind via and one laser via on the whole board. I said, "We can make that a through-hole and save you 20%." He says, "No, I need it." I said, "Okay, it's your money. We'll make it for you." Conservation is an interesting topic. How can we save money by using less material, changing the way we do layers and stackups? Realistically, material conservation isn't something that I've heard come up much at all; it's usually more talk about performance and which technology you should use. Shaughnessy: Technologies like additive, semi- additive, and printed electronics are all exam- ples of ways of getting boards built with fewer materials. ough some would argue that it's not really a PCB at some point, like certain printed electronic circuits. Korf: Obviously, fundamentally, if you go addi- tive and you're not throwing away as much material, it should save you money, assuming all loss is equal. And we might save the planet along the way. Shaughnessy: ank you, this gives us a lot to think about. Korf: Glad I could help. But it's not going to happen overnight. I think designers are going to need to change the way they look at PCB design overall to really design for material con- servation. Johnson: anks, Dana. We appreciate it. Always a pleasure. DESIGN007 Dana Korf