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68 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2023 I'm always amazed by human ingenuity. For example, when Frank Walker in the 2015 movie "Tomorrowland" was asked why he made a jet- pack, he responded, "I guess I got tired of wait- ing around for someone else to do it for me." I'm inspired by that kind of drive and deter- mination in life. I suspect it's why most of us entered the engineering field in the first place. But even though we can trace many advances in technology to various personal motivations, ultimately it has been necessity that serves as the mother of invention. Just look at our own Human Ingenuity and the Rigid-flex PCB printed circuit board design and manufactur- ing as an example. Although the development of the printed cir- cuit board is a story rich in historic and scien- tific significance, in general it can be said that the creation of PCB technology was fueled by necessity. e roots of our industry go back a hundred years to when electronic products were hand-built with point-to-point wiring connections. As you can imagine, this manual process was very tedious and time-consuming. However, with the introduction of the circuit board, radio and other electronics, manufacturers were able to simplify and speed up their processes. As this new technology matured, the circuit board printing process—and the materials used for substrates— evolved rapidly, making PCBs ideal for military and other advanced applications. You know the rest of the story. Electronic components evolved by increasing their pin counts and decreasing in size while PCB manu- facturing technologies responded with advancements in multiple board layers and new component mount- ing processes. Today, the modern circuit board bears little resemblance to what was invented 100 years ago, which, if memory serves, were actual boards with holes drilled in them for component wires. But the core pur- Tim's Takeaways Feature Column by Tim Haag, FIRST PAGE SAGE Example of point-to-point wiring connections.