Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1515637
72 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2024 With the seemingly endless ways that elec- tronic products are worming their way into our lives, what was once "nice to own" is increas- ingly considered indispensable. e capa- bilities of these products have been driven by relentless improvements at every level of the manufacturing chain, from individual transis- tors (which are approaching Angstrom levels) to systems the size of buildings supporting Bit- coin mining and increasingly distributed AI products. Along that chain of electronically intercon- nected products, the term "embedded design" is used at several points. Among high-level product developers, embedded design com- Embedded Design: A Term With Multiple Meanings monly refers to a process of designing and integrating end-product-specific computer systems into next-level systems to perform a chosen set of functions within the larger sys- tem, oen with hardware and soware also integrated, where the end products cover a wide spectrum of applications, everything from consumer electronics to automobiles, medical devices, military/aerospace products, and beyond. A Little Background Of greater interest here is the concept of the integral integration or embedment of elec- tronic components (or electrical/electronic Flexible Thinking Feature Column by Joe Fjelstad, VERDANT ELECTRONICS