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DECEMBER 2024 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 37 ket applicability and relevance are clearly pay- ing off. If the technology has more than a niche market, then it will continue to grow." 1 We are all familiar with and use products and services that have long resided on the plateau of productivity. ey have been there so long that we no longer refer to them as advanced— though once they were. We take for granted the ease at which we can order or design around this basic, proven technology. For instance, glass-epoxy materials have been around for more than a half-century. It is still the go-to laminate for more than 80% of the PCB designs in the world. Will it ever be widely displaced? Perhaps, but only aer new materials or processing makes its way through the slope of enlightenment phase and levels out on the plateau of productivity. ere are many on the way, and many with a long way to go. Beyond the Fifth Phase Obsolescence is not a phase that is made clear in the Gartner hype cycle chart for an obvi- ous reason. ere is not much to hype about a product so old it's being discontinued or replaced by new technology. Since I started doing PCB design layout in the 1980s, many advanced technologies have long since slid off the plateau of productiv- ity and are mulching in a landfill somewhere. Some of our old designs are even preserved and featured in PCB design history museums every so oen. We must always be on the watch for better solutions for the products we design. We must balance all the forces of reason in selecting technology in order to design for excellence. If you are an informed, DFM-savvy PCB designer or engineer thinking about imple- menting some advanced technology, consider that our industry "right-sizes" headcount, machinery, production volumes, and even so- ware capability all the time. Rather than quickly reaching for that sparkling, glittery piece of advanced technology to incorporate into your design, it makes sense to consider a "right-tech" approach to product design. DESIGN007 References 1. Gartner hype cycle, Wikipedia.com. 2. Engineering Together to Save Lives—The Open Source Ventilator Project, Altium, youtube.com. Kelly Dack, CIT, CID+, provides DFX-centered PCB design and manufacturing liaison expertise for a dynamic EMS provider in the Pacific Northwest while also serving as an IPC design certifi- cation instructor (CID) for EPTAC. To read past columns, click here.