IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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44 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2026 Only the Willing Survive Having spent many decades in this industry, I've witnessed this pattern repeat itself time and again. Every major technological shift requires design- ers to adapt, learn, and redefine their role. There were several moments in my career when reinven- tion was not a choice but a necessity. One obvi- ous example was the industry-wide transition from through-hole to surface-mount technology, which changed how we design boards, build assemblies, and evaluate quality and reliability. It forced us to think differently about land patterns, soldering pro- cesses, thermal profiles, and manufacturability. Today, we are entering a profound paradigm shift, not simply limited to PCB layout or assem- bly. It is redefining how PCB design fits into the broader electronic system. Traditional boundar- ies that once separated silicon design, package design, and printed circuit board layout are erod- ing. Advanced packaging technologies are push- ing system-level performance beyond what the PCB alone can deliver. As a result, decisions made upstream increasingly dictate what is possible downstream and vice versa. Change is no longer just about learning a new tool or mastering an updated set of design rules; it's about redefining the very boundaries of PCB design. Designers are being asked, implicitly and explicitly, to understand more about what happens before a signal reaches the board and after it leaves the board. The PCB is no longer an isolated artifact; it is a critical part of a tightly integrated system that spans silicon, package, board, and enclosure. Will designers remain largely within traditional boundaries, treating advanced packaging as an external constraint handed down from another team, or will the role of the PCB designer expand, requiring greater awareness of package-level deci- sions, three-dimensional design concepts, and embedded technologies that extend beyond the board as we have historically defined it? These are not academic questions; they strike at the heart of how future hardware teams will operate and the distribution of design responsibility. What This Paradigm Shift Looks Like The strict separation between PCB design, pack- age design, and system architecture is no longer sustainable. Modern electronic systems operate with far less margin than in the past—electrically, thermally, and mechanically. Signal speeds push well into multi-gigahertz ranges, power delivery networks must support extreme current densities, and thermal paths often span from the silicon die through the package, across the PCB, and into the enclosure. Treating the package as a black box and the PCB as a purely downstream activity cre- ates risk rather than efficiency. As a result, successful hardware development is shifting to a co-design mindset. That does not mean that specialization disappears. Expertise in PCB layout, package design, and system archi- tecture will always be necessary. What changes is the expectation that these disciplines operate with shared visibility, common terminology, and an understanding of how decisions propagate across the system. The future belongs to teams and designers who recognize that the board, package, and system are not separate artifacts, but interde- pendent parts of a single design problem. PCB design is becoming less of an individ- ual activity and more of a team sport. Designers are no longer handed a finished schematic and a fixed set of constraints. We expect them to partic- ipate earlier in the process, contributing insights into feasibility, trade-offs, and risk before decisions are locked in. This elevates the role of the PCB designer, but it also demands a broader perspec- tive and a willingness to engage beyond traditional boundaries. The word "collaboration" will define this future. PCB designers will work more closely with package engineers and system architects, often earlier in the design cycle, to help shape decisions rather than react to them. Early engage- ment enables the identification of potential issues, such as routing feasibility, layer-count constraints, power-delivery limits, or thermal bottlenecks, before they become costly redesigns. E L E M E N TA RY M R . WAT S O N " Today, we are entering a profound paradigm shift..."