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20 The PCB Magazine • July 2014 these advanced mobile communication tools. In addition, smartphones become even smarter and more electronic functions were essential to meet the growing consumer hunger for new features. Video phoning, video games and tele- vision became standard requirements, besides making phone calls and sending e-mail, SMS and MMS messages. Today, smartphones without keyboards ful- fill the function of communication tool, televi- sion, video player and videophone as well as a radio and music centre and, in some cases, they even replace computers. When manufacturing such electronic devic- es, intelligent component packaging is the so- lution. Semiconductor fabricators can integrate these functions into a semiconductor package or even design it direct onto silicon. For the mo- bile phone, where the quantities are in the tens of millions, the required investment for these electronic devices can be easily justified. In the field of automotive applications, where quan- tities are smaller (< 10 million) the design on silicon may not be the solution. Here, the fixed costs of designing a customized chip, including the interfaces and the related software, are very high in relation to the quantities needed. How- ever, when system-in-package and system-in- PCBs are more widely designed and accepted, this situation is more cost-effective and this will change how car electronics are designed and manufactured in future. New opportunities for interfaces between devices may apply in near field communication (NFC) protocols, may re- DEvICE EMBEDDING IN PCBS: EvOLUTION OR REvOLUTION? continues Figure 3: traditional flex vs. 3d hdi integrated rigid-flex breakout V 1.1 [5] . Figure 4: Smartphone technology evolution. no keypad, no flip screen. three keys, but a high definition touch screen that offers many more benefits compared to a conventional keyboard [6] .