Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/834021
60 The PCB Magazine • June 2017 we provide it all over the world. Now is the cost of the materials, the laminate, going to go up? You bet it is. But the tradeoff in how the design changes at the end of the line, and I agree that's very difficult to model, but an old break-even chart with how many resistors per square inch, I don't consider that relevant anymore. We're in an area now where we're being used because there's no other way to do it. That's what is driving this whole thing and there are tradeoffs and costs. Matties: So the physical parameters have forced them into this model, not the cost. Brandler: Partly physical parameters and partly really high-speed, eliminating parasitics. There are no inductive reactants like you have with a surface mount device. The technology is what's driving this and the cost is sort of following it. Nobody wants to add costs, I agree. There's no designer in the world that wants to come up with a new design that adds cost to the sub- strate; that's the worst place to add cost. But the reality is, when they see the alternatives that they have to do to accomplish the design, then it looks more attractive. That's basically the is- sue, but I think mostly that's a 20-year old is- sue. Now we're well beyond the realm of surface mount versus resistor tradeoff. Holden: I agree with all that. Miniaturizations and various kinds of modules that become BGAs that get attached is an area, but that is not a pre- dominantly North American circuit area. That's limited to those things that demand that min- iaturization, like mobile phones but most of the industry doesn't demand that much miniatur- ization. And I haven't really seen an article that I can recall that talks about the performance and the miniaturization aspects of embedded components. There just haven't been any arti- cles that talk about this. Brandler: We can send you some. We're going to these trade shows and exhibitions and pub- lishing these things all the time. But the one thing I also want to say is on the whole issue of North American versus Far East. The North American market for us is primarily aerospace defense. Our competitors are in the same mar- ket too, it's not just us, and what is driving that are things like power dividers and other similar A DEEP LOOK INTO EMBEDDED TECHNOLOGY Figure 3: Showing the effects of embedding resistors on the board price for a 5.1 x 15.24 cm board with 500 discrete resistors of type 1 and 400 discrete resistors of type 2. The optimal board price is realized at ~52% of embedded resistors.