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58 The PCB Magazine • June 2017 The cost wasn't the main thing; the main thing was you had to terminate every lead. The other thing we did was, when some CAD designer ran out of room, the only way they're going to get more parts or more leads was to add layers, and adding layers was the fastest way to increase cost. Using embedded layers was an alternative to adding layers so you wouldn't have to route back to the surface or go down the multiple layers to escape the ar- ray. I think, Happy, you did some of this work when you talked about resistor density limits and things like that and crossing that density level, how many IOs per square centimeter or whatever. On one hand was conventional sur- face mount and the other was embedded. We did that too; we developed those same kinds of models. The other thing that took place was min- iaturization, for example in cellphones. These costs that you're talking about are basically area pricing. As the resistors got smaller and smaller, the amount of material that's in a cellphone is minuscule. They're so very small that a ten-inch by ten-inch material would be enough for thou- sands of cellphones. Miniaturization also made this economically feasible. Believe me, the cell- phone manufacturers have very tight produc- tion cost schedules. The combination of min- iaturization and the use of resistive layers is to avoid adding more layers or to go to more com- plex-type printed circuit, like HDI. If you could postpone going to HDI by embedding a layer, then there is a savings. It's not a surface mount versus resistor layer model. You're looking at the total system cost of reducing that and cost tradeoff. In terms of design tools and fabrication, one of the things we do is provide excellent tech support all over the world. We have very good distribution representation in Asia. We can go in and provide all kinds of tech support both in the initial phase in the design, working with the CAD guys and the CAM guys. There are all kinds of unique applications. There are resistors you wouldn't recognize as resistors. Also, my job here is to `give away the process technology and to provide help with processing. Fortunate- ly, most of that is standard and they don't real- ly need a lot of new equipment. If they can do controlled impedance they can make resistors. But that's an area we're doing really well on—maybe I'm biased, of course. But we do provide design support and tech support, and A DEEP LOOK INTO EMBEDDED TECHNOLOGY Figure 2: Sample input for embedded passives cost analysis software.