We can make more (money) by making less (product).
Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
Today, we’re all familiar with gorgeous gadgets, and not only those we carry in our pockets, wear on our wrists or help us drive our cars. The factories we work in are dripping with sensors and automation, which is increasingly robotized, bringing a level of dexterity, efficiency, and reprogrammable flexibility that previous generations could only dream of.
We are fortunate to live in this period we now call the fourth industrial revolution, although we should recognize our predecessors have been working toward this for generations. It’s simply human nature. Since the beginning of industrialization, people have been making analyses – of processes, end-products, and how things are done – to achieve some improvement. Often, the goal is to increase productivity and quality but also to ensure safety and reduce environmental impacts. Recently, of course, reducing pollution and energy consumption, while addressing issues like recyclability, has become increasingly important.
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Could optical interconnects and graphene change the view?
Many things, including the electronics industry, have changed beyond recognition over the past 40 years or so. It’s all the more incredible how little the PCB has changed in its makeup since its inception, and thus fitting that PCD&F named its Hall of Fame after the printed circuit inventor, Paul Eisler. His radio, the first commercial product to contain a PCB, is on display at the Science Museum in London. It was made in 1945, containing a simple and straightforward PCB designed to implement point-to-point connections. Things have become more sophisticated, of course, as human nature provides both the push from engineers’ curiosity and the pull of market demands.
The main goal of early PCBs was to replace traditional soldered wire connections. This helped streamline assembly, reduce wiring errors, and increase reliability. The PCB’s arrival also facilitated automation of electronics product assembly. In early PCBs, the role of the substrate was barely considered, except to separate the conductors. Now, the substrate properties are the most important aspect where high signal frequencies are present. In other ways, it’s surprising how little has changed, as the constituent parts remain the same: a composite core, comprising a reinforcement and a resin binder, and copper conductors.
Of course, much has been done to boost and optimize the properties of the entire assembly. With efficient thermal transfer a key demand in high-power circuits, unreinforced materials have come to the fore that remove the effects of glass as a thermal insulator.
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The controversial technology could help cut the carbon footprint of daily living.
We know the pandemic has forced many to work from home (WFH) and as a result driven up demand for products like PCs and home IT equipment. There has also been a large reduction in commuting to and from workplaces, which many have enjoyed and vowed to continue even after lockdowns are lifted.
These changes ought to benefit the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution. We should consider the impact of the extra demands placed on data infrastructures to handle this upsurge in remote working, however. It takes energy to move all that data back and forth, although arguably this would happen whether workers are at the office or at home.
Data center businesses have blossomed during the pandemic, with an uptick in demand for their services. These include work-related services as well as home entertainment. Netflix has reported record consumption, although the rise has flattened recently, perhaps as content has become exhausted.
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Forget enterprise digital transformation. For better or worse, we are digitizing the world, and it’s changing everything. The opportunities to make things better are tremendous; we can save wasted energy and natural resources, democratize access to all kinds of services, improve standards of healthcare, prevent avoidable accidents, and accelerate our transition to renewable energy. By connecting everything, and introducing AI into the mix, we can gain insights we would otherwise never detect. Moreover, we can see the effects of our own behavior and use the analysis to identify ways to improve. Earlier technologies could never have done all this for us.
But there is always an “on the other hand,” and in this case the issues relate mostly to privacy and cybersecurity. We are putting more information about ourselves than ever before into the hands of data scientists. While we can expect better shopping experiences, we are at the same time disclosing insights into ourselves, our activities, and our preferences as individuals. And if we are not giving away information directly, everything we do online (and we are almost permanently online) reinforces the accuracy of any and every inference made by the AIs that constantly watch from the cloud.
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