Staying ahead of technology advances

By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief

There is one thing that we can be certain of in the electronic components industry: It’s always evolving, which means that designers need to keep up with the technology changes, incremental or not. The October issue is a perfect reflection of what’s happening in the industry. Ranging from new concerns around network security driven by cloud, IoT, and Industry 4.0 trends to advances being made to crystals and oscillators, timing devices that have been around for decades. There isn’t one component on the PCB that designers shouldn’t consider a risk to their new designs, requiring them to stay on top of technology roadmaps.

As the world becomes more connected, designers across industries — consumer, commercial, industrial, medical, and just about any end market — need to pay attention to network security at both the product and component level, and it requires both hardware and software solutions. This trickles down to wireless charging, where designers need the ability to add functionality to their products for security and verification.

At the component level, let’s agree that some of the biggest advances are happening in the processor world. Without a doubt, that’s where a big chunk of the bill of materials goes. So it makes sense to pay close attention to even the minutest advances.

But what about interconnects, passives, and electromechanical (IP&E) components? Not so much; they are often considered last in a design and a low-risk concern. If this current component shortage has taught us anything, a production line can go down from a lowly ceramic capacitor that costs less than a penny. But sometimes, understandably, during cycles of short supply, it can be difficult to stay ahead of the game when you’re scrambling for supply and looking for design alternatives.

Let’s look at crystals and oscillators as an example. These devices have been around for decades, but advances are still being made to optimize these timing solutions for the latest technologies, including high-speed 5G and emerging 112G interfaces. And miniaturization keeps occurring despite many clocking functions being integrated into single-chip devices.

So pay attention to new product line expansions for components that you may consider low-risk parts such as capacitors, connectors, switches, relays, and even some power products. Even when only incremental improvements are made, you may find some interesting improvements that could save board space, further optimize your system’s power consumption, shrink the size of your product, and even reduce your costs, which is fast becoming a bigger concern for designers.

Let’s face it: You’re still going to need these IP&E parts for your next cloud-enabled IoT, AI, or 5G design. And these component manufacturers continue to keep up with the next big thing.