Trends

This year's Evertiq Expo was not so much exceptional in that it was held on the day of the Czech national holiday at the national stadium in Warsaw, Poland, or that it featured an exceptionally diverse range of current trends in electronics. But above all, it was the fact that it actually took place. Live people met here. After more than two years when all conferences and trade fairs tried to move online, there were indeed hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of visitors. Under one roof, in one place, engaged in constant debate. The main topics will not come as much of a surprise to PCB connoisseurs. Much was made of the rapid development of 5G networks, which bring further fundamental acceleration and the need for further miniaturisation of boards. Related to this are further shifts in the development of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and the security of cloud systems architecture. However, a sort of leitmotif of this year's event is logically the coronavirus crisis and the associated disruption of traditional supplier relationships across continents.

When American inventor Charles Ducas patented a wooden board on which he assembled a circuit made of conductive materials in 1925, he certainly could not have imagined the boom the idea would one day enjoy. If it weren't for covide, the total annual sales of the printed circuit board (PCB) market would realistically be expected to hit the $100 billion milestone a century later - in 2025.

Without torture, we ourselves are sometimes tired of how "green" issues and sustainability can nowadays find their way into all fields of human activity. We are also amazed at how companies that for years have been proven to be major polluters of the air or the landscape around us suddenly rush to add paragraphs to their strategic documents with environmental themes and chant sustainability. Perhaps that is why we thought we would take a comprehensive look at the broader context, which also affects PCB manufacturing, and shed some light on four key areas where this connection can make sense.

Andreas Kader has been through a lot with printed circuit boards. Consider for yourself. Project manager at AT&S, sales manager at Robust Electronics, head of sales and member of the managing board at Fuchsberger PCB & Electronics. All respected giants, established Austrian brands with a worldwide presence. And more than fifteen years of experience in how to sell, and then above all deliver, the perfect PCB to clients.

They say the world is a global village in which everything is related to everything. I’ll give you a common example. It is not customary for the main news channels to address the area of chip or PCB production. But there's no other way: each of us who has been used to ordering anything online in recent years and receiving everything on time suddenly has to deal with delays. Sometimes it is a few days, sometimes - months. As befits the global village, there are many reasons for it. We also talked about it with Radim Vítek and Ondřej Horký from Gatema PCB. One of the few manufacturers of printed circuit boards, which, thanks to its focus, has not yet had to fundamentally change delivery dates.