Repairing ancient technology has its silver lining.

Let it be said that the printed circuit industry faces a whole lot of challenges. While some are geopolitical in nature, most are not. The foundational challenge is advancing technology in the most cost-effective and profitable manner to enable continued development of exciting new processes and products. Successfully meeting these basic challenges has long been the hallmark of our industry.

And the number and breadth of those challenges is staggering. A partial list of these include: teaching and developing skills required for a successful career in technology manufacturing that an entire generation of young, energetic people need (but currently lack); developing the ultra-high-density interconnects (UHDI) essential to propel technology to the next level of capability and miniaturization; ensuring that the technology, regardless of end-use, is safe, secure and cannot be hacked, copied or sabotaged by a “bad actor”; and developing environmentally friendly, fully recyclable technologies that do not deplete rare earth minerals. These are but a few of the challenges the global economy – and our industry in particular – must somehow achieve.

Yet what is possibly the leading challenge is neither new nor fancy and is certainly not cutting-edge. It does, however, require significant resources and creativity, and most of the tech world views it as a big pain in the rear. That challenge: to keep old, outdated but critically necessary technology going.

This challenge typically shows up when a customer contacts a company and says something to the effect of, “We have an old circuit board we need to replace. The manufacturer is out of business (or no longer has the data file). Maybe you can help.”

The subject board is usually a two- or four-layer circuit board with 12/12 lines and spaces, and often is almost destroyed by whatever catastrophic failure occurred. The application is typically an old military device, something from an electrical power grid, a transportation device or industrial capital equipment.

If a data file were available, preferably but not necessarily with Gerber data, reproducing the board would be relatively simple. That is never the case, however. The design, prints, files: All are long gone – and often so is the OEM that designed the part.

This unwanted challenge is found not only with bare circuit boards; populated assemblies and box-build devices are also common. It is easy to see why this occurs and will likely continue well into the future. The lifespan of many items is much longer than their designers could have imagined. The B-52 bomber is pushing 70 years old. Ditto for power stations and all the apparatus that control the generation and distribution of electricity, and for large capital equipment in industries such as mining, construction and transportation. While quantities of these technically obsolete devices may be low, their irreplaceability is immense.

The challenge of replacing obsolete parts is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it is a distraction for companies that would rather commit resources to developing new technologies, robbing time from critical talent and resources to resolve yesterday’s problem. On the other hand, it shows that products designed and built decades ago were made so well that they have transcended generations of technology to still do the intended job. Yet one major bonus is often overlooked. Replacing old technology often requires reverse engineering or forensic engineering to replicate the part. All that reverse engineering and forensics is demanding and utilizes new technologies to do it quickly, accurately and reliably.

This last point may be the silver lining for an industry that continually faces the unwanted challenge of obsolete parts. Much of the technology developed to produce smaller, higher-density and more sophisticated devices is later utilized to cost-effectively and reliably reverse-engineer old technology. And almost all the technology developed to quickly and accurately perform forensic and reverse engineering of obsolete parts has been directly used in manufacturing new, higher-technology parts and devices.

When customers ask for assistance in replacing an obsolete, data orphan part, they, in some small way, are challenging industry to develop new technologies that not only assist in replacing those obsolete parts but add to the toolbox that designers and manufacturing engineers use to develop the next generation of products. As industry will likely always contend with obsolescence, at least in some small way it contributes to the future as well.

Peter Bigelow has more than 30 years’ experience as a PCB executive, most recently as president of FTG Circuits Haverhill; peterbigelow@msn.com.

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