Printed Circuit Boards | Circuit Board

Printed circuit boards don’t generally conjure thoughts regarding the foundational hardware of our technological existence. What is a circuit board? Once upon a time, computer microchips were anything but micro. Wires entangled all around, computers resembled an electrical jungle.

Printed circuit boards hit the scene and changed the game. Taking away the physical wires, copper tracks were printed into circuit boards, building conductive tracks that connected two points. Removing wires and using these tracks saved space and made conductive speed exponentially faster. Now they’re in everything.

Here we are now, tangled in printed circuit boards that are supporting our technologically dependent existences. How?

Whatever you’re reading this from

You’re here reading this and you’re not doing it from a newspaper. Computers, tablets, mobile phones, and anything able to connect to the internet are able to do so from the hardware under the shiny shell we so desire to have. It’s always fun to realize that when people stand in line to pay more than $1,000 for the newest iPhone release, they’re paying for a bunch of printed circuit boards in a pretty shell.

Television

One of the other electronic devices being utilized more often than not, even the older generations of televisions had printed circuit boards inside of them. Now, as televisions are becoming smarter and an increasingly accessible device in the Internet of Things, their complexity is burgeoning. We know you can connect the aforementioned devices to your TV. Your flawless 4K picture streamed from a tablet isn’t magic, it’s printed circuit boards and company.

Microwaves

We like tossing this one into the mix because, at this point, you get that printed circuit boards are synonymous with technology. When people think of technology, it’s usually computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc. It’s not the convenient thing you use to heat up your leftovers, tell time, thaw frozen food, and be an all-around kitchen hero. Credit needs to be given where it’s due and, in the name of food, the microwave is an essential technological part of your life-long culinary team.

This is the smallest list of devices that wouldn’t exist without printed circuit board technologies. What’s even cooler is that as technology develops over time, we could see things that blow our minds as much as the iPhone blew our grandparents’.

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