Circuit Board Design: Then vs. Now

When textbooks or documentaries portray the first working computers, they generally feature black and white photographs of room-sized devices that required loads of electricity and cost a fortune. These computers were only used for government or business purposes. The thought of a “personal computer” was ludicrous.

Computers Have Been Around Longer Than People Realize

The thing is electronic components had been around for quite some time. From Thomas Edison’s earliest labs and Nikola Tesla’s first tests, the train was set in motion for most of the modern technology people see today. In 1925, a man named Charles Ducas filed a patent for a device that featured an electrical path laid directly onto an insulated host surface. This was, essentially, the first circuit board design.

At the same time Ducas was tinkering, the inner workings of radios in Europe and the United States were being built on thin pieces of wood or Masonite. Point-to-point hand wiring made the devices crowded. However, the concept of the circuit was being put to use in professional and homemade settings.

In the 1940s, an Austrian by the name of Paul Eisler came up with the idea to involve an offset printer to directly lay conductive ink onto a board. Eisler created a small, handheld radio with his rudimentary circuit board. British armed forces refused Eisler’s pitch, but the United States bought into it immediately.

It wasn’t until shortly after WWII that PCBs really started to resemble anything on today’s market. During this time, drilled through-holes were introduced, allowing more precise and secure placement of components. Resins and durable materials like zinc and copper became available. Acid-resistant ink was used to print directly on the new materials. These are the advances that really allowed those first giant computing machines to be built.

In the 1970s, PCBs began to shrink in size as soldering techniques and methods were able to work at much more detailed levels. Finally, in the early 1990s, multi-layered boards came to market. These PC boards offered surface-mountable parts and components. Plus, developers could fit more connections to a multi-layered board. This allowed the overall size of printed circuit boards to start their ultimate miniaturization that people still see today in smartphones, paper-thin laptops and tablets, diminutive personal computers, capacitive touch screen in kitchen appliances, infotainment packages jammed into the small space of a sedan dashboard, and so on.

Computers Are Still Changing for the Better

Circuit board design is still not perfect. Some of the difficulties still facing developers and designers today include overheating, data transfer speeds, how to truly implement auto-routing, and creating PCBs able to withstand harsh environments or movements.

Perhaps the most powerful tool in the history and evolution of PCBs has been human innovation. The discovery of new materials and parts will happen. Someone will find a way to produce a self-sustaining computer. Someone else will find a way to shrink the PC down until it can fit anywhere or on anything. Eventually, PCBs might even be able to be implanted into humans to assist with degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, or even to manage pain. That’s a far cry from floor-to-ceiling sized hard drives or wooden transistor radios.