When it comes to buying boards, is it more efficient to go direct or through a broker?

Everything is changing in high-performance substrates, from materials technology to engineering priorities.

Materials science is a quiet contributor to high-performance electronics, playing a huge yet mostly unseen role, enabling everything from smartphones and automotive systems to 5G radio access, communication infrastructures and high-performance computing systems. That conventional-looking circuit board, which the user may never see or think about, is anything but ordinary underneath. While ICs sit serenely on the surface, the processes going on inside couldn’t happen without the engineering that created the substrate beneath. Demand for improvement is ever-present, and many avenues may be explored in search of a solution.