Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Elementary Mr. Watson: Where the PCB Ends and Advanced Packaging Begins

Change sits at the center of almost everything in PCB design. From the earliest days of printed circuits to today’s highly integrated electronic systems, stability does not define this discipline; evolution does. Materials change, component geometries shrink, signal speeds increase, and manufacturing processes advance. With each shift, we reshape the role of the PCB designer, sometimes quietly, and other times in a way that feels like a freight train driving through your living room.

PCB design is unique because changes rarely occur in isolation. A new component package doesn’t -just alter a footprint; it affects routing strategies, layer usage, escape planning, and assembly considerations. Higher data rates don’t just demand faster signals; they require tighter control of impedance, loss, and reference structures. Increased power density introduces cascading thermal and reliability challenges that extend well beyond simple copper width calculations. Each advancement ripples across the entire design process, forcing designers to revisit assumptions and practices that may have held for years. Adapting is no longer optional for a designer who wants to remain relevant and practical.

Only the Willing Survive
Having spent many decades in this industry, I’ve witnessed this pattern repeat itself time and again. Every major technological shift requires designers to adapt, learn, and redefine their role. There were several moments in my career when reinvention was not a choice but a necessity. One obvious example was the industry-wide transition from through-hole to surface-mount technology, which changed how we design boards, build assemblies, and evaluate quality and reliability. It forced us to think differently about land patterns, soldering processes, thermal profiles, and manufacturability.

Today, we are entering a profound paradigm shift, not simply limited to PCB layout or assembly. It is redefining how PCB design fits into the broader electronic system. Traditional boundaries that once separated silicon design, package design, and printed circuit board layout are eroding. Advanced packaging technologies are pushing system-level performance beyond what the PCB alone can deliver. As a result, decisions made upstream increasingly dictate what is possible downstream and vice versa.

Change is no longer just about learning a new tool or mastering an updated set of design rules; it’s about redefining the very boundaries of PCB design. Designers are being asked, implicitly and explicitly, to understand more about what happens before a signal reaches the board and after it leaves the board. The PCB is no longer an isolated artifact; it is a critical part of a tightly integrated system that spans silicon, package, board, and enclosure.

Will designers remain largely within traditional boundaries, treating advanced packaging as an external constraint handed down from another team, or will the role of the PCB designer expand, requiring greater awareness of package-level decisions, three-dimensional design concepts, and embedded technologies that extend beyond the board as we have historically defined it? These are not academic questions; they strike at the heart of how future hardware teams will operate and the distribution of design responsibility.

What This Paradigm Shift Looks Like
The strict separation between PCB design, package design, and system architecture is no longer sustainable. Modern electronic systems operate with far less margin than in the past—electrically, thermally, and mechanically. Signal speeds push well into multi-gigahertz ranges, power delivery networks must support extreme current densities, and thermal paths often span from the silicon die through the package, across the PCB, and into the enclosure. Treating the package as a black box and the PCB as a purely downstream activity creates risk rather than efficiency.

As a result, successful hardware development is shifting to a co-design mindset. That does not mean that specialization disappears. Expertise in PCB layout, package design, and system architecture will always be necessary. What changes is the expectation that these disciplines operate with shared visibility, common terminology, and an understanding of how decisions propagate across the system. The future belongs to teams and designers who recognize that the board, package, and system are not separate artifacts, but interdependent parts of a single design problem.

PCB design is becoming less of an individual activity and more of a team sport. Designers are no longer handed a finished schematic and a fixed set of constraints. We expect them to participate earlier in the process, contributing insights into feasibility, trade-offs, and risk before decisions are locked in. This elevates the role of the PCB designer, but it also demands a broader perspective and a willingness to engage beyond traditional boundaries. The word “collaboration” will define this future. PCB designers will work more closely with package engineers and system architects, often earlier in the design cycle, to help shape decisions rather than react to them. Early engagement enables the identification of potential issues, such as routing feasibility, layer-count constraints, power-delivery limits, or thermal bottlenecks, before they become costly redesigns.

Collaboration with fabrication and assembly teams will be critical. As designs push tighter tolerances and higher densities, we must validate assumptions up front about what we can build, assemble, and inspect. PCB designers will need a clear understanding of manufacturing capabilities, material limitations, and process variation. They will also need to communicate design intent that translates clearly into fabrication drawings, assembly documentation, and inspection criteria.

This increased level of collaboration places a premium on communication. Designers must be able to explain not just what the design looks like, but why they made certain decisions, where constraints are rigid, and where flexibility exists. Strong technical collaboration becomes as important as proficiency in layout. This mechanism ensures all disciplines align toward a common system-level outcome. As a result, PCB design will become less siloed and more integrated into the overall hardware development process.

What Your Future Holds
Designers who adapt to this broader role by embracing systems thinking, earlier engagement, and deeper collaboration will gain influence and relevance; those who do not risk finding that critical decisions are increasingly made without their input. In an industry defined by change, the ability to grow has always been the defining skill in PCB design. That truth has never been more relevant than it is today.

Today, the difference is the scale and speed at which it is occurring, and the way it is reshaping where the PCB designer fits within the larger system. Those who embrace this shift by expanding their perspective, strengthening collaboration, and engaging earlier in the design process will find their roles elevated. As the boundaries continue to blur, the designers who adapt will help define what PCB design becomes next.

This column originally appeared in the January 2026 issue of I-Connect007 Magazine.