The Economics of Embedded Passives

In the past, engineers involved in the design of electronic systems did not concern themselves with the cost effectiveness of their design decisions; that was someone else’s job. Today the world is different. Every engineer in the design process for an electronic product is also tasked with understanding the economic tradeoffs associated with their decisions. Nowhere is the need for economic analysis more critical than when emerging technologies, materials, and processes are involved, for it is the decisions of if, when and where to insert new technologies that often separates the winners from the losers in high-tech products.