Jiva Material’s Soluboard: The Water Soluble Circuit Board

What if your circuit board didn’t have to outlive the planet?

At Computex 2025, ipXchange caught up with Jiva Materials — creators of a revolutionary biodegradable PCB substrate that doesn’t just aim to replace FR4… it washes it away entirely. Literally. At end-of-life, this substrate can dissolve in warm water instead of clogging up landfill or requiring expensive e-waste processing.

What is Soluboard constructed from?

But before you assume it’s a gimmick, here’s the engineering truth: this material is made from natural fibers like jute and flax, bonded with a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer, and flame-retardant to the same level as FR4. This biodegradable PCB substrate is not a prototype — it’s already functional in two-layer plated through-hole designs and processes through existing PCB fabs.

That’s right: no need for new infrastructure, no need to compromise on performance. This is a drop-in solution. The goal from day one was clear — to build a biodegradable PCB substrate that acts as a seamless replacement for fiberglass substrates (like FR4) across most fabrication workflows.

Engineering considerations

Now, let’s talk real-world engineering. Jiva uses low-temperature solder (around 170 °C) to accommodate the substrate’s thermal behaviour. But this change brings a surprising upside: up to 40% reduction in carbon emissions during the assembly process.

As of now, Jiva supports standard finishes and is actively developing thinner materials to support multilayer stack-ups. Dielectric properties are also improving, with current materials already showing strong compatibility with RF applications like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. For many consumer and IoT devices, this biodegradable PCB substrate is already within spec — and only getting better.

So, why isn’t it everywhere yet? Price. But not by much. At current production volumes, it’s only about 10–15% more expensive than FR4.

2035?

This isn’t a “maybe one day” solution. It’s already on the table. If your next design doesn’t require exotic stack-ups or aggressive thermal margins, you might want to consider a biodegradable PCB substrate. It could be the easiest sustainability win you ever spec into a product.

What would YOU build on Soluboard?

Source: ipXchange