Although it's unfortunate, we live in a very wasteful society. If something stops working, very few people take the time to fix it - the item is simply discarded and replaced. In the world of electronics manufacturing, however, this isn't always a possibility. After spending a great deal of time in the engineering design services phase and spending the money to manufacture a prototype or product, simply "junking" a malfunctioning device could result in the loss of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars - and that doesn't include the amount of money lost on the potential sales of the product, had it been successful.