Podcasts about board design

Episode 128I spoke with Sergiy Nesterenko about:* Developing an automated system for designing PCBs* Difficulties in human and automated PCB design* Building a startup at the intersection of different areas of expertiseBy the way — I hit 40 ratings on Apple Podcasts (and am at 66 on Spotify). It'd mean a lot (really, a lot) if you'd consider leaving a rating or a review. I read everything, and it's very heartening and helpful to hear what you think. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!Sergiy is founder and CEO of Quilter. Sergiy spent 5 years at SpaceX developing radiation-hardened avionics for SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy's second stage rockets, before discovering a big problem: designing printed circuit boards for all the electronics in these rockets was tedious, manual and error prone. So in 2019, he founded Quilter to build the next generation of AI-powered tooling for electrical engineers.I spend a lot of time on this podcast—if you like my work, you can support me on Patreon :)Reach me at editor@thegradient.pub for feedback, ideas, guest suggestions. Subscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (00:45) Quilter origins and difficulties in designing PCBs* (04:12) PCBs and schematic implementations* (06:40) Iteration cycles and simulations* (08:35) Octilinear traces and first-principles design for PCBs* (12:38) The design space of PCBs* (15:27) Benchmarks for PCB design* (20:05) RL and PCB design* (22:48) PCB details, track widths* (25:09) Board functionality and aesthetics* (27:53) PCB designers and automation* (30:24) Quilter as a compiler* (33:56) Gluing social worlds and bringing together expertise* (36:00) Process knowledge vs. first-principles thinking* (42:05) Example boards* (44:45) Auto-routers for PCBs* (48:43) Difficulties for scaling to larger boards* (50:42) Customers and skepticism* (53:42) On experiencing negative feedback* (56:42) Maintaining stamina while building Quilter* (1:00:00) Endgame for Quilter and future directions* (1:03:24) OutroLinks:* Quilter homepage* Other pages/features mentioned:* Thin-to-thick traces* Octilinear trace routing* Comment from Tom Fleet Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode from the Autopilot podcast, Sergiy Nesterenko, founder of Quilter (backed by Benchmark), discusses designing PCB circuitboards end-to-end using reinforcement learning. "Autopilot" host Will Summerlin and Nesterenko cover how current PCB boards are designed and how Quilter's tech stack enables faster board design, what better circuit boards enable in the future, their GTM and where they are seeing most market pull right now, and much more. Subscribe to Autopilot: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6YQZkKHN7EP2yWedAvSxBC?si=18377c69a2804333&nd=1&dlsi=18fee5e95b284d02 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/autopilot-with-will-summerlin/id1738163836 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AutopilotwithWillSummerlin Check out Nathan's new chatbot on www.cognitiverevolution.ai SPONSORS: The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://bit.ly/BraveTCR Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/ Plumb is a no-code AI app builder designed for product teams who care about quality and speed. What is taking you weeks to hand-code today can be done confidently in hours. Check out https://bit.ly/PlumbTCR for early access. Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. LINKS: Quilter: https://www.quilter.ai/ Autopilot Ventures: https://www.apv.vc/ X/SOCIAL: @labenz (Nathan) @WSummerlinAI (Will) @sergiynest (Sergiy) @quilterai (Quilter) TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Intro & Sergiy's Background (04:31) What Sergiy learned from SpaceX (05:53) Founding thesis of Quilter and Quilter's journey (06:57) Where would one find circuit boards? (08:11) What is the process of designing a circuit board? (09:39) Design process today with Quilter (14:34) Sponsor: Omneky (16:01) Quilter's thesis and designing more complex circuits (18:25) How much are humans currently paid for board design (19:41) Labor dynamics in board design (20:30) Do most companies have board designers in-house? (21:14) Incentive structure (22:44) What does a high-performance circuit board look like vs low-performance? (26:37) Quilter's technology stack (29:15) Sponsor: Plumb | Squad (31:15) How Quilter can grow with scale? (33:50) Where is circuit manufacturing happening (37:17) What other parts of knowledge work can be solved with reinforcement learning (41:03) GTM and who Quilter is selling to (42:48) Pricing (44:04) Where Quilter is seeing the most market pull right now (45:21) What makes Quilter an exciting company to work at or invest (47:14) The effects of closed research in private companies for the industry (49:25) Open source vs closed source (51:14) What Sergiy would advise to himself in his early founder (53:59) What drew Sergiy to working with Benchmark (56:19) Wrap

In this episode, Will Summerlin interviews Sergiy Nesterenko, founder of Quilter (backed by Benchmark), a company that designs PCB circuitboards end-to-end using reinforcement learning. They discuss how current PCB boards are designed and how Quilter's tech stack enables faster board design, what better circuit boards enable in the future, their GTM and where they are seeing most market pull right now, and much more.  LINKS: Quilter: https://www.quilter.ai/ Autopilot Ventures: https://www.apv.vc/ X/SOCIAL: @WSummerlinAI (Will) @sergiynest (Sergiy) @quitlerai (Quilter) TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Sergiy's Background (00:51) What Sergiy learned from SpaceX (02:14) Founding thesis of Quilter and Quilter's journey (03:18) Where would one find circuit boards? (04:31) What is the process of designing a circuit board? (06:00) Design process today with Quilter (12:34) Quilter's thesis and designing more complex circuits (13:19) How much are humans currently paid for board design (14:34) Labour dynamics in board design (15:23) Do most companies have board designers in house? (16:07) Incentive structure (17:37) What does a high performance circuit board look like vs low performance? (21:30) Quilter's technology stack (23:59) How Quilter can grow with scale? (26:45) Where is circuit manufacturing happening (32:40) What other parts of knowledge work can be solved with reinforcement learning (33:58) GTM and who Quilter is selling to (35:43) Pricing (36:59) Where Quilter is seeing the most market pull right now (38:16) What makes Quilter an exciting company to work at or invest (40:33) The effects of closed research in private companies for the industry (40:33) Open source vs closed source (44:26) What Sergiy would advise to himself in his early founder (46:54) What drew Sergiy to working with Benchmark (48:27) Wrap -- Recommended Podcast: Company Breakdowns Each episode of Company Breakdowns dives into S-1s and series B-and-beyond companies, interviewing founders and investors to break down the companies. First episode is on Rubrik - which just IPO'd. Coming up this season: Databricks, Reddit + more, Spotify Apple

This episode is a little different from our usual episodes. First of all, it's a dual-branded episode. It's both a Reliability Matters Podcast and an Ecosystem podcast episode. The Ecosystem podcast host Judy Warner will join me for an unusual topic, at least for The Reliability Matters Podcast. Most of my audience are assemblers of circuit assemblies. Our world begins with a bare board. I reminded of the biblical passage “the Wiseman built his house upon the rock”. Circuit boards are the foundation from which we build our products upon. There's so much that goes into the design and fabrication of a bare circuit board. Who designs these boards, what criteria were they given, what materials did they choose, where are they made, how much do they cost, and, perhaps most importantly in our world, how easy are they to assemble?To help answer these and so many other questions, Judy and I have assembled an expert panel of board designers.Our expert panel consists of Gerry Partida, Vice President of Technology at Summit Interconnect and Julie Ellis, Field applications engineering manager for TTM Technologies.Contact Information:Judy WarnerEEcosystem Podcastjudy.warner@impacttechmarketing.comJulie EllisTTM Technologiesjulie.ellis@ttm.comGerry PartidaSummit Interconnect gerry.partida@summitinterconnect.com

Neglecting EMC compliance during PCB design might cause days of distress during re-design, delaying other important product development milestones. However, by incorporating some straightforward checks and best practices, PCBs have a greater chance of meeting expensive EMC compliance standards in a minimum number of tests. I'm your host, Steph Chavez, and here to join me is John Kraemer, an electromagnetic compatibility engineer with extensive experience. Today we will cover various aspects of EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility), SI (Signal Integrity), and PI (Power Integrity) in PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design, including their importance, design tools, and processes recommended for success. In this episode, you will learn about employing appropriate tools and processes to ensure reliable products that meet electromagnetic compatibility standards. You will also hear about PCB design tools including pre-layout and post-layout tools like HyperLynx SI and HyperLynx PI, as well as advanced electromagnetic field solvers when necessary. What You'll Learn in this Episode: EMI, EMC, SI, and PI in PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design. (01:47) PCB design for EMI control and signal integrity. (7:14) Recommended PCB design tools for SI and PI success. (12:15) EMI control and EMC compliance in PCB design. (17:56) Connect with John Kraemer: LinkedIn  Connect with Steph Chavez: LinkedIn

In today's increasingly connected and digital world, PCBs are the unsung heroes that power our devices, from smartphones to spacecraft. Yet, the art and science of designing these crucial components often go unnoticed. That's where this episode comes in. Today, I hope to shine a spotlight on the critical role PCBs play in modern technology and explore the best practices that drive innovation and reliability.In this episode, I hope to unravel the mysteries of PCB design, tackle complex challenges, and unlock the secrets to creating high-performance, efficient, and reliable circuit boards. Whether you're a seasoned PCB designer looking to sharpen your skills, a budding engineer eager to learn the ropes, or simply a tech enthusiast curious about the technology that shapes our lives, this episode has something for everyone.Today, I will be joined by Dr. Zach Peterson. Zach is a well-known researcher and electronics designer. In 2017, he founded Northwest Engineering Solutions as a technology consultancy and has since grown the company into an innovative design and manufacturing house for advanced electronic products.He conducted his Applied Physics Ph.D. research in ZnO random laser theory and stability and his M.Sc. Physics research in chemisorptive sensors for environmental monitoring at Portland State University. He also received his MBA (Leadership & Finance) from Adams State University. His work has been published in over a dozen peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and he has written 2500+ technical articles on PCB design for a number of companies. He is a member of IEEE Photonics Society, IEEE Electronics Packaging Society, American Physical Society, and the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA). He previously served as a voting member on the INCITS Quantum Computing Technical Advisory Committee working on technical standards for quantum electronics, and he currently serves on the IEEE P31-86 Working Group focused on Port Interface Representing Photonic Signals Using SPICE-class Circuit Simulators.If Zack looks familiar, you may recognize him from the Altium On-Track and Altium Academy video series and Podcasts. Zach's Contact Information:Zachariah Petersoncontact@nwengineeringllc.comhttps://www.nwengineeringllc.com/

In today's increasingly connected and digital world, PCBs are the unsung heroes that power our devices, from smartphones to spacecraft. Yet, the art and science of designing these crucial components often go unnoticed. That's where this episode comes in.   Today, we shine a spotlight on the critical role PCBs play in modern technology and explore the best practices that drive innovation and reliability. In this episode, Mike Konrad tries to unravel the mysteries of PCB design, tackle complex challenges, and unlock the secrets to creating high-performance, efficient, and reliable circuit boards. Whether you're a seasoned PCB designer looking to sharpen your skills, a budding engineer eager to learn the ropes, or simply a tech enthusiast curious about the technology that shapes our lives, this episode has something for everyone. He is joined by Dr. Zach Peterson. Zach is a well-known researcher and electronics designer. In 2017, he founded Northwest Engineering Solutions as a technology consultancy and has since grown the company into an innovative design and manufacturing house for advanced electronic products. He conducted his Applied Physics Ph.D. research in ZnO random laser theory and stability and his M.Sc. Physics research in chemisorptive sensors for environmental monitoring at Portland State University. He also received his MBA (Leadership & Finance) from Adams State University. His work has been published in over a dozen peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and he has written 2500+ technical articles on PCB design for a number of companies. He is a member of IEEE Photonics Society, IEEE Electronics Packaging Society, American Physical Society, and the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA). He previously served as a voting member on the INCITS Quantum Computing Technical Advisory Committee working on technical standards for quantum electronics, and he currently serves on the IEEE P31-86 Working Group focused on Port Interface Representing Photonic Signals Using SPICE-class Circuit Simulators.   He will speak on Signal Integrity in Thin PCB Materials and IC Substrates at PCB East in June.

As the benefits of a model-based systems approach become evident through improved design quality, reduced errors, and enhanced collaboration, there are also challenges and roadblocks that need to be considered. I'm your host, Steph Chavez. And here to join me is Chris Young, owner and lead engineer at Young Engineering Services. Today we will discuss the challenges and best practices associated with designing complex systems comprised of multiple interconnected printed circuit boards (PCBs) In this episode, you will learn about the various aspects of multi-board design, including the importance of an integrated systems approach, challenges in communication among different design teams, potential errors and problems arising from individual design silos, and the impact of signal integrity and compatibility issues. What You'll Learn in this Episode: The benefits of building a robust toolchain (5:12) The keys to successful concurrent design (11:23) Two major roadblocks to implementing best practices: cultural resistance and learned helplessness (13:07) Ways to overcome these roadblocks (22:04) The importance of testing artifacts (23:49) Best practices when it comes to multi-board design and ways to make the design process more efficient (26:30) Connect with Chris Young: LinkedIn Connect with Steph Chavez: LinkedIn

את משה ואורן אין צורך כבר להציג, אתם מכירים אותם מהפרק הקודם. זהו החלק השני, אירחנו את זוג המומחים שהסכימו להתראיין רק יחד ולדבר על בורד דיזיין. נשמח לשמוע מכם וליצור שיח על נושא הפרק, על פרקים שכבר היו ועל פרקים עתידיים שעוד יהיו.מוזמנים גם לדבר איתנו בכל נושא אחר :)הערות ותובנות? הצעות לשת"פים? כתבו לנו! podcasthardreset@gmail.comתהנו ותשתפו עם חברות וחברים!

משה ואורן הם שני חברים שהם גם בורד דיזיינרים (אבל לא רק). בהמשך לסדרת הפרקים של תפקידים בתעשיה, אירחנו זוג מומחים (לא בצחוק - כל אחד על מעל 20 שנות ניסיון!) שהסכימו להתראיין רק יחד. נשמח לשמוע מכם וליצור שיח על נושא הפרק, על פרקים שכבר היו ועל פרקים עתידיים שעוד יהיו.מוזמנים גם לדבר איתנו בכל נושא אחר :)הערות ותובנות? הצעות לשת"פים? כתבו לנו! podcasthardreset@gmail.comתהנו ותשתפו עם חברות וחברים!

In this episode of the Barbells To Buddhas podcast, host and fitness & lifestyle coach Ror Alexander goes over 2 topics, designing your long plan vision board, and how to design a much better workout program. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the BARBELLS TO BUDDHAS podcast. Please share it in anyway you know how, and/or toss me a 5 star review on Apple or Spotify podcasts ——— Want help earning your kick ass body and life? Check out my exclusive Barbells To Buddhas: Stronger, Longer, Better Coaching Program by using the link below. Set up your 100% FREE discovery phone call with me personally from anywhere in the world. HELPING YOU LIVE STRONGER, LONGER & BETTER FREE 1-ON-1 DISCOVERY CALL w ROR ALEXANDER www.roralexander.com/freecall STRONGER, LONGER, BETTER COACHING PROGRAM www.roralexander.com/coaching CONNECT WITH ME MY FB COACHING GROUP: www.facebook.com/groups/roralexander My HBD YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/roralexander IG: www.instagram.com/roralexander

Julia Wester stops by to talk about Board Design antipatterns with Nisha, Dan and Prateek. Come find out why your board design might be critical to how work is or is not flowing. Also... Scottish Gin!

Happy to announce we were graced with the presence of Dave Kalama on Episode 3 of The Casey Catch Up. This episode is a little longer as we got caught up in the froth that is DW Foiling. From Worm Holes to Board Design to Hand Paddles nothing was off limits with plenty of nuggets of wisdom handed down from the guru himself. Tune in and enjoy.

Ola Helenius is not your typical shaper. Instead of being covered in dust all day his day job is math professor at the University of Stockholm. When he designs boards he starts with numbers and then translates it into curves, which is the exact opposite of what most designers do. He shows us live how he does it and shares his thoughts on fin setups, current market situation, brands with multiple shapers and so much more. Tune in!

The renowned global trade association known as IPC has put together a network of printed board design engineering affiliates under the name IPC Design. IPC Design’s affiliates are comprised of PCB design engineers across the globe who are working to advance the art and science of printed design engineering. IPC Design’s Patrick Crawford and Teresa Rowe join the OnTrack Podcast  Work from Anywhere. Connect with Anyone. Watch the video, click here.  Show Highlights   What is IPC Design, and what is its primary mission? Increased global presence and participation: How IPC is molding its future. IPC Design’s worldwide buy-in, its fresh new participants, and how the quarantine has affected participation.  Has productivity gone up since quarantine? Lessons in remote working and the importance of taking time for yourself. Between January 2020 and now. What’s in store for the future: IPC’s collaborative content model.  America, Europe, and Asia: IPC’s leadership group and global design committee. IPC Design is looking to fill a leadership role in Asia. What’s in it for you, the designer? Teresa and Patrick count the ways designers will benefit from IPC Design. ”Let’s start up a chapter!”: How individuals, student groups, and companies can get affiliated with IPC Design. Translators of the world, connect! How IPC Design can serve and collaborate with STEM groups all over the globe.       Resources: Teresa Rowe on LinkedInPatrick Crawford on LinkedInIPC WebsiteLink to IPC Design webpageLink to IPC Design enrollment pagePatrick Crawford’s video presentation on IPC DesignRealtime with IPCIPC CEO John Mitchell on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Electronics Supply Chain   Work from Anywhere. Connect with Anyone.      

In this episode Tim and Riki expand on the sandwich logic board design discussed last week and the impact of this on the life of the device for the end consumer and what is more likely to happen to a device with this logic board design under minimal accidental damage. Also up for discussion is Google’s AdWords ban on independent third party repair adverts for ‘phone repair’, issues involving IP infringement, terminology around parts used for repairs and a brief intro on franchise networks.

Was hat Board Design mit Business Agilität zu tun? In der aktuellen Folge sprechen wir darüber, wie ein so mächtiges Werkzeug wie Boards die Zusammenarbeit beeinflussen kann...

Johnny Borbone shapes boards sourced from his background in robotic engineering and Formula 1 stock car racing. The Belmar, NJ shaper dances on the edge of art and science as he applies his expertise in fluid dynamics with love of the long board. We talk about vanguard designs like his reactive flex rail inspired by a Horatio Pagani sports car. Johnny also challenges how the industry rates and understands board performance, responding with his own scientific methods to test and design an optimal glider. He also shares with us the crash at a Slope Side snowboard comp which nearly killed him.

Andrew Zinicola started his glassing career as sculpture student working with resin at Pratt Institute. He transitioned those skills into the basement of Imaginary Surf Company in nearby Bed-Stuy. It was there under the tutelage of wood board shaper David Murphy that Andrew fell in love with alternative craft. Zinicola has recently added custom skate board decks to his portfolio under the name of Bong Repair. Andrew and Ben talk about toe to heel dynamics, the benefits of working in epoxy, and how vaping and edibles are changing weed art culture. @bongrepairMusic credit: Eddyhttp://freemusicarchive.org/music/eddy/2_Damn_Loud

This week I chat to Mark Shinn, one of the originals of the kiteboarding competition scene and multiple World Champion. Mark's an interesting guy, and one of the few pro riders from the sports inception who is still heavily involved in the sport. He has a knack for testing and feeling the subtle differences in boards which led him into a career as a board builder and creator. His passion for developing and improving the equipment we use led him to set up his own company Shinn, which he runs with his wife, Malwina, although in Mark's words, she runs the company and he just plays with toys! We get quite in depth talking about board design in this one and it is interesting to hear how he comes up with ideas and the process he follows for creating new shapes.We also chat about hydrofoils and how this relatively new aspect of the sport is opening up opportunities for new spots and increasing our time on the water.Links:Shinn WorldShinn Model F Foil Video

Grab your board, apply your sunscreen, and get ready to find the perfect wave – re-visit the science of big wave surfing featuring Chuck Nice, Gary O’Reilly, NASA oceanographer Bill Patzert and pro surfer and the first female Big Wave World Champion, Paige Alms. Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Please subscribe to our channels on: Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360  TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Playing-with-Science-p952100/  GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjq  SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-science  Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-science  NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Photo Credit: Erik Aeder, courtesy of www.paigealms.com

Join Altium’s Judy Warner and Ben Jordan for a conversation on Multiboard PCB design.   Show Highlights: Many different product areas are being impacted by developments in Electronics, opening new frontiers - beauty products, wearables Electronics are replacing things that traditionally were not electronics Electronics product development are increasingly driven by engineers, but other makers are inspiring growth in the market - i.e. sofas, smart homes Design and product driven electronics, PCB designers are being pushed to partion boards into multiboard systems Everybody faces this multiboard challenge Immediate visual feedback in 3D design / 3D modeling definitely helps Major recurring challenge in industry: aligning connectors and aligning components that have some kind of outward expression on the actual product; MCAD and PCB assembly alignment. Multiboard design editor allows you to do this. Altium trivia and the origin of making tools for makers Ben's brother and his first soldering tool Links and Resources: Multiboard in Altium Designer 18   Hey everybody, Judy Warner here. Welcome to the OnTrack podcast.I'm the Director of Community Engagement here at Altium and this is our very first podcast.You're very brave to listen and we're happy to have you. If you're new to OnTrack altogether be sure to sign up for our OnTrack newsletter which is online at resources.altium.com, or watch our OnTrack instructional video series which you can find on YouTube, and our goal with OnTrack is our tagline is to inspire, educate, and connect, and by bringing you together, the PCB design community, we hope to do that. So, please add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or on iTunes and you can also follow me personally, please oh please, on LinkedIn or at Twitter at Altium, at Altium Judy and follow Altium on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Now, let's get into the fun stuff. So, today I thought we would talk about a subject that seems to be prevalent today in PCB design conversation, and that is about multi-board design. Many designs are going, as things become more complex, as we all know the automotive market, and so many others, because of size, weight, and power, they're being smaller, we're having to do rigid flex design, we're folding things upon themselves, we're fiting things into very tight spaces so you may have just been laying out single board designs not long ago and then you find yourself entering this sort of complex world that comes with it, comes with it a lot of, you know, new and challenging new aspects of things you need to think about in the overall design. So, a few of those things that I've learned about from my guest Ben Jordan is partitioning, connection management, and signal and power integrity. So I brought in Ben Jordan, who is our resident multi-board expert, and my friend and colleague, and partner in crime. Thanks for having me.So Ben, talk about what you see sort of currently going on in the EDA market as a whole, what's going on at Altium, and what kind of challenges specifically you see designers facing and sort of how they overcome them.Yeah, well, if you look at the PCB design and electronics board level electronics design sort of industry over history over the last, I don't know, even four decades, the march has always been in it. I can't see it changing any time really soon, to make things smaller, cheaper, more reliable,better for production runs, and more compact, and that's really taken an uptick. It's, to me, if I could graph complexity versus board area, I'm sure it would look something like a hockey stick.You know, up- Mmhm.-up and to the right, and that really has always been that way, it's just that with exponential things like this, we see it, the further to the right you go the more acute it becomes, the issue of trying to fit more in less space, and this is partly brought on by higher levels of integration in thesemiconductor side, sometimes it's alleviated by that as our guest at AltiumLive recently in Munich, Lee Richie, aptly pointed out that-   Mmhm.PCB designs can in some cases get simpler and simpler because more integration on the actual microprocessor is happening,but at the same time we're dealing with greater densities, greater pin out densities, but something that we have noticed in our industry is, is that there are many companies that were not electronics companies or that on the outside their products may not be considered primarily an electronic device, but- I just saw this in a magazine, like a whole article about electronics and beauty products, like, what?Right, exactly.   Or like, a device you can put on  your thumbnail so you know if you're gonna get sunburned, and it's an electronic device, t's, it's everywhere. Like you said, it's very prevalent.Yeah, like, wearables is actually a classic sort of prescient example of that, where we, we no longer have mechanical watches. A mechanical watch is considered a luxury item these days and is very expensive if it is a genuine mechanical watch.   Mmhm.Just like having a horse has become a luxury item after the automobile replaced the entire horse industry, and we see the same thing happen in many different sort of product realms, and so wearables is a good example of that.   I wear a Fitbit, I love this thing, it's cool.Me too, yours is cooler than mine now. A lot of my friends have Apple Watches as well and, so electronics is replacing things that traditionally weren't and these companies are primarily driven by product design and function, not by the engineering team having a good idea. So electronics companies in the past, and there's still many of them that do do this, see themselves as an electronics company and the product development is driven by engineering and inventors who are electrical engineers or equivalent, but then there's this whole growth in the market that happens through furniture makers, ar makers, you name it.   That's another weird thing I saw.You name it, and they're becoming- -about the sofa, there's like a whole deviceset being embedded into a sofa, I'm like what?And smart homes, just think of all the control going on.   Yeah, yeah yeah.So, so these, but a lot of these are design slash mechanically driven product manufacturers or designers and so the electronics has to fit within that and as a result PCB designers more and more are being forced to partition the design into a multi-board system. So how do you think we're doing as an EDA industry and addressing that and giving them tools that are, you know, easy to onboard and get up to speed quickly, right?   They can't spend six months learning how to do really excellent multi-board design, so- -Exactly, so everybody, that's just it, every, everybody faces this multi-board challenge, but in the past, we're not the first company, we're not the first, Altium is not the first EDA company to provide a multi-board design solution, but we are the first in that range of the market where anybody can actually afford our, our tools. If they're a professional designer they can afford Altium Designer and it's pretty well known, and our mission has always been to include the technology people need for everyday kind of design, and advanced technology for design and not withhold that just because somebody is not an enterprise customer. I mean the enterprise has different needs around data management and workflow management, but from an actual design and computer-aided design perspective every PCB designer should have multi-board design capabilities because they all face the same problems, and so I think this is the first timethat in the mainstream we've seen anybody address this multi-board design issue with proper connectivity management and 3D modeling of the system to make sure everything's going to fit.So typically, if you, if you're a PCB designer, and you want multi-board capabilities,that's going to be, it's going to be a huge cost driver for the software at large, I'm not talking about Altium per-se but if you wanted to acquire that ability inside your EDA software it's expensive than, you're saying.   Yeah, up until now it's been very high-end packages that had this capability that we're, we're talking maybe ten times the licensing cost, but. Wow.But, I mean there's many different ways of doing it, and most people out there, even myself in my hobby context in my shed, I've done multi-board design systems, and so I realized, and Altium, you know we realized, that it's something everybody needs and we shouldn't withhold it and charge extra for it. It's, it's just, it is a mainstream problem and so the technology should be available to the mainstream. So, that the other way of doing it of course is how people aredoing it up until now if they don't have those tools. You have to create Excel spreadsheets or Google Sheets to maintain lists of pins on different connectors, which connector is where on the design. You have to create a hop, a high level or top level, I nearly said hop level. [laughter] You have to, I know, it's crazy but you have to, you have to do this kind of stuff because if you think about the actual problems associated with it there's, there's, there's a couple of different things. If you're doing a simple stacking design, you can reuse a board shape, for example. The boards will always, not always but maybe they will be the same shape. Think of an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi that has, has shields or capes or whatever they plug into it and they stack up vertically through the connectors and that's, that's a nice elegant way to prototype things, butto go to production it's a bit tricky, and if you're, if you're developing a multi-board system like that it's fairly straightforward, but most systems are not that straightforward, and the different PCBs within the overall product may be in different locations, different planes of orientation, and can interconnect with board to board connectors or cables and harnesses, and then you get into issues like, how do you, how do you manage the pin outs? That's a big one.Connection management is a big issue, with multi-board designs even if you're stacking one board on top of another and you have a header and a socket, a mating socket, most people don't even realize until this, the blue, magic blue smoke is coming out of the first prototype [laughter] that, well actually the female connectors pin out is numbered from looking top down on it, in terms of the library and the footprint in the library you start traditionally pin one is at the top left and you go anti-clockwise, but that means when that connector is on the bottom side of a board plugging into another board beneath it, it's mirrored.Yeah. And this very simple thing can wreak havoc on the design process and time-to-market so, so we needed to provide tools to prevent those kinds of problems.And I'm not a designer. I am, come from the fab and EMS side, so I'm honestly asking these questions, I'm not, but doesn't the ability of our software to do 3D help with that to visually giveyou a sense that it's flipping instead of just sort of imagining how it's gonna go together- It certainly does.-until it's physically in front of you?Yeah, it's really important to have that immediate visual feedback in whatever tools you're using, and if what you do is design anything, you need immediate visual feedback to get things right, and having that 3D modeling helps you align things, but the other side of this, the other area which is probably aside from incorrect pin assignments, one of the other areas that we noted in the industry that people struggle the most with is aligning connectors and aligning components that have some kind of outward expression on the actual product.So, in my, I think of audio gear all the time because I'm into that, right, but, so one example is if I were designing a new amplifier I'm going to have some potentiometers and other controls on the front panel and so I have an enclosure, I have a front panel that has markings, and it has holes, and that's designed in MCAD, but the PCB assembly has to align perfectly to that, and I may actually want to realign components to match external holes and cutouts in the enclosure, and the multi-board design editor actually allows you to do that, allows you to go into a mode where you can actually move individual components and there could be things like potentiometers, or that their main intent is connectors that have to interface with other mating connectors on other boards, and you can actually cause them to snap together so that on the other PCB design you've got absolute confidence that you can make that first prototype and the connector will be in the right place and other components won't interfere with it in 3D space. Yeah, I've seen some of you designers here in our office doing these, you know, rotating and showing, oh if I fold this over then this component is gonna run into that part or whatever I'm being able to just shift things slightly and it move kind of globally, is it's really fun to watch.It looks almost like a computer game to me, right? Yeah.But it's really great how you can move that and and see it mechanically, you know in that 3D space instead of, remember the old days of prototyping, going whoops, forgot about that, and it was completely built out and there's all these expensive parts and you would salvage what you can but some were just like going in the trash can, and   I actually have an interesting bit of Altium history trivia about that. Alright let's hear trivia, cool.because we had, we had that exact issue, we, some people who've been around our orbitfor a while will have, will remember that we used to do FPGA design stuff,  and we actually had a hardware design team, and their role was to design development boards for developing FPGA designs in Altium Designer, and those boards were modular so we had the Nanoboard 2 is the one on thinking of, we had this huge motherboard, and on top of that you had a daughter card that plugged right in that had, that could have different FPGAs you could try from different FPGA manufacturers, and we had another three different modules you could plug into different locations on the board and each had different input output options, and so during the design process of this we ran into issues with 3D clearance. There were some actual problems, this is a multi-board system, and back then the only way our hardware team were able to model this was to print the board designs that they did have in outlines out in 2D and cut those out and glue them one-to-one on bits of cardboard, corrugated cardboard.I would cut it all out of cardboard and glue with hot melt glue or hot snot we'd call it. [laughter] They'd use hot snot to glue the connectors in the positions where they would be on the final boards and plug them all together like this multi-board mock-up using cardboard, and the actual bulky components would be on it. That's funny.And it was so time-consuming and, too tempting sometimes to leave out some parts that should have been on that model but just, due to time constraints were left off, and I remember-Plus I'm thinking, and then the CEO walks by and thinks you're doing arts and crafts, I mean. Well, I mean it was necessary, but we actually had some boards that couldn't be plugged in in their first revision and had to be revised with a different bill of materials because there was, there were some power supply inductors that stuck out too far and when the whole assembly was together they, they seriously would not fit.So, it had, it's like, if only we'd had this then maybe we could have reduced the cost of the product, products, and so on. So there's a lot of, and as I was saying earlier I think it's inevitable that any professional designer will run into these sorts of problems at some point, the tools need to be provided for them.Well, I had the rare and cool opportunity to speak to Dave Warren one time on a Skype call from Australia, one of our original founders, and I was just trying to get a sense of who the company was and he just reminded me of like, a swashbuckling pirate, like give 'em the tools, you know like, he just he, you can tell he was so passionate about, nobody should pay these, you know, crazy prices for functionality. Whoever wants 'em should have them, by God. You know, in his Aussie accent like you and he cracked me up but I really, it really came through to me that he was about make sure that anyone who wants these tools can have them. That they're reachable and that, it's a fun story by the way. That's cool well that has been an undercurrent of the whole history since the founding and, to hear that straight from the horse's mouth is not at all surprising to me.I remember him sharing a similar story about when we acquired NeuroCAD in- Oh he told me about that, yeah. -the late 90's.So NeuroCAD was the first neural net based, you know routing technology. Yeah, he told me they were charging 118 grand for that software, and he said "we, so we bought it and we cut the" I'm doing like Scottish accent now, "we cut the bloody horns off it and gave it to the people." Yeah, they priced it-So, how much did you sell it for after that?It was $395 I believe. $395, after $118 grand.And the company that developed it sold maybe three or four licenses to a few big companies.We acquired the technology and start, immediately put the price at like, 395 or, you know, under$400 and it sold in the first month, it was over a million dollars of sales because it just, people wanted it they just couldn't afford it.   Well, we are out of time, but one last thing I want to thank you by the way for sharing all that.   Every time I talk I learn something amazing from you, Ben. So, on the fun side, I've always noticed, I've worked with PCB designers over 25 years plus, and something I noticed they all had in common is they have really interesting lives. I like to call it designers after hours. So Ben Jordan, what do you do after hours?Ooh, ooh that sounds risqué. Yeah no no, this is a G-rated podcast. I'm a very G-rated person after hours actually.I've always been into technology but I'm also from, I'm the youngest of six and from a very musical family so all my brothers and sisters were into music and played instruments and actually the reason I'm into electronics is because of my oldest brother, Les, he was a great guitarist but he was also an electronics technician and used to build his own tube amps and all sorts of cool stuff, so he gave me my first lessons in electronics and my first lessons in guitar right around the time, he bought me my first soldering iron actually for my eighth birthday and taught me how to solder.I burned myself on that thing many times and I loved every minute.I'm like, this was learning but it was, I've never looked back and then, and then right around when I turned 12 he bought me myfirst electric guitar and I haven't looked back on that either. I mean, we just, we are influenced by the world around us but sometimes in our lives we have kind of heroes, and he's definitely one of my biggest heroes and showed me this, this is, this was what my life was always going to be about.Electronics and guitar and, you know, and now I have a family too, so between, between family and work and, I squeeze hobby electronics and guitar in-between those, but it's very full and very fun. That's great. Well it was great having you and I'm sure we'll have you again 'cause you are a wealth of information on lots of subjects.   So, let's just wrap up our first podcast here. Well thanks everyone for listening in on this conversation with myself and Ben Jordan.Please remember to subscribe to this podcast and remember to always stay OnTrack!

Mo catches up with Erik to discuss his recent change in board company, the ISA games, his training program, how he creates maneuvers, creativity and his love of all things water.

It can be easy to create a printed circuit board that doesn't work well, even when using PCB automation software. Mentor Graphics' Dave Wiens talks about board features and design practices he's seen that habitually cause problems. He also explains what to expect and not expect from PCB layout software and other automation tools.