Despite all of the talk about the need for communication between designers and manufacturers, many PCB designers still do not talk with their manufacturers for a variety of reasons. Altium and MacroFab aim to change this dynamic. In this interview, Ted Pawela, chief ecosystem officer of Altium and head of Altium’s Nexar Business Unit, and MacroFab CEO Misha Govshteyn, discuss the new Altimade manufacturing service that Altium is introducing in partnership with MacroFab. Ted and Misha provide an overview of the Altimade process, how it links designers to fabricators, assembly providers, and component distributors, and they explain how it could pave the way for true design with manufacturing, or DWM.
Market news was certainly big this week. While the U.S. stock market continues make some large swings, the PCB and PCBA are doing their own dance with the numbers. We’re still feeling the effects of the pandemic, but it seems to be more about playing catch up. Still, the industry is showing some instability, both in positive and negative ways.
One of the classes I dreaded the most in school each year was biology. This was because I knew it was only a matter of time before I would face the rite of passage for most high school students: dissecting a frog. It wasn’t...
In part one of this two-part article series on supply chain resilience, I’ll first address the problem being witnessed throughout the industry regarding supply chain disruptions and its negative effects. For over two years now,...
The most common question I get asked by PCB designers is, "Do you need copper ground pours on digital multilayer PCBs?" The short answer is, "It depends." Unfortunately, the myth of copper pours is fueled by...