Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1411055
44 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2021 for fab services? Can I get some understanding of who's building what? Is eight-layer blowing up? Do I need to be looking at different capa- bilities? What are the market trends?" You can feed that back, not just to the parts suppliers, but to the fabricators as well. Pawela: at's right. at is something that we want to be able to do. To be clear, we're not doing that today, but it's a common request we are hearing from fabricators, distribu- tors, and component manufacturers. Like you said, they don't need to know what a specif- ic customer is doing. ey just want to know what companies are making more of. Is it high speed or high density? Do these tend to be eight-layer boards or 16-layers? What are the most common layer stackups that people are building? Johnson: You have an opportunity to add value to each participant in their own way. Pawela: I think about that a lot. As oen as they'll let me say it, this must become a destination that people want because it is valuable to them. It's valuable because it's better than what they use today, and it's different if you're a de- signer, a fabricator, a distributor, or anybody else. Everyone has different needs and we've got to make it valu- able for each of them in their own way. A procurement guy doesn't want to have to go into Altium Designer and use that tool; they just want to be able to see the bill of materials, for exam- ple. ey want to be able to commu- nicate about that BOM and make sure that what they're communicating is acknowledged by the designer and in- corporated into their design. Mean- while, a fabricator is interested in something else and frankly, they don't want to go into Altium Designer ei- ther. ey might use a different set of tools like their CAM tools. Johnson: It's savvy to make it a separate busi- ness unit. at allows the Nexar business unit to think industry-wide, to think operating sys- tem thoughts, and not be limited to the CAD tools sandbox. Pawela: Yes, absolutely. at is important be- cause, realistically, for the people now focused on those CAD tools, it's their job to make that the predominant solution in the industry. But if I take that viewpoint, I'm never going to build an ecosystem. I have to be able to think differ- ently and operate independently to support their mission; that's exactly why we did that and how it's working today. But I do get ques- tions from the CAD team saying, "Why would you work with...?" I mention Sintecs and Hy- perLynx and they say, quite logically, "Why would you do that? We compete with those guys." Well, that's what building an ecosystem is all about. Johnson: Gerry Langeler, an EDA industry pio- neer, used to say, "Once you have the customer by the database, their hearts, minds, and wal- lets will follow," as a core value in the business