Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1470111
JUNE 2022 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 47 around your ecosystem and say that you'll get everything from us. We are absolutely trying to be open to bring and to make all of that ver- tically integrate from the customer experience perspective, but not by requiring a single com- pany to have every piece of it. Shaughnessy: What would this look like from a fabricator's viewpoint? Pawela: For now, we're really focused on solv- ing the full problem of assembly, but the fabri- cator is absolutely connected in the same way to the collaboration platform. When they have questions or issues that need to be resolved that likewise is being communicated through the platform to the end customer. Govshteyn: Yes, and to add a little bit of color to what Ted mentioned, he made an analogy to the Uber-like ordering experience on the cus- tomer side. It's also an Uber-like experience on the fabricator and assembler side as well. We are very aware of the capabilities for each assembly factory, and based on the volume that we need and our requirements for each particular board, we will essentially show that board designed to X number of factories. We literally have a database of their pick- and-place machines and what kind of second- ary assembly capabilities they have, as well as whether they can do conformal coating or pro- gramming instructions. We also know about their quality rating, so the algorithm is auto- matically optimized for the board to get built at the right price, with the right quality level, and as soon as possible. Shaughnessy: And this is all visible to the designer before he begins the design? Govshteyn: at's exactly right, and at that scale, you could actually end up in a situation where you may be building your design with multiple boards involved in a product. ey might actually get built in different factories, but from an end-user perspective, all they care about is how quickly they can get it. How much is it going to cost to meet my require- ments? is really abstracts the factory floor from the end-user and, in all honesty, people usually don't have a very good sense of what a factory can and cannot do, so we're letting the soware drive that decision. Shaughnessy: Very cool. is is great. Anything that makes it simpler for our readers and gives them more power earlier in the design cycle is a good thing. Govshteyn: Ted made an analogy to Uber, but for me, it's always been more like travel agents. I think you would have to force me to use a travel agent these days. It's just so much easier for me to figure out what my travel options are by going through one of the well-known booking sites. is is very similar, and there are details in Altium Design that really don't fit into the Gerber format, so we get much more informa- tion about what the customer ultimately wants. I think one of the coolest things about it is that designers input all their requirements into Altium Designer and that's really the starting point for the design. So much of it gets lost in translation when it gets output into offline files and starts to get emailed around. at's the rea- son why there are so many phone calls and the reason why there are so many emails. Engineers do not want to be on conference calls explaining what their design is really meant to do, and I think this really gets them out of the business of having to talk to people. In my experience, an engineer's main goal in life is to never just speak to another salesper- son or human being. I think that's the ultimate objective. Shaughnessy: at sounds like quite a few engi- neers I know. Ted and Misha, thanks for speak- ing with me. Pawela: ank you, Andy. DESIGN007