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56 The PCB Design Magazine • November 2016 by Barry Matties Sunstone Circuits, the Oregon-based online vendor of quickturn circuit boards, has recently made a shift in capabilities that will enable a move into the RF and microwave space. At PCB West, I caught up with Sunstone's David War- ren, and we discussed details of this change and how they plan to approach such a competitive marketplace. Barry Matties: Just to get started, tell us a little bit about Sunstone and specifically, what you do, David. David Warren: I'm the sales and business devel- opment guy at Sunstone Circuits. I've been with the company for seven years now. I've spent my entire career in manufacturing manage- ment and sales within the electronics industry. The majority of my experience revolved around printed circuit board assembly until coming here in 2010. We've been in business for nearly 45 years. We were the first to pioneer online quoting and ordering of PCBs. PCBExpress.com and PCBPro.com were the first websites that al- lowed for online quoting and ordering. We also have our own proprietary PCB design and lay- out software, PCB123, allowing both schematic capture and the design and layout of PCBs. Matties: You've had that software out for quite a while, but I understand you now have some new offerings coming out? Warren: Yes. This past year, we've gotten into the RF & microwave market. As you know with the Internet of Things, everything's going Blue- tooth, RF or microwave. Typically, RF is any- thing above 100 megahertz, and then micro- wave would be 2 megahertz and above. It's a totally different animal than your standard FR-4 circuit board. RF and microwave PCBs have been on our roadmap for quite a while, and earlier this year we jumped into that world with both feet to help some customers out of a bind. This actu- ally has been a great learning experience for us. We have added equipment, updated processes and added technical resources to help us be suc- cessful. In less than a year we have come a long way in the RF PCB field and now we feel that SUNSTONE CIRCUITS Makes Shift in Strategy, Offerings INTERVIEW