Circuit Break Podcast #278

Design With Manufacturing – Altium and MacroFab

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May 26, 2021, Episode #278

Ted Pawela, Altium's Chief Ecosystem Officer, joins the podcast with Chris Church to discuss Altium's participation in MacroFab's recent fundraising.
  • Ted Pawela
    • Altium’s Chief Ecosystem Officer
    • Head of Nexar, Altium’s cloud business unit
    • Holds a M.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Michigan State University, a B.S in. Oceanographic Technology from Florida Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from IE Business School, Madrid, Spain
  • Chris Church
    • Is a founder and the Chief Product Officer at MacroFab
    • Has been working in the software industry for over twenty years, with a focus on robotics and electronics over the last decade
    • Prior to MacroFab, he founded Dynamic Perception and Alert Logic
  • Recent fundraising press release
  • Altium’s goals around connecting design engineers to manufacturing data
  • Perspective on the role and level of control engineers have in manufacturing?
    • Will engineers take on a much bigger role with electronics production?
    • What about engineers being equally important to the supply chain and procurement process?
  • What are you hearing from the engineers themselves? Are they pushing Altium to do more to enable manufacturing?
  • What exactly is Nexar? How do you envision these services evolving?
  • How MacroFab and Altium will work together to improve the design to manufacturing experience
  • What are y’all looking forward to the most with this collaboration?

If you want to hear the inside scoop on MacroFab's strategic electronics sourcing, listen to Ep #318 now.

Ted Pawela, Altium’s Chief Ecosystem Officer and head of Nexar.

Ted Pawela, Altium’s Chief Ecosystem Officer and head of Nexar.

About the Hosts

Parker Dillmann
  Parker Dillmann

Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.

In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.

In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.

Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.

Stephen Kraig
  Stephen Kraig

Stephen Kraig is a component engineer working in the aerospace industry. He has applied his electrical engineering knowledge in a variety of contexts previously, including oil and gas, contract manufacturing, audio electronic repair, and synthesizer design. A graduate of Texas A&M, Stephen has lived his adult life in the Houston, TX, and Denver, CO, areas.

Stephen has never said no to a project. From building guitar amps (starting when he was 17) to designing and building his own CNC table to fine-tuning the mineral composition of the water he uses to brew beer, he thrives on testing, experimentation, and problem-solving. Tune into the podcast to learn more about the wacky stuff Stephen gets up to.

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

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About MacroFab

MacroFab offers comprehensive manufacturing solutions, from your smallest prototyping orders to your largest production needs. Our factory network locations are strategically located across North America, ensuring that we have the flexibility to provide capacity when and where you need it most.

Experience the future of EMS manufacturing with our state-of-the-art technology platform and cutting-edge digital supply chain solutions. At MacroFab, we ensure that your electronics are produced faster, more efficiently, and with fewer logistic problems than ever before.

Take advantage of AI-enabled sourcing opportunities and employ expert teams who are connected through a user-friendly technology platform. Discover how streamlined electronics manufacturing can benefit your business by contacting us today.