-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueOpportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
Manufacturing Know-how
For this issue, we asked our expert contributors to share their thoughts on the absolute “must-know” aspects of fab, assembly and test that all designers should understand. In the end, we’re all in this together.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Freedom CAD: Navigating the Unpredictable Design Marketplace
October 26, 2016 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
As COO of the design service bureau Freedom CAD, Scott Miller has a front-row seat to the challenges currently plaguing designers and the design community as a whole. He shared his view of the industry with me recently, offering insights on the importance of picking the right partners and customer relationships in an unforgiving and sometimes unpredictable design marketplace.
Barry Matties: First, for a little context, why don't you tell us a little bit about Freedom CAD.
Scott Miller: Freedom CAD is a premier design service company oriented toward printed circuit board design. Our services include engineering related to PCB design. So, electrical and mechanical engineering, PCB layout, as well as peripheral services like signal integrity, power integrity, and schematic integrity. We are also able to provide customers with a full turnkey solution through partnering relationships with contract manufacturers to take what I like to call getting from “CAD to the Lab.” By providing this turnkey service, we can get prototypes into the customers’ hands quickly and seamlessly for testing and debugging.
Matties: Being a service company, you obviously get a chance to see a lot of different design challenges or just challenges in general from a lot of different applications. What do you think is the greatest trend or challenge that you see in design today?
Miller: It's a combination of density and power. We're constantly being pushed to do things in tighter spaces with higher densities, higher pin counts and complex power requirements. There's a lot of influence that takes place because of those, whether it be signal integrity or power integrity. These are the things that push us technology-wise.
Matties: From a customer’s point of view, are they typically people that don't have design in-house, or is it a combination of people with design but not the capacity? What does that look like?
Miller: It’s all of the above. I kind of group it into three categories. We have customers that have no in-house capability. They are architects of technology and they outsource everything. They may have an engineer or two, but then they want people to execute on the high-level engineering. We also have customers that have in-house capabilities, but they staff to meet their average demand and when they get into peak demand, they have insufficient capacity. They look to augment that internal skillset with outside resources to satisfy that peak demand. Then the surge goes away, and the cost goes away.
Then we have customers that simply have reached the point where they don't have a skillset or knowledge of the technology. Rather than take on the risks of doing it wrong, they look outside to find people that know how to do it well. You'd be surprised. We've done some interesting things for companies that are very capable, but have come to us for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's the technology, or the signal speed at which they need to operate are outside of their experience. Sometimes, their internal processes are just too slow, or there are obstacles to getting things done, so they'll outsource to us.
Matties: There’s probably a large area of the market where the skill doesn't match up to where it needs to be.
Miller: Yes, we have industrial customers who have been doing business in a certain way. Think about this in terms of the water meter business. If you design water meters, now all of a sudden water meters have Bluetooth and digital connections, because they want their drivers to be able to drive by and capture their readings without getting out of the truck. So now, these guys who have been very capable at building mechanical or analog water meters are now pushed into digital and RF technology, which is outside of their expertise. That's just one example, which is happening a lot in the industrial market.
Matties: The question that comes to mind is, do they even know they don't have the skill? We live in these vacuums. Will people come in for a sanity check?
Miller: What I see on a regular basis is companies that say, “We see this competitor and they're doing this and we need to be able to do that.” Some of it is pushed by innovation and outside of their box, and some of it is people who are the innovators and they recognize that they don't have that new skillset.
Matties: Now for you, what is your sweet spot of the three categories? Which one fits the best?
Miller: Traditionally we've been tied to the companies that have internal capabilities and we augment their teams. We do that well because we pride ourselves on our communications and our skillsets. The differentiator is being seamless. If you can work with a company that has an internal team, and you can be as seamless as possible to them, they feel confident about working with you. In general, that tends to be the biggest market for us—companies where they used to have 10 designers and now they're down to two. Because they only have two, they're able to keep up with the average, everyday stuff, but when they get into the big programs they need to count on us.
That puts pressure on our business, because it's a sine wave of demand. The peak loads don't happen all the time. At Freedom CAD, we see scale as a really important part of our business strategy. We obviously want to hire the best designers we can.
Matties: You have to do that.
Miller: We want to compete at the highest level, but we also have been purposefully driving scale. That scale gives you the ability to take on more customers and more programs, so that those sine waves hopefully don't line up and you've got one customer at a peak when another customer is at a valley. If you're too small, you can get devastated by those valleys, particularly if they're extended.
Matties: You can get devastated by the peaks, too.
Miller: Right. You can be overwhelmed, and then you can lose a customer when you're not in a position to say yes when they ask.
Matties: It's a fine balancing act there for you.
Miller: It's a tough act.
Matties: How do you project this? How do you look forward?
Miller: I'd love to tell you that our customers are wonderful and they tell us everything [laughs]. I'll talk to a customer on Tuesday, and I'll say “Hey, anything in the pipeline?” “No, I don't have anything.” On Thursday, they're calling me saying, “Hey, do you have somebody available?” There's no visibility. There are some customers who will give you a horizon, and then it's a matter of “We're going to have this project that’s going to start in October.” Then October turns into February. You just constantly have to keep an ear to the ground and talk to your customers so you have some semblance of what's going on.
Page 1 of 3
Suggested Items
Trouble in Your Tank: Supporting IC Substrates and Advanced Packaging, Part 5
03/19/2024 | Michael Carano -- Column: Trouble in Your TankDirect metallization systems based on conductive graphite or carbon dispersion are quickly gaining acceptance worldwide. Indeed, the environmental and productivity gains one can achieve with these processes are outstanding. In today’s highly competitive and litigious environment, direct metallization reduces costs associated with compliance, waste treatment, and legal issues related to chemical exposure. What makes these processes leaders in the direct metallization space?
AT&S Shines with Purest Copper on World Recycling Day
03/18/2024 | AT&SThe Styrian microelectronics specialist AT&S is taking World Recycling Day as an opportunity to review the progress that has been made in recent months at its sites around the world in terms of the efficient use of resources:
Matrix to Exhibit at IPC APEX EXPO 2024 in Anaheim, CA
03/05/2024 | MatrixMatrix will be exhibiting at IPC APEX EXPO 2024, to be held on April 9-12, 2024, at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA.
The Chemical Connection: Getting to Know Your Vendor
02/16/2024 | Don Ball -- Column: The Chemical ConnectionAfter working for a capital equipment supplier for almost 50 years, I’ve found that the most important part of getting to know your vendor is good communication among all parties. While contact between fabricators of a constantly changing product line and the designers of those products may occur daily or weekly, conversations between you and your equipment supplier may be years apart. That lengthy gap often means that previous contacts may have been promoted, retired, or moved on to other opportunities. You may have also migrated to a new supplier with whom you have little or no history. In either case, you will be interacting with someone you are unfamiliar with (as they are with you). Therefore, it is essential for both sides to communicate clearly so expectations will align.
EIPC Winter Conference 2024, Day 2: A Closer Look at Global Trends
02/14/2024 | Pete Starkey, I-Connect007The opening session of the second day’s conference proceedings focused on global PCB trends and was introduced and moderated by Dr. Michele Stampanoni, vice president of strategic sales and business development at Cicor Group in Switzerland. He opened the session with Dr. Hayao Nakahara’s knowledgeable and enlightening video presentation on the IC substrates industry.