OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

By Altium LLC.

The PCB Design Podcast features conversations on all facets of PCB Design and Hardware Development... more

2121 ratings

FAQs about OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast:

How many episodes does OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 286 episodes available.

OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast episodes:

April 12, 2023PCB Manufacturing: Then and Now
Let’s walk down memory lane and discover how circuit boards are being manufactured back in the 50s.
In this episode, we have the pleasure to have Gene Weiner, a true gem in the industry! This is a rare opportunity to learn from an expert who has helped shape the electronics industry for more than 60 years now.
Watch through the end, and make sure to check out the show notes and additional resources below.
Watch this Episode.
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
Introduction to Gene Weiner and a glimpse of his illustrious career in the electronics industry beginning in 1956
Gene retrospects vividly how they used to do 3D printing and additive back in the 50s
What would interest a young man to go down the path of electronics manufacturing back in the 50’s? Gene shares his career experience and what sparked his interest in electronics
1975 marked the beginning of electronic manufacturing automation development outside the US
Captive operations versus outsourcing — a lot of electronics companies chose cost reduction over maintaining their own manufacturing operations
Gene gives his insight about moving some manufacturing facilities to Latin American countries like Mexico and Columbia
What does it take to bring manufacturing back to the US?
Just building chips in America without building the rest of the supply chain here just lengthen the supply chain. Gene stresses that volume, demand, incentives, and continuous government programs are necessary to make anchoring a success
Gene suggests that partnering is better than hiring. Partner with talents who share a mutual vision with the company, and share benefits together
Links and Resources:
Connect with Gene Weiner on LinkedIn
Visit Weiner International Associates' website
Watch the related OnTrack episodes
A Lookback to the Evolution of the PCB Industry with Happy Holde
Achieving Diversified Electronics Supply Chain
Overcoming Technological Challenges in the PCB Industry

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
38min
April 11, 2023Reverse Engineering: Is it Worth it?
Pierce Design’s Ethan Pierce will share his insight into reverse engineering with printed circuit assemblies. We will also discuss firmware reverse engineering.
Watch this episode.
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
Show Highlights:
Introduction to Ethan Pierce and a quick preview of his upcoming webinar with the PCEA regarding reverse-engineering
How to acquire reverse-engineering skill sets?
Retrofitting a system versus creating a net new ecosystem of products
Is reverse engineering cost-effective?
Ethan advises designers to keep records and documentation as much as possible. “take as many pictures, take as many pictures, photos, notes.”
Links and Resources:
Connect with Ethan Pierce on LinkedIn
Visit Pierce Design's website
Register for Ethan Pierce's Webinar: Reverse Engineering PCBs: How to Recreate a Lost Design

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
53min
March 28, 2023System Level Qualification in Simulation
In this OnTrack episode, we are very excited to bring you Tim Wang Lee, a Signal Integrity Application Scientist and the High-Speed Digital Application Product Manager at Keysight.
Tim will share his early days as a prodigy with Dr. Eric Bogatin. We will also discuss the importance of simulation and measurement to achieve signal integrity for your PCB design.
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
Watch this episode here
Show Highlights:
Tim Wang Lee Introduction
Tim talks about Dr. Eric Bogatin as his mentor, the knowledge about simulation and signal integrity especially rule number nine
A favorite phrase GIGO (garbage in garbage out) according to Tim is his way of understanding his intentions and asking questions before diving into a project
Tim with Mike Russo, initiated simulation and measurement workflow seminars and webinars to help educate the importance of measurements and simulation to back it up
What is a Virtual Prototype?
Where to start with a system-level qualification in simulation?
Tim explains what an EP Scan (Electrical Performance Scan) does
Keysight is also now focusing on Power Integrity and Heidi Barnes is one of the leading experts in the Power Integrity ecosystem
Next step for Keysight is to aid PCB designers in not only generating results but also fixing the issues
Links and Resources:
Connect with Tim Wang Lee on LinkedIn
Visit the Keysight Website
Read Tim Wang Lee’s articles on SI Journal
Watch Related Podcast Episode:
Pathological Design Features: Eric Bogatin on PCB Design
Power Integrity and Simulations with Heidi Barnes
Picotest’s Water-Cooled Probe with Steve Sandler
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
42min
March 22, 2023Promoting the Electronic Industry to Younger Generation
IPC continues to develop resources to bring awareness about the electronics industry to the young generation.
In this episode, we are very fortunate to have Charlene Gunther, the Senior Director of the IPC Education Foundation. We will talk about IPC’s efforts to involve students in engaging activities that will introduce the electronic industry to them as early as high school.
Join us and watch through the end. We added some great resources below so be sure to check them out.
Watch this episode here
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
Episode Highlights:
Charlene Gunther introduction and a brief overview of her role as the Senior Director of the IPC Foundation
Charlene talks about the IPC three pillars: awareness, engagement, and connections
The IPC launched the website www.careersinelectronics.com which aims to attract students and job seekers within the electronics industry
The IPC student chapter plays a big role to attract and involving students in skill development training and networking
IPC is hosting annual STEM outreach and partners with Title I schools and private institutions to expose high school students to hands-on activities, connecting them with industry, allowing them to solder, to design, to learn about assembly
Other departments of the IPC that work towards improving accessible education are the Education Department led by Vice President David Hernandez and Chris Mitchell the VP of Advocacy and Government Relations
The universities’ response to IPC programs has been very positive and they have become more proactive in integrating electronics and manufacturing-related courses into their curriculum
Be in the loop with the latest IPC Education Foundation announcements, visit www.careersinelectronics.com , subscribe to their newsletter, and follow their social media pages. Students, parents, and employers are encouraged to visit the website
Links and Resources:
Connect with Charlene Gunter on LinkedIn
Visit the IPC website
Visit the Careers in Electronics website
Learn more about IPC Education Foundation
Watch related episodes:
The Challenging Role of a Process Engineer
IPC CEO John Mitchell on the Supporting American Printed Circuit Boards Act
Hands-on Learning for PCB Design Students with Sid Deliwala
Learn Printed Circuit Board Design

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
42min
March 16, 2023Security on CAN bus with Ken Tindell
In this episode, we will learn so much about embedded CAN bus, for automobile security and performance straight from the water host, Ken Tindell the CTO of Canis Labs.
A lot of interesting facts about cyber security and automobile hacking that you would not want to miss! Watch through the end and make sure to check the additional resources below.
Watch this episode
Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
Show Highlights:
Ken Tindell’s background and how he got started with CAN bus and CAN security
Ken worked with Motorola on designing the MS CAN—the first CAN controller that did all the buffer scheduling correctly
Ethernet and CAN coexist in autonomous vehicles’ architecture, Ken explains how
There are two types of major attacks on the CAN bus: attacking the physical wiring and attacking the computer that has access to the wiring. Zac and Ken talk about the mind-blowing advanced techniques of hacking automobiles
Story of irony. A friend of Ken in automobile cybersecurity had his car stolen
The biggest car-hacking horror would be through the cloud — cloud-based APIs to phone and at the same time CAN bus protocol hacking on the transceiver pins
CAN HD, an augmentation for high speed and guarding the CAN bus
Canis Labs is in the works to provide real solutions for security on CAN bus
Links and Resources:
Connect with Ken Tindell on LinkedIn
Visit Canis Automotive Labs' website
Check out Ken’s Github Page
Watch related podcast episodes:
Better Performance and Enhanced Reliability in the Automotive Electronics industry
Electronics Manufacturability and Reliability with QA Guru Cheryl Tulkoff

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
57min
March 08, 2023Achieving Diversified Electronics Supply Chain
In this episode, we continue the discussion on diversifying the electronic supply chain. Our guest Case Engelen the CEO of Titoma shares his insight about moving some of the manufacturing to other Southeast Asian countries and South America.
Watch this episode now and check out the show notes and additional resources below.
Show Highlights:
Case Engelen introduces himself and his company Titoma
Offshoring, onshoring, and diversifying supply chain, why do the majority of components manufacturing may stay in China for 5 more years?
Building prototypes and optimizing your design following the factory’s specifications
Case talks about the importance of component architecture early during the design phase
The difference between how US and Chinese market their product and their selling strategies
Diversifying manufacturing in Southeast Asia and South America, Taiwan is a little more expensive than China, but Columbia is more competitive when it comes to cost
The advanced manufacturing capabilities in China are quite hard to beat
What is “bifurcation”?
What does the future of electronics production and sourcing and procurement look like?
Links and Resources:
Connect with Case Engelen on LinkedIn
Visit Titoma Website
Watch the Previous Related Episodes:
Mastering Your PCB Design Tool as the Industry Evolves with Stephen Chavez
Mitigating Risk Factors for PCB Manufacturing Lead Times
Data Security, 5G and Onshore PCB Manufacturing with Dr. Rob Spalding

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
44min
March 01, 2023A Lookback to the Evolution of the PCB Industry with Happy Holden
Happy Holden, a legend in the PCB Industry and one of our favorite Altium Industry Expert contributors gives us a trip to his 53 years of experience in the industry. From a chemical engineer, and PCB manufacturing expert to an educator with his countless contribution to the PCB industry’s wealth of knowledge through his books, column, and keynote presentations.
Watch this episode now
Show Highlights:
Introduction to Happy Holden and an overview of his career in the PCB Industry
What drove the PCB manufacturing off-shore? The printed circuit industry has been all over the map, to begin with
Happy shares his early years in printed circuit manufacturing
Comparing CAD tools from the 80s and the present – computers, calculators, and software
Happy talks about photonic circuits back in 1998 and how it is a hundred thousand times more capable than electronic communication and have no signal integrity issue
HP’s first notebook computer
Happy retired from HP and moved to Taiwan
Happy started working at Gentex Michigan
The beginning of offshoring the PCB manufacturing and fabrication
In Asia, the printing circuit board is like printing money. It is the most profitable industry in the region
Globalization took over the industry – emphasis on profit versus jobs
Diversifying the supply chain. How to bring some of the manufacturing sides of the industry back to the US?
The $52 Billion budget (CHIPS Act 2022) is just a downpayment to bring the 30 years that were lost
Would companies start manufacturing their own products?
How did HDI technology come about?
Links and Resources:
Connect with Happy Holden on LinkedIn
Read Happy Holden’s Articles on Altium’s Resource Page
Read Happy Holden’s Biography on HPMuseum.org
Buy Happy Holden’s Printed Circuits Handbook, Seventh Edition
Download FREE Ebook I-Connect007 Publishes Automation eBook by Happy Holden
Watch the Previous Episode with Happy Holden: The Father of HDI PCBs
...more
1h 16min
February 22, 2023Power Testing PCB
Functional testing is when you power up an electronic device for the first time and then perform voltage rail checks and programming of processors, and more. And this is exactly what FixturFab offers their customer.
In this episode, Zach is talking with the co-founders of FixturFab, Duncan Lowder and Joe Selvik. They will have a chat about automated test fixtures and turnkey systems that aid low to medium electronic production to deliver successful devices.
Watch this episode here.
Show Highlights:
Jow Selvic and Duncan Lowder introduction and engineering backgrounds
What is FixturFab’s test fixture? Duncan briefly explains how it works – the mechanical, electrical, and software aspects of it
A turnkey test system designs and delivers specific test cases and dives into detail about how a circuit board was designed and gathers reports
Bolina an IIOT device deployment engine allows the management of Test Fixtures remotely
An ideal customer for FixturFab is anyone who designs or manufactures their hardware, the best time to initiate the testing is before finalizing the board layout or during the prototyping phase
Currently, FixturFab caters to low to medium-volume production, but they definitely are looking forward to eventually being in an automated SMT (Surface Mount Technology) line
Coming next is the Test System in a Box, the IKEA or the “protolab” for test fixtures
Links and Resources:
Connect with Joe Selvik on LinkedIn
Connect with Duncan Lowder on LinkedIn
Visit FixturFab website
Read: Generating an Altium Test Point Report
Watch related episodes:
Electronics Manufacturability and Reliability with QA Guru Cheryl Tulkoff
Mitigating Risk Factors for PCB Manufacturing Lead Times
...more
43min
February 14, 2023The Rise of AI Interference
In this episode, we are fortunate to have two key personalities at Luxonis, a hardware, firmware, software, AI, and simulation company. Erik Kokalj, director of application engineering at Luxonis, and Bradley Dillon, CEO of Luxonis discuss how and who can benefit from AI technology.
Tune in and make sure to check out the show notes and additional resources below.
Show Highlights:
Introduction to Luxonis and its founding on April 2019
The liDAR and radar as an imaging technology, Erik briefly explains the technology behind it
Bradley shares why they decided to open-source some aspects of their platform and design
Luxonis’s AI training, AI conversion, and AI deployment onto hardware are all open-source, for their customers can quickly develop their own model and then deploy it on the device itself
Future design updates, miniaturization, and thermal management
What are some of the industrial applications that are utilizing the Luxonis imaging technology? Beekeeping was unexpected!
Robotic applications on robotic cars, Zach and Erik talk about action recognition on top of object recognition
Bradley talks about series 3 products and what’s coming in terms of capabilities – processing power, more AI inference
Resources and Links:
Connect with Bradley Dillon on LinkedIn
Connect with Erik Kokalj on LinkedIn
Checkout Luxonis Website
Watch Luxonis featured on Altium Story: How Luxonis uses Altium 365 to innovate AI Vision systems faster
Connect with Zach Peterson on LinkedIn
...more
39min
February 07, 2023The True Benefits of Printed Electronics
In this episode, we are very excited to have Jesus Zozaya, CEO of Voltera, and Matt Ewertowski, product manager at Voltera. We will discuss pushing the boundaries in electronics design through printed electronics.
Join us and together let’s discover the many benefits of printed electronics from expedited prototyping, proof of concept, and academic research.
Show Highlights:
Introduction to Jesus Zozaya, CEO of Voltera, and Matt Ewertowski, product manager at Voltera
Jesus takes the lead in explaining what Voltera does, and introduced their first product – V-one
Matt explains the difference between Printed Electronics and additive manufacturing process
Electronics printer pushes the limits and welcomes new possibilities and opportunities for new materials in the electronic design space
Voltera designed NOVA (their second product) with users in mind, they created a tool that all electrical engineers can utilize regardless of their skills in material science
Can you do stack-ups using printed electronics?
Jesus talks about a customer who created heaters directly on the drone’s wings to melt the ice when flying in cold temperature
A Voltera customer printed electronics directly on a textile (face mask) that will allow a smartphone app to track the level of CO2 on the face mask
Mark dives deep into the capabilities of NOVA
Who is the target market for V-one and how does it differentiate from NOVA
The V-one is seen to be utilize more for prototyping, meanwhile NOVA is popular with academic and R and D research
Printed electronics do not replace traditional marketing, but it aids to expedite the process of getting the proof of concept done

Links and Resources:
Connect with Jesus Zezoya on LinkedIn
Connect with Matt Ewertowski on LinkedIn
Visit Voletra’s website
Related Podcast Episodes:
3D Printed Circuit Boards for Fast Prototyping
The Promising and Challenging Future of 3D Printed Electronics
Materials Science and Manufacturing of Better PCB
Connect with Zach Peterson on LinkedIn

Get Your First Month of Altium Designer® for FREE
...more
42min

FAQs about OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast:

How many episodes does OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 286 episodes available.

More shows like OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

229 Listeners

Embedded

188 Listeners

PCB Chat

2 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

8,630 Listeners

Embedded Edge

0 Listeners

Share OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

Sign up to save your podcasts

OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

FAQs about OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast:

How many episodes does OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast have?

OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast episodes:

FAQs about OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast:

How many episodes does OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast have?

More shows like OnTrack: The PCB Design Podcast

The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

Embedded

PCB Chat

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Embedded Edge