I’m pleased to help Altium and Macrofab launch Altimade, a new platform to help engineers go from design to hardware faster than ever. In my role as Shaper’s principal electrical engineer, I’ve spent countless hours in Altium designing PCBs. I’ve actually delivered the keynote address at multiple Altium Live design conferences.
The largest bottleneck in the early prototyping stage is often going from design intent to boards-in-hands. You’ve got to get your documentation together, ensure your fabricator and assembly understand your intent, go back and forth on DFM, deal with out-of-stock parts (now more than ever), and more. That’s why I was really excited when Altium asked Shaper’s electrical engineers to help alpha-test their new design-to-manufacturing flow. Altium has partnered with Macrofab to do their fulfillment, which should already give you a great deal of confidence in this new service – I’ve already been using Macrofab as one of my go-to domestic prototyping options for many years.
If you are a designer using Altium, you can sign up to get access to Altimade here. Following is a launch video wherein I describe what is broken about electronics prototyping, and how services like Altimade will hopefully help move the industry forward: