Printed Circuit Design & Fab Online Magazine - News

News

CARLSBAD, CA – Altium has donated licenses of its Altium Designer integrated EDA software to FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) for use in its annual robotics design competition.

1,500 teams of high school students participating in the 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition have received access to Altium Designer EDA tool, the first electronics design software ever provided to the competition. At the FIRST Championship to be held April 17-19 in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, robots created by the teams from a standard kit of parts will compete in a series of matches to determine the world’s best robot.

Gerry Gaffney, Altium Senior VP said, “It’s great to be able to offer these young designers… an insight into the future of electronics design."

"We thank Altium for its commitment to young engineers, and consider the company a valued new member of the FIRST community.” said FIRST president, Paul R. Gudonis.

MULINO, OR – Sunstone Circuits launches the Sunstone ECOsystem Design Environment, a one-stop resource know-how, capabilities and expertise needed to produce a PCB. The Sunstone ECOsystem eliminates barriers to the successful PCB prototype design, manufacture and assembly process, enabling DfM and DfA methodologies and providing partners with a collaborative environment that the PCB designer, vendor and supplier can work in.

“Sunstone strives to be at the forefront of innovation and creativity in the PCB industry in order to remain the easiest PCB solutions provider to do business with,” said Terry Heilman, CEO of Sunstone Circuits. “We’ve spent the last year bringing the Sunstone ECOsystem to life. This industry-leading resource is one more step in our commitment to support designers from the time their project is conceived up until it is completed, from quote to delivery.”

The Sunstone ECOsystem helps prototype and quickturn PCB designers find the knowledge, vendors, tools and libraries needed to design projects and scale up to production with Sunstone’s manufacturing capabilities and partner fabrication and assembly services. See Sunstone Circuits at the IPC Printed Circuit Expo / APEX show in Las Vegas, April 1-3, 2008 at Booth # 2017 to learn more about the ECOsystem Design Environment.