The Beijing summer’s Olympic Games put China on the world stage in a new way. For the first time, China’s gold medal tally outstripped every other country, including the United States. And the incredible history, growth and potential that characterize the country can also be seen in China’s developing electronics design industry.
China already manufactures more than 80% of the world’s consumer electronic products. There are six million new Internet connections every month in China. The number of graduates in China has gone up 1000% in 30 years. China’s industry will not be held back in its quest to become the innovators and creators of designs, not just manufacturers of electronics. With perhaps 70,000 new electronics engineers entering the Chinese workforce every year, a shift in the world’s center of gravity of competitive electronics design is likely in the near future.
As elsewhere in the world, this growth comes from changes in technology: the ever-increasing capacity and power of electronics devices, and their ever-decreasing cost. Programmable devices that let designers create innovation in new ways and provide new features and functionality in the field continue to enter the mainstream.
Chinese PCB designers are seeking new ways to bring their original designs to market, in China and abroad. They are less likely to be constrained by choosing old-generation design systems. They are looking for new ways to create a competitive advantage in China and abroad, and will look for new ways to embrace new technologies and devices, and new ways to do design.
Altium is well known in China. Or rather, we’re perhaps better known by our earlier name and board layout software, Protel. We estimate that up to 300,000 designers and engineers use Altium’s Protel solution in China. And we know that up to 80% of electronics engineering students are trained using Altium’s solutions.
Last month, Altium announced a new “amnesty” program that takes advantage of the government’s support for intellectual property. As a result, we hope that as many as 20% of the estimated 300,000 users of Altium solutions in China will migrate to Altium’s next-generation electronics design solutions over the next four years. To support that migration, we’re offering incentives in license pricing, comprehensive training, certification and support. It’s an overall approach based on providing value to China’s engineers and designers, not just inducements. Its success will come partly from the shift in recent years in the Chinese government’s support for the protection of intellectual property, and indeed its stated intent to move from “Made in China” to “Designed in China.”
We’re also continuing to invest in China’s next-generation of electronics designers. Altium’s major Academic Program is designed to provide the tools to students and universities that will equip them to create their next-generation designs, and to compete in world markets. In July, Altium signed agreements with Qinghua University, South China University of Technology and University of Electronics & Technology of China, and launched an Academic Alliance across China’s major engineering universities and teaching centers.
China has a great opportunity ahead - to move from being the world’s electronics manufacturing powerhouse, to become the world’s electronics design powerhouse. That opportunity will come from their focus on innovation. And innovation will come by adopting the tools that remove design constraints, let designers focus on the intelligence in their designs that differentiate them from competitors’, and let designers create sustainable growth and prosperity.
Of course, there is the question left hanging: What are the consequences for the rest of the electronics design world? I think there is little doubt that China’s recent Olympian efforts will be duplicated in innovative electronics design. And, as the countries of the world regroup after the Olympic Games to consider their investments in sport, and to reflect on their achievements, so too will the electronics design sector need to consider its response to the opportunities that China’s electronics designers will now take in the coming years. Once again, I believe that response is best served by a focus on innovation and on design strengths, moving towards new ways of conceiving, creating and producing next-generation electronic products, which allow new ways to create prototypes more rapidly, to explore new design concepts as the design progresses.
Innovation can be led from anywhere. Altium is focused on helping any company interested in innovation and sustainable differentiation. We want to provide these organizations with a single solution that allows rapid concept exploration, device experimentation and rapid prototyping, without having to fix on a choice of hardware up front. And we want to help these organizations get these new designs to market quickly and easily.
In short, I believe our industry should look to China and focus less on doing electronics design more efficiently, and more on doing electronics design differently. It’s time for the next generation of electronics design solutions.
Emma Lo Russo is president of Altium.
