A new way to design and build electronics?

If you work in or follow the world of electronics, you see continuous innovation but may easily miss the wider implications of technological change. Some trends run down well-understood and time-honored paths; think touch and MEMS, for example. These two technologies have been slow burns: we all saw the first instantiations, and they were rudimentary, but the potential was clearly there. We all expected the silicon and software to incrementally improve, and it has--just look at the iPhone as the iconic example of touch and MEMS in action. Another example to watch is vision and gesture recognition. The Kinect for XBOX opened up a lot of thinking and opportunities (watch out for LEAP), and I predict many more applications are to come. Sometimes, though, the innovation is not just in the technology--it's also in the underlying industry business model. We're starting to see a major shift in how new products can come to market.

So, what trends are converging that will change electronic design and manufacturing? As evidenced throughout the history of business, companies need certain basic elements to succeed: money, innovation or technology, manufacturing, distribution and some may also add the entrepreneurial spirit. In China last week, I saw all of these elements coming together in such a compelling way I need to share what I saw with you. Let's start with money. Say you have an idea for a product and you need to raise cash to pay for research, prototyping, development and your living expenses. How do you do it?

In the past you could bootstrap it yourself, go to a bank to get a loan or find investors who took a big chunk of the business (if you were lucky enough to get them to fund you). This method of launching a company is time consuming, can lead to loss of control and slows innovation. There are new ways to fund product development that are game changers. Perhaps the most famous example right now is Kickstarter, which has pioneered crowd funding. Kickstarter enabled electronics inventors such as Pebble and Twine to raise money ($10 million in Pebble's case) to fund the development of their ideas into products. It's a stunningly simple model; people like me pre-pay for the product (and yes I have paid for both of these and a LEAP). This funding gives the entrepreneurs the working capital they need to get the product to market. Kickstarter isn't the only way to fund and get your product to market. You can go to an incubator, such as HAXLR8R, who will help you not only find the money but build and distribute your product.

I met Cyril Ebersweiler, one of the founders of HAXLR8R, in Shenzhen last week at Seeed Studio, which I wanted to see not just because they have a great website but it's on the forefront of the DIY/Maker revolution. Cyril is incubating the Bilibot project and Makeblock as just two but very real examples of this new world of design (see photos).


The availability of inexpensive electronics development kits like Arduino, Beagleboard and the red-hot Raspberry Pi are stimulating a lot of designs and new products that were previously only achievable by large companies with deep engineering resources and an established supply chain. I describe this as the democratization of design because anyone with an idea and entrepreneurial flair can go to market fueled by easy access to funding, open-source hardware and software (thank you Android) and incubators like the ones I describe above. So what's stopping you?

In my next blog, I'll look at the insane Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen, the naked supply chain!

David Blaza is vice president of UBM Electronics, which publishes EE Times.