Mouser & Altium’s Mission to Empower Students

Explore how Mouser Electronics and Altium are transforming education with their groundbreaking partnership!

Host James Sweetlove sits down with Tom Busher, SVP Global Sales and Service at Mouser Electronics, to chat about how the collaboration between Altium and Mouser empowers students with real-world skills in electronics design and PCB development.

Discover tools like Altium’s Educator Center and Mouser’s vast component library, which bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Resources from this episode:

• Connect with Tom
• Learn more about Mouser
• Learn more about Altium
• Learn more about Altium Education

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Transcript

James: Hi, this is James from the CTRL+Listen podcast, brought to you by Octopart. Today I have a special guest for you. It’s a little different to what we usually do. This is Tom Busher, SVP Global Sales and Service at Mouser Electronics. Thanks, Tom, great to have you on the show.

Tom: Great to be here, thank you, James.

James: So what we’re talking about today is a partnership that was recently formed, announced September 4th, between Altium and Mouser Electronics, aimed at advancing electronics education and careers worldwide.

On the Altium side, we have things like Altium Educator Center, which is a hub for innovative teaching and learning in the electronics design and PCB development space, along with Altium Student Lab, which offers a comprehensive program designed to prepare university students with industry-ready skills.

On the Mouser side, we’ve got real-world case studies, practical demonstrations, and application examples. These provide learners with the latest information, trends, and technologies.

We’re going to get into that now. Tom, I’d like to discuss the first topic we had on our list today, which is bridging the gap between academia and industry. How are companies like Mouser and Altium contributing to bridging this gap, and what’s the collaboration opportunity for students and educators with this partnership?

Tom: Sure, good question. I believe the bridge is when you can put two leading companies together that can bring a solution. On the technology side, the solution is allowing students to either select components for a new design or look for content for a new design, pull that together, and get that product within a day so they can work on their designs and bring their idea to something deliverable.

James: Fantastic. You’ve been working in this space for quite some time. From what you’ve seen, has that gap widened or shortened in recent history?

Tom: A lot of the gaps have shortened. The overall gap for design engineers—if we put them all in a big bucket—to bring product to market is much smaller. The amount of time it used to take a new design to come to market is really no longer relevant. Product life cycles tend to shrink—the useful life of a product, let me put it that way—so getting from ideation to production is super important.

I think that gap is shrinking. On the academic side, being able to work on relevant designs is really important. It’s also more interesting to the students to work on cool, relevant things.

James: I think so too. You’ll usually get better quality work when people are working on something they feel matters.

Tom: Oh, absolutely.

James: In what ways can students harness Altium’s design tools and Mouser’s expansive component library to develop projects that simulate real-world industry standards?

Tom: Looking at Mouser’s site, students can research content around relevant new designs in our vast product library, and then put the design together, build their bill of materials, and so on.

Where I really see the value, especially working with Altium, is in putting the bill of materials together quickly, but also in the quality of that bill of materials. By that I mean being able to look at the product life cycle of the components. Having flexibility in the design is important, but also checking where components are in their life cycle.

The last thing anyone wants is to design in a component that’s at the end of its life cycle. That makes it more difficult to procure and affects availability.

James: Would you say it’s become more important than ever to be flexible in the design process?

Tom: Oh, absolutely. If we look back at the last three to four years, where we used to think lead times were just a suggestion, they suddenly became extremely important and those lead times expanded.

Having flexibility in the design to be able to use different components or different approaches to reach the end of the design and bring value is important. The supply chain has changed radically. You don’t want to be locked into a sole-source item—or even just a part that’s going to be difficult to source or get in the future.

James: Sure. That brings us to the next thing I want to talk about: trends and staying current. Technology is evolving rapidly, and every year the speed of that evolution increases. How essential is it for students and professionals to stay up to date with trends in the electronics industry?

Tom: I think it’s very important. One big trend in the industry, and it continues to be, is component size. As end-product packages have shrunk, other things become critical: power, power dissipation, heat dissipation, and power consumption.

Staying current on these designs is key. For example, if the design is for a wearable, you want to use as little power as possible so the battery—or whatever the power source is—lasts as long as it can.

At Mouser Electronics, we have roughly 1,200-plus suppliers, and we tend to be their NPI arm, their new product introduction arm. By having those new products available on our site for research, people can see those trends and the new products coming into the market.

James: It sounds incredibly useful. What would you say is the role of educational resources in helping students keep pace with these advancements?

Tom: Probably the biggest role is helping everyone watch how technology evolves. As dependence on technology becomes more and more prevalent in our lives, a lot of it comes back to electronic components and what can be used in products.

Being able to find those products on one or two platforms and do research—from ideation down to component selection—and then get those components delivered, maybe even the next day, is important.

The relevance of technology and staying up to date is critical. Seeing where technology is going is just as important.

James: Do you think, from an employer standpoint, it makes a difference to a candidate applying for a role if they’re up to date on current trends and events?

Tom: Sure. Knowing the platforms you can use for sourcing product or designing—tools such as Altium—is very relevant and becoming even more so.

Again, it goes back to speed of design and speed of taking something to an end product. There’s a cost associated with that. If an employer can find ways to reduce their time to market, that’s very important.

James: Very relevant to what you’re saying, because my next question is about the supply chain. Obviously it’s been a hot topic for a couple of years now, especially since COVID. I think it’s made us reevaluate how the supply chain is viewed on a global scale.

How would you say supply-chain challenges are impacting electronics education, and what can students learn about overcoming these obstacles in their projects?

Tom: The whole supply-chain situation since and through COVID has been very interesting. It’s not only lead times but also transportation of product. We truly are in a global world in terms of where components are made, sourced, and where end products are built.

All of that feeds into the supply chain, so staying on top of it makes a lot of sense.

I’d also say it’s important for the end user—whether it’s a student, a design engineer, or someone doing ongoing work—to make sure that the product they’re designing or redesigning into an application is readily available and still at a good point in its product life cycle, not toward the end.

During COVID, components that were nearer the end of their product life cycle were the ones that really pushed out in lead time, and some manufacturers de-emphasized or didn’t really want to build that type of product.

James: Sure. How can students use Mouser’s inventory insights and Altium’s tools to stay informed about component availability, lead times, and alternative options in their designs?

Tom: From the component-selection side, the vastness of our long-tail inventory at Mouser is a big advantage. Being able to purchase those products via Altium’s tools and integrate them into a design brings a lot of value to students and customers.

As far as staying informed, a lot of that data is public. They can use bill-of-materials managers or simply search on the Mouser website to see product life cycle, lead times, and similar information.

In general, it’s better to design with components that are readily available than with ones that already have long lead times. On the product detail pages, they should also watch for parts labeled “not recommended for new designs” and stay away from those.

James: And things like alternatives—I’m sure that’s incredibly useful. You might say, “Okay, I can’t use this, but here’s a recommendation.”

Tom: Exactly. I’d go back to having flexibility in the design. If you have flexibility, you have more options for component selection and for dropping in an alternative if you can’t get something or if a part goes end-of-life and you still need to satisfy the application.

James: Makes sense to me. What best practices would you recommend for students to manage project timelines and budgets effectively?

Tom: Great question. Don’t put things off. If you’re working on a design and you’ve found what works, and the products are available, you should start locking that design in.

If you need components, start procuring them. Build out your bill of materials and then source it. In today’s open market—with websites and inventory coming and going—things can change overnight. We saw that leading into the pandemic and throughout it.

So again, be flexible and, when you have the opportunity to complete your design, don’t procrastinate. Easier said than done, but don’t procrastinate.

James: Makes sense, yeah. It’s one of those things where, like we were talking about, the supply chain has changed. Maybe in the past you could take more time to think about it, but with availability where it is today, you might miss out on that option.

Tom: Absolutely.

James: That brings me to the next topic: sustainable and accessible design. Sustainable design is becoming a priority in engineering education. How can students incorporate eco-friendly practices while balancing cost-efficiency in their projects?

Tom: I think it goes back to the wealth of product information on mouser.com, which allows students to make well-informed decisions on component selection. That’s probably the best approach.

We’re also adding more and more content on our product detail pages about what’s in the product and what materials it contains. There was a big push many years ago around lead-free components, and that hasn’t gone away. There continues to be more regulation around content, and more may be coming on product composition.

So it really comes down to what components are going into the design. That should be taken into account to make eco-friendly decisions on the final design.

James: And it may not be strictly necessary to do your job, but do you think it’s worth staying up to date on current events and legislation around these topics, especially in the European market?

Tom: Absolutely. As you mentioned, Europe tends to be on the forefront—whether you like it or not—of regulation around content. There’s more and more focus on the carbon footprint of end products. That will likely become more prevalent, especially in large companies with an eco-friendly posture that want products aligned with that.

James: And you’ve also got those areas now expanding to include the labor used to make those items.

Tom: Agree. That also brings in the transportation aspect. Customers are becoming more in tune with where the product is coming from. Price may not be the biggest factor in sourcing a component anymore—where it’s made and what carbon footprint is involved can be just as important.

James: Yeah. It’s been a topic for a while, but right now it’s really the hot topic.

Tom: Agree.

James: What solutions are available to make professional design tools and high-quality components accessible to students and educators worldwide, particularly in underserved regions?

Tom: I’d say the strength of Altium and its user base is in a truly global strategy, with users all around the world who can work as a community and share design ideas.

The same is true of Mouser as a global company. Today we have 28 different websites, multiple languages, multiple currencies—but the product all comes from one area.

It’s really a community effort of sharing product and ideas around the globe. Whether it’s Altium or Mouser, it’s truly a global world and our users are global. They’re looking for ideas—or more accurately, they’re looking for solutions to their ideas.

James: I guess you could say tech is universal. It crosses geography, language, culture. If it’s applicable in one place, people will find ways to use it somewhere else.

Tom: Yes, and there may be local regulations or some small differences, but those won’t be the main driver of the design. The design will be the design. You may just have to tweak a few things—often the simplest tweak is power conditioning or power source.

James: Makes sense. The last topic I wanted to touch on is future skills and industry demand. What essential skills and career-path choices would you recommend for students entering the electronics industry, given the expected demand for skilled professionals over the next decade?

Tom: I think you touched on it earlier when you talked about staying up to date on current events or things happening globally that can affect the supply chain or just affect our lives.

It’s really important for students—and everyone—to stay curious: curious about what’s going on in the world and in their own world. Sometimes little things happening on one side of the globe can have a big impact on the other.

So stay curious, stay current, and keep a thirst for knowledge. There are a lot of cool designs coming out, whether in healthcare, autonomous driving, or other areas. There are many exciting applications being worked on—or not even thought of yet—that will need tools like Altium to get those designs to market.

James: And I think that’s incredibly important to keep in mind. If you’re looking to pursue a career in electronics, now is probably the best time ever to do so. The demand for those professionals is skyrocketing.

Tom: Absolutely, I agree.

James: You’re almost guaranteed a job to some extent.

This is more of a personal question for you, Tom. Outside of the Mouser side of things—obviously you’ve been in this industry for some time—if you could give any one piece of advice to prospective engineers, what would it be?

Tom: I’d go back to curiosity. When I said earlier “stay curious,” that’s really something I’ve decided and made part of my DNA: staying curious about what’s going on in the world and being willing and receptive to new ideas. Sometimes those new ideas require us to listen first and process later.

Stay curious, look at new things.

I recently saw an interview in the financial news about artificial intelligence. The question was, “Do you think AI will replace us going forward?” The respondent said, “No, I don’t. But those who don’t embrace using tools via AI, or who do not embrace technology, will be replaced by other means.”

So I think staying curious, staying up on technology, and staying hungry for it is very important to someone’s career path.

James: I think that’s definitely true. If you keep an eye on the tech startup space, you get a good idea of some of the things starting to emerge and stay informed about what’s going on.

Tom: Absolutely. There are a lot of cool ideas and technologies coming out. If somebody can imagine it, it can often become a design and end up on a printed circuit board.

James: Definitely. The other thing I wanted to touch on is the acceleration of technological advancement since the advent of usable, functional AI. It’s crazy, the speed at which we’re now moving forward.

Tom: Absolutely. One example is how AI is starting to help with component selection and even basic search. What was once done by flipping through a catalog to find, say, a resistor, moved online to parametric search, and now we’re getting to voice search and similar tools.

It’s amazing how quickly we can now get to our end result.

James: Definitely. I think the best example is robotics. Until maybe two years ago, it felt like something that was still “in the future.” As soon as we cracked that AI nut, it’s become very real in a very short time.

Tom: Absolutely. You bring up a great point in robotics and industrial automation. In the United States, for example, there’s somewhat of a movement—whether around driving productivity, improving worker safety, or IIoT.

In IIoT, we’re collecting all that data, and the technology around wireless, data collection, data processing, and turning it into meaningful results is exploding. At the same time, we’re protecting worker safety. There’s a huge demand for electronics and safety in that area.

James: I think data is the really important one you mentioned. We’ve had data collection for a long time now. We’ve established these data silos. The game changer is being able to actually analyze and break down that data into something useful.

Tom: Exactly. We collected the data—we just didn’t know what to do with it. Now, with better indexing and analysis, we can drill down quickly and come away with meaningful results. It’s super exciting.

James: My last question: if people want to access Mouser’s resources that we discussed, what’s the best way to do that?

Tom: The easiest way is right from the front page of our website: mouser.com. You can scroll down from the front page and look at all sorts of things: content, technical resources, partnerships—such as with Altium—as well as search for products from the left-hand navigation.

If you’re logging in from a different part of the world, you can also view the localized version of the website for your region, language, and currency.

James: Fantastic—localized.

Tom: Absolutely localized.

James: Same goes for Altium. If you want to check out those resources, just go to our website, altium.com. Under the Resources and Support section, you’ll find many of the things we’ve discussed today.

Tom, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It’s been very educational.

Tom: Excellent, thanks, James.

James: Anytime. And for anyone listening this week, tune back in next week—we’ll have another guest for you.