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Issue 28
January 10, 2012
Nathan Seidle
SparkFun Electronics
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
4
Nathan Seidle
SparkFun Electronics
Interview with Nathan Seidle - Owner and CEO
9
SparkFun: Why Open Source?
BY
PETE DOKTER
WITH SPARKFUN ELECTRONICS
Dokter explains SparkFun’s reasoning for being open source.
11
Featured Products
12
What Bumblebees and Models of
DFE Have in Common
BY
MICHAEL STEINBERGER
WITH SISOFT
A detailed look at the creation and use of IBIS-AMI models of DFE.
17
Real-World Range Testing
BY
CHRISTOPHER HOFMEISTER
WITH LS RESEARCH
An outline of the procedure for a successful RF range test providing data on RF
link performance.
23
RTZ - Return to Zero Comic
3
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INTERVIEW
Nathan
Seidle
Owner and CEO of
SparkFun Electronics
thought, “Wow, you don’t need a full
computer; you can program these
little things and they can actually do
quite a lot!” And at the end of 2002 I
blew out my PIC programmer. That’s
when I started scouring the Internet
for a cheaper source, because as
a student I didn’t even have money
for the first programmer. So when
I blew it up I was really in a bind.
After searching, I found out that
most of the web sites in 2002 were
very difficult to order from. There
weren’t very good pictures, and
a phone call was often necessary
to place the order. At this point I
thought, “Maybe I could do better.
Maybe I could start a website that
had online checkout, as well as
some nice, clean pictures of some
electronics.” And off I went!
You were still in school when
you started SparkFun?
Yes, I was a junior in the electrical
engineering program and it took me
about a year and a half to graduate.
Once I graduated, all my professors
were asking me what companies I
was applying to work for, and I said,
“Actually, I’m not really applying
anywhere. I’m just going to run this
How did you get into
electronics/engineering and
when did you start?
I started in electrical engineering at
the University of Colorado in 2000.
At the time I really didn’t understand
what electrical engineering was,
and was under the impression that
I was always going to be some
sort of chip designer. This was
way back before I had any kind
of comprehension of what I was
going to be doing. Then, in 2002,
I discovered microcontrollers. I
4
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INTERVIEW
SparkFun thing I’ve been doing for
the last year and a half.” They were
a little scared, but they’ve been very
receptive, and now I go back and
guest lecture for a few of them.
little board, with a 0.1” spaced
header. They said that they didn’t
sell anything like that. So from
the beginning, that was sort of
the secret sauce to SparkFun. We
found these cool technologies,
and then made them accessible,
for example by providing breakout
boards or evaluation boards for the
GPS module or the accelerometer.
Since then, it’s turned into all sorts
of fun sensors and technologies,
and we’ve really expanded into a
bunch of different fields. As of just
the recently, we have just over 2,000
products for sale on the SparkFun
web site.
like I would want to work. The work
culture here is pretty laid back;
there’s certainly no dress code.
Also, over time people started
asking if they could bring their dogs
into work. My response was, “Well
I’m not really a dog person, but
if it would make you happier and
you can take care of your dogs, go
ahead and bring them in.” Then
the skateboards showed up, then
the loud music. So now we have
this wonderful culture of controlled
chaos. It’s crazy, but it makes for a
pretty good work environment, and
now we just have a bunch of friends
working together.
Can you tell us more about
what SparkFun is like today?
It’s turned into a wonderful
monster. We are based in Boulder,
Colorado—the same town as the
University of Colorado. We are now
at, I believe, 134 employees. Like
I said, it started with just me, and
then in about a year and a half I
graduated, and decided that I had
just barely enough work to hire a
friend of mine. I didn’t have enough
money to pay him, but I certainly
had enough work for him. Luckily,
the work brought in some money
and I was able to pay him. Then
very quickly it became obvious
that we needed a third person, and
we’ve just sort of scaled up from
there. Our building now is roughly
50,000 square feet, so the company
has grown to a pretty decent size
since it started.
How would you characterize
your business?
It is a mix. When we first started, we
were just a regular distributor. We
found cool parts from other people
and resold them. Once I graduated
from college I actually had the time
to design stuff. That’s when the
SparkFun products started. First
came a breakout board for a USB
serial chip, or a breakout board for an
accelerometer. Now, here in Boulder
we have all of our manufacturing,
testing, packaging and shipping
all in the same building. So out of
those roughly 2,000 products, we
design and build about 400–450 in-
house. And with the other products,
we provide the best quality from the
best manufacturers.
How many of your staff have
technical or electronics
backgrounds?
I believe that our engineering
crew is made up of 13 people, so
about 10 percent of the company.
That obviously means that there
are a lot of support staff that do
the manufacturing, shipping and
testing. But out of those in the
engineering group, there is a very
interesting variety of technical
backgrounds. Some come from
physics, some from the expected
electrical engineering or electrical
and computer engineering. We
also have one or two self-made
engineers who didn’t take the
traditional, formal academic route,
but eventually showed that they can
build some really amazing stuff,
which is why we are fortunate to
have them working for us.
In the early days, were there
any particular products or
components you started
selling that helped you take
off?
In the very beginning, while I was
an engineering student, I had
a fascination with GPS. I really
wanted to play with these brand-
new, dual-axis accelerometers. But
when I talked to the company that
sold them, they said it would cost
me $500–$600 for an evaluation kit.
I wasn’t willing to pay for it, nor did
I need the entire evaluation kit. I
just needed the breakout board—
an accelerometer soldered to a
What is the work culture like at
SparkFun?
It’s hard to describe until you see
it for yourself, but for better or for
worse I never had a “real job.” So
I had no preconceived notions of
what the work environment should
be like. I made a place where I felt
Are all of your designs part of
the open-source hardware
movement, or are they
proprietary designs?
Since about 2004, I started writing
5
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EEWebPULSE_2012_i0028.pdf
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