Custom Electronics design - Prototyping and Product Development
We can work with you from A to Z and take your idea from napkin sketch to a prototype or a final product
The two major stages of Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and Electronics design are: Prototyping and Product Development.
Prototyping occurs at the earliest stage of design and is somewhat experimental in its nature (where theoretical design undergoes iteration and testing to develop hardware that can meet specifications). A validated design in its final iteration passes onto the next stages of the design flow (i.e. product development). The outcome of prototyping is a successful design that is accurate, efficient and meets specifications. We strive to accomplish this with as few prototype iterations as possible to maximize time and resources.
prototyping stage aims to:
- Define a circuit schematic quickly
- Validate circuit characteristics
- Transfer a schematic to layout easily
- Validate behaviour of the design
reasons to prototype are numerous:
- Cutting edge innovation always includes a risk of failure: Prototypes allow to quickly eliminate approaches that don’t work to focus on the ones that do.
- Pinpoint and hone to project requirements: Nearly 50% of all project costs are attributed to rework due to inadequately defined project requirements. A working prototype can demonstrate the functionality and help to solidify requirements for the final design.
- Technically understand the problem: Operational prototype can address both the foreseen and unforeseen technical challenges of a design. The solutions developed in prototyping stage can be applied in a more elegant system design during product development.
- Design conflict resolution: A prototyping stage allows to investigate several different implementations of the feature and benchmark the resulting performance to analyze the trade-offs of each approach. This ensures that correct design decisions are made.
- Increase funding probability: A prototype demonstrates the feasibility of an idea and lowers investment risks. Therefore, prototyping increases the probability of attracting investors.
Product Development is about making a PCB ready for a final application. The prototype has already met the design specifications (filtering, amplification, acquisition, measurement etc…) and now we can implement the validated design in copper using the best practices. At this stage a circuit layout expert will prepare the design for manufacturing and strive to increase product efficiency.
Whereas there are a number of companies that offer PCB layout, manufacturing and assembly services, they require a finalized design as a customer input. We can work with you from A to Z and take your idea from napkin sketch to a prototype or a final product.