Electronic Engineering

Electronic Engineering (3)

Why perform software engineering and user interface coding while performing electronic engineering ?

To be able to use the device, the user has to interact with it. Most of time user will interact via user interface.

 

What solution we provide for software engineering and user interface coding during product development of electronic or IT product ?

User interface can be implemented on different platform : Windows of course, but also iOs, Android, Linux etc... 

 

How do we perform user interface coding and software engineering ?

The firmware engineer will be mostly in charge of:

- Developing and coding firmware in order to achieve the product functionality and specification.

- Optimizing the code so that the IC can run the program more efficiently: run faster, with less instruction and consume less power

- Adapt and optimize user interface

 

What benefit do you get when contracting with us for software engineering and user interface coding

One of the main advantage of making us develop your firmware is you can control your product 100% without being dependant of your manufacturer for any customization you want to do on your product.

We work closely with IC manufacturer in China and Taiwan so we get local support and we have fast response. We can then design and customize firmware quickly and efficiently (which most of the Chinese manufacturer can do as they sub-contract firmware coding to other companies)

It worth mentioning that if duplicate a PCBA is easily doable by reverse engineering, doing so with a compiled firmware without having the source is much more challenging. On this base duplicate a product without having access the firmware is difficult. For this reason, being the only one to have access to it is strategically an advantage.

Why perform firmware coding when doing product development for an electronic product ?

If chipset (Integrated Circuit) is the electronic brain of your product, then firmware (embedded software) is without any doubt the intelligence which is loaded inside this brain and used to perform task, action, operation by getting input in order to generate output. Without any intelligence the IC can not do anything and doesn't worth much more than its weight in silicium.

Unfortunately, when you develop a new product and buy an IC to build this new system, the vendor of the IC  doesn't supply you with the intelligence which you are supposed to load inside the brain of this components to make your product working. The reason of this is because from a single IC you can create so many different kind of system and configuration type that a one size fit all firmware simply doesn't exist. So, this is your duty to develop your own firmware to make the function of your system being active and workable. Those function may include: power management, input and output data management, memory management, data transmission management, ...

Because the firmware is the program managing interface between hardware and software, coding a firmware require both programming  and hardware skills. It also require a solid knowledge in the system architecture you are working on. Without this large knowledge, coding a firmware may be a complex task. It even add up one layer of difficulty when the documentation of the components is only supplied in Chinese language and not very well organized.

 

What solution we provide for firmware coding during product development of electronic or IT product ?

Firmware is one of the keystone of your electronics product. For this reason, in order to keep full control on the Intellectual Property of the product we develop for you,  (unless very special case) we code firmware in-house and keep having access to the source code.

Our firmware engineer take care to model the embedded software in order to achieve functionality requirement by implementing code development and testing.

 

How do we perform firmware coding ?

The firmware engineer will be mostly in charge of:

- Developing and coding firmware in order to achieve the product functionality and specification.

- Optimizing the code so that the IC can run the program more efficiently: run faster, with less instruction and consume less power

- Adapt and optimize user interface

 

What benefit do you get when contracting with us for firmware development

One of the main advantage of making us develop your firmware is you can control your product 100% without being dependant of your manufacturer for any customization you want to do on your product.

We work closely with IC manufacturer in China and Taiwan so we get local support and we have fast response. We can then design and customize firmware quickly and efficiently (which most of the Chinese manufacturer can do as they sub-contract firmware coding to other companies)

 

It worth mentioning that if duplicate a PCBA is easily doable by reverse engineering, doing so with a compiled firmware without having the source is much more challenging. On this base duplicate a product without having access the firmware is difficult. For this reason, being the only one to have access to it is strategically an advantage.

Designing PCBA and Developping Electronics Board for Product Development of Electronic or IT items in China

When developing a new electronic product, you will have to design a PCBA capable to meet your product functionality. Of course the cost of the bill of material of this PCBA will be very sensitive as directly it will influence your capacity to sell face to your competitor. The battle of the price is more and more present and this is on the bill of material which electronics component are part of that game is played.

For this reason choosing the right electronic solution and the right architecture is ultra important and is a key criteria which has to be taken seriously. On the market, for a same function or application to realize you may find various possibility. Some electronics architecture are designed in the USA, other in Europe, some in Taiwan, and other in China. Some of them have cheap main IC cost but require an extra set of all third party components around which increase the global cost. Other are all integrated IC but the main IC are more expensive per unit than the one which need to be added with other components around.

Not surprisingly, Asian one are the most competitive in terms of cost and their performance are steadily increasing to tend to reach western one.

If you plan for example to design a bluetooth gadget using bluetooth Low Energy, you can either use a CSR IC at high price increasing your Bill Of Material cost or you can use a chinese or taiwanese equivalent cheaper to realize the same function. Problem: the chinese or taiwanese IC will only come with chinese speaker customer support and a chinese written 800 page user manual.

Out of the cost, other criteria may affect your choice of IC: stability, reliability, availability, life cycle of IC, possibility to add some option for future version of your product (modularity).

Optimizing Electronic Design for Manufacturing in China

Our Electronic Engineering Services is fully dedicated to supply advice and decision plan about which components can be used and which one can not be used face to your requirement. We will scan all the solution possible to realize your product and we will choose the most appropriate one both in terms of performance, quality and cost.

Being able to choose and optimize the choice of an architecture and a solution require multiple skills: If having a strong technical background is essential, owning  a solid knowledge of the asian IC ecosystem and market is also crucial because it ables to choose the best calibrated system allowing to reduce the cost of the bill of material while not compromising quality and performance of the system.

Optimize cost by choosing the right component mean also being capable to take a component which is not oversized for the function required. Otherwise, for realizing the same function the cost of the bill of material will be too high and your competitor will have no difficulty to be placed on the market while you will be struggling with your high cost. Everything is a question of dosage, and this dosage require skills and knowledge.

Once the choice of this system being done, electronics design and engineering activities can start to give birth to the pcba by establish schematics, routing, and editing Gerber file. During this phase, the hardware engineer will take in consideration all the elements of the specifications of your requirement and will especially model his design face to the need of passing CE, ROHS, FCC, UL, WEEE certification.

The hardware engineer will work hand to hand with the mechanical engineer to make sure its PCBA and its components can fit the enclosure and other parts constraints.

 

Electronic Hardware Engineering in China for Product Development of Electronic and IT item 

The Electronics Hardware Engineer will especially be in charge of :

                - Selecting the right solution face to the specifications and target price

                - Establish the bill of material of the pcba

                - Establish Block Diagram of the electronic system

                - Draw schematics (component mapping)

                - Operate PCBA layout (will take in consideration certification requirement)

                - Edit Gerber file

                - Follow up with manufacturing for troubleshooting production

 

How you can benefit from our Electronic Hardware Engineering Service in China 

Considering, the bill of material optimization is crucial and understanding that the most cost effective components and solution are found in Asia, the benefit to develop electronics in Asia doesn't need to be demonstrated.

As we regularly monitor Asian electronics market to stay up to date about the last chipset being released by manufacturer you will benefit our expertise of electronics and asian ecosystem knowledge to accelerate and optimize the development of your product.

Our company address

1

PAG Electronics - Shenzhen  

Shahe industry area, Baishizhou, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, 518053, China
2

PAG Electronics - Shanghai

Room 1019, No.100 Nanshan Road, Shanghai, China