| Feasibility Study
We provide feasibility studies for clients who are in the stage of exploring product requirements and possible implementation. With our long and extensive experience, we can quickly determine:
- Suitable technology for the application
- Achievable system features
- RF, digital hardware, and software architectures including off the shelf component recommendations and estimated custom engineering effort
System Engineering
In the first stages of product development, important decisions are made that will impact all other stages of the product life cycle. Product requirements are defined and translated into an architecture and specifications that drive the design, test, product costs, and development costs.
System Architecture
- Modulation types (OFDM, QPSK, QAM, GMSK, FSK, PSK)
- System capacity
- Frequency bands
- Propagation characteristics
Standards
- IEEE 802.11b, Wi-Fi, 802.11b, 802.11g
- IEEE 802.16
- CDMA
- PCS, cellular
Hardware Architecture
- Off-the-shelf modules or custom development
- Firmware vs FPGA vs ASIC implementation
Network access protocols
- Existing and proprietary
- Access/overhead/reliability optimization
RF Design
Frequency bands - 900 MHz ISM, 2.4 GHz ISM, 5 GHz ISM, UNII, DSRC, MMDS, WCS, cellular bands
Transmitters/modulators - FM, AM, FSK, QPSK, QAM, OFDM, low duty cycle, low power
Receivers/demodulators - high sensitivity, variable bandwidth, small form factor, low current
Synthesizers - audio to microwave, low phase noise, fast tuning, low spurious
Transceivers - full duplex, time division duplex (TDD), multi-channel
Power amps - high linearity for OFDM/QAM, high efficiency for FM, FSK, PSK
Filters - lumped element, microstrip, stripline, cavity
PCB Layout - full suite of layout tools
Antennas - small form factor, directional, omni, integrated or stand-alone
Digital Design
We are experienced in board designs, using the broad range of processor families such as ARM, PowerPC, various DSPs, FPGAs, various types of buses and serial interconnects.
The digital design as part of a wireless system can be tricky. High speed digital signals produces undisired interference to the radio circuitry which would need to be carefully designed and contained. We are specialized in dealing with these issues.
Software
General Expertise
- Requirements analysis / system design
- Software / hardware trade-off studies
- Performance analysis and optimization
- Implementation and test
Operating Systems / System Software
- Porting
- Board support packages
- Custom implementations
- Device drivers
- Ethernet, PCI, NV memory, bridges, A/D converters, UART, parallel port, E1, T1, ATM etc.
- Custom ASICs / FPGAs
- Networking protocols: TCP/IP, HDLC
- Commercial RTOS experience includes VxWorks, OSE, Nucleus, uC/OS-II, TI BIOS, SmartDSP and TinyOS.
- We’ve developed compact custom real time schedulers for a variety of applications not requiring a full operating system.
- Boot loaders
- Diagnostic software
Wireless Applications
- Wi-Fi
- Zigbee
- Bluetooth
- LMDS
- UMTS – 3GPP Layer 1 and Codec, HSDPA (both infrastructure and handset)
- Satellite communications
- Custom protocols
Other Applications
- Wired telecom (SONET, voice and data access systems)
- VoIP
- Security Electronics
- Defense
Target Processors
- ARM (ARM7, ARM9)
- Dallas / Maxim (8051-based microcontrollers)
- Atmel (AVR)
- PowerPC (750, 750FX, 860, 8260)
- Intel (Pentium)
- Motorola (M68HC11, MC68xxx)
- DSPs – ADS, Texas Instruments, Motorola/freescale, StarCore
Design Verification
One situation that we encountered often is that the client built a wireless device/system and some aspects of the design are not meeting specification. For instance, the operating range is too short, bit error rate too hgih, or the power consumption is too much. We provide the design verification and problem solving services for this type of situations, which include:
- Design reviews
- Resolution of design problems
- Debugging emmissions and radiation issues
- Compliance testing support
- Verification of designs over temperature
- Optimization of designs for manufacturing
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