Under the IoT Innovation Program, a session on how to develop your hardware idea from prototype to a product

1. How to Build
Hardware
Taking your Idea from Concept to Production
Omar Hiari – 4/7/2018

2. Background - Current Position
▪ Assistant Professor - Computer Engineering Department, GJU
▪ Co-Director of the Embedded Wireless IoT Research Lab
▪ Lab Website - http://ewiot.gju.edu.jo/
▪ Current Research Focus – Embedded Wireless Systems

3. Background - Past Industry Experience
Functional Safety Platform Architect
Technical Project Manager
Technical Project Manager

4. Background - Hardware Product Examples

5. I Created This, I’m Done, Right?

6. Not Even Close

7. Where Do I Need to Go?
Production
Ready
Prototype
Final
Product
Concept
Prove-Out

8. Can I Use Arduino Boards as is?
▪ If you check the Arduino website the answer is yes!
▪ Though, the more appropriate question is, should you?
▪ In most cases the answer is no if you plan to produce at
volume
▪ Arduino boards most likely are not optimized for your
custom application cost, power, or size.

9. Why Custom Design? - The Cost Breakdown
▪ Two type of costs:
▪ Non-Recurring Costs (NRE) – The one time cost/investment of developing the product
▪ Ex. Tools, Software Licenses, Engineers, Test Equipment, PCB stencils for production…etc.
▪ Recurring Costs – The cost to manufacture each unit aka unit cost
▪ Ex. production costs and material cost
▪ 𝑝𝑒𝑟− 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡= 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡+ ​ 𝑁 𝑅𝐸/𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒

10. Its All About Production Volume
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
PerProductCost
Volume (Thousands)
Off The Shelf Product
Optimized Product

11. How to do Hardware?
The V Model For Embedded Development

12. A Different View
Concept
System Design
& Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production

13. The Concept Phase
Concept
System Design &
Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production
▪ This could be your initial prototype – what you already have
▪ Helps you better define your product
▪ Helps you prove out your idea
▪ Could be useful for some user feedback/testing

14. The System Definition Phase
Concept
System Design &
Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production
▪ Idea - Document your product specifications through requirements
▪ Arguably the most important part of the development cycle
▪ What is the product is supposed to do (specification)? How is it supposed to do it
(requirements)?
▪ Need to document what the product features are and the technical aspect of how
to achieve implementation
▪ Determine what certifications you need – certifications will impose certain
technical requirements on your product
▪ Involve production partners early – production has specific requirements for
hardware
▪ Diagnostics and Repair Requirements – Does your product need to include any?

15. Certifications, Why do I Need Them?
▪ Certifications are required for market access
▪ Certain markets do not allow access of electronic equipment
without certain certifications
▪ Involving a manufacturing partner early that has experience with
these certifications can be very helpful
▪ Finding a problem after production is going to cost a lot!

16. Production Requirements
▪ Production plants have specific requirements for PCBs and Testing
▪ Occasionally referred to as DFT (Design for Test) and DFM (Design For Manufacturing)
▪ Seeedstudio (https://www.seeedstudio.com/) has a free DFM manual available
online

17. The Product Implementation & Testing Phases
Concept
System Design &
Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production
▪ Idea – keep on building iterated prototypes until you reach a prototype that
meets all product requirements
▪ Typically higher complexity products require more iterations
▪ Correctness should be verified through testing
▪ Testing documentation required also could have multiple levels of testing
▪ A versioning repository (ex. Git) is crucial to keep track of changes and test
results!!

18. Some Useful HW Development Tools
▪ Open source HW dev tools (Schematic Capture, PCB Layout)
▪ Fritzing (http://fritzing.org/)
▪ KiCAD EDA (http://kicad-pcb.org/)
▪ Partially Free tools
▪ Autodesk Eagle (https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/overview)

19. The Production Phase
Concept
System Design &
Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production
▪ Idea – Launch your product and build to scale
▪ After line is setup, a pilot run is executed (ex. 100
units) to determine line rate and verify the products are
still performing to spec
▪ Things to consider are test time, test coverage, and
packaging
▪ Most importantly, make sure you select a good
manufacturing partner!

20. The Production Phase – Ex. PCB Assembly Line
Concept
System Design &
Definition
Product
Implementation Testing Production

21. Concluding Remarks
▪ Building product grade hardware is not easy, but doable
▪ Create a solid plan for different events that need to happen
▪ Capturing requirements properly helps capture costs accurately and prevent later
mishaps
▪ Mistakes in hardware, the later in the process they happen, the worse the cost!
▪ If your product has a mechanical aspect to it (Ex. housing) process is very similar
▪ Document, document, document!

22. Thank You!
Questions?
Feel Free to Email:
omar.hiari@gju.edu.jo