Surprisingly the hardest part of creating a new product is taking a working prototype and ramping into production. It is more complex than the architecture of the system, the hardware and software design, creating a working prototype, or taking the system through certification/qualification. The reason is simple; production requires discipline, logistics, and manufacturing at large volumes, where simple mistakes can be very expensive.
Smoothly ramping a new product into production is always the goal but seldom the reality. While it may be convenient to start thinking about production once the prototype is working, this will lead to many headaches. Successfully ramping into production starts its journey very early in the process. That means it requires paying attention to the details all the way through the process, starting with the system architecture. One thing we have learned by taking many products into production:
“Just because you can build 1 doesn’t mean you can build 10. Just because you can build 10 doesn’t mean you can build 100. And this continues with each order of magnitude.”
This paper discusses some of the insights an aids that we at Octavo have learned over the years to help you minimize the issues as you design and ramp your product into production.
The Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) market is expected to reach over $130B in the next five years. Driven by the rise in construction globally, plus refurbishment of homes and businesses, the demand to put in new units is increasing rapidly. Smarter equipment with more sensors, higher efficiency, reliability and ease of maintenance are priorities for new designs. As with most rapidly growing electronics markets, the need for fast turnaround of embedded systems designs while maintaining cost controls and increasing features is critical to a strong go to market strategy. Increasingly these systems also need be configured and controlled based on information being received in real time. In order to keep up with the rapid rate at which technology is transforming the HVAC industry, design engineers need a flexible platform on which they can spend time developing the features that make their application unique and efficient, and not have to channel valuable resources into tedious complexities such as power management and DDR routing. They also need reliable, open source hardware and software design tools. The OSD335x-SM System in Package based on the TI AM335x, is the perfect solution as it provides engineers the solid foundation that they need. With the availability of low cost development tools, such as PocketBeagle® from BeagleBoard.org®, rapid prototyping HVAC features is easy. (Read More…)
Having a full Linux computer, such as the OSD335x System in Package (SiP), the size of a coin enables abundant creativity when designing new IoT applications. The global health sensors market is in the billions and increasing at a rapid rate. When a market changes that quickly, designers need a flexible platform so they can spend time on the features they want to add. They also need reliable, open source hardware and software design tools. Therefore, the OSD335x-SM SiP, the smallest Texas Instruments AM335x module available, gives a solid foundation to build a health monitor.
The OSD3358-SM-RED is our Reference, Evaluation and Development platform for the OSD335x Family of System-in-Package (SiP) devices. It was designed to make it easy for anybody with some knowledge or a desire to learn to begin developing applications on the OSD335x family of SiPs. In fact, it is so easy to use even a Marketing Person like me can quickly develop on it!
With the exciting upsets, shoot-outs and close matches of the FIFA World Cup games this year, predicting who will win each game has been challenging. Therefore, we turned to technology and built an electronic Magic 8-Ball to help make decisions for our bracket.
Decide New Features Quickly with Rapid Prototyping
Fortunately, developers can now rapidly prototype with the OSD3358 System-in-Package (SiP) using the BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle®and MikroElektronika click boards™. BeagleBoard.org® is a 501c3 Foundation focused on education. PocketBeagle® is a completely open source, highly affordable super tiny single board computer featuring the OSD335x-SM SiP. One of the most exciting things about the BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle® is that is conforms to the standard of the MikroElektronika mikroBUS™ click boards™. This is an open standard interface for which over 400 compatible add-on boards have been created. These compact boards provide a range of added functionality and features from sensors to connectivity and storage. The OSD3358 SiP has the performance capability to process multiple sensor inputs, process information quickly and perform actions such as driving displays, motor control, or communication.
Developers can now rapidly prototype with the OSD3358 System-in-Package (SiP) using BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle® and MikroElektronika click boards™. This blog will describe the procedure for interfacing a new click board™ with PocketBeagle® using the OLED-C click board™ as an example. BeagleBoard.org® is a 501c3 Foundation focused on education. PocketBeagle® is a completely open source, highly affordable super tiny single board computer featuring the OSD335x-SM SiP. One of the most exciting things about the BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle® is that is conforms to the standard of the MikroElektronika mikroBUS™ click boards™.
There is a Hackster.io project page with the instructions for you to follow along, download the code and build your own project with this great learning platform. We’ve also added a Hackster.io project page with full instructions to build, test and add device tree overlays to BeagleBoard. org® bb.org community repository for click boards™ if you are adding a new one. (Read More…)
The application engineering team at Octavo Systems is always looking for cool ways to showcase the distinct and creative ways our devices can be used. Recently, we built a tweeting Rubik’s cube solver to showcase some of the IoT and industrial control capabilities of the OSD335x Family of System-in-Package(SiP) devices. It was amazing how easy it was to give the robot a voice and allow it to talk to the world via social media. So, we decided to explore more IoT capabilities the OSD335x Family of devices can implement without a lot of development overhead. This time, we wanted to incorporate human interaction into the device. What better opportunity than to explore America’s favorite IoT phenomenon, Alexa. So, we whipped out a BeagleBoard.org® PocketBeagle® and got to work. Though our vision for this IoT project is bigger than just implementing Amazon’s Alexa voice service on the PocketBeagle, this is a good place to take a break and showcase a simple step by step way to get your PocketBeagle to be a “man’s best friend” personal assistant. Check out the Hackster.io page for the steps.(Read More…)
With the introduction of Siri, Cortana, Alexa and other voice based personal assistants; communicating with computers using voice has become the order of the day. Voice communication also makes things more intuitive and definitely cooler. People have been using various versions of electronic speech synthesis since the 1950’s and it has come a long way since our Founder, Gene Frantz helped develop the Speak & Spell, utilizing the first single-chip voice synthesizer. However, the most famous Text-to-Speech (TTS) synthesizer was used by the great scientist, Stephen Hawking, starting in the late 1980’s as a result of degradation of his natural abilities from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr Hawking’s synthesizer went silent this month, and the scientific community for speech synthesis and many other areas are grateful for his tremendous contributions.
Since TTS technology has matured, many resources are available including open source libraries like eSpeak and Flite that can be easily incorporated into projects. This article helps you install and use TTS synthesizers for any board using the OSD335x family.
The Embedded World Conference in Nuremberg, Germany last week provided an opportunity for the Octavo Systems team to engage with dynamic and innovative companies from around the globe. In its 16th year, this leading exhibition for the international embedded community hosted over 32,000 engineers from 78 countries. With more than 2,000 sessions, the technical engagement level was at an all time high.
