Embedded Electronics Design Services.
Our Services
We have the expertise to design any or all of the electronics and firmware/software in your product. Our involvement can range from one tricky technical area to complete turnkey design. We also have diverse experience with developing Android and Windows applications, and of course embedded firmware.
Product development (partial or full turn-key)
General engineering services
Proof of concept development and testing (to reduce risk)
Product life-cycle management
Design for manufacturing
Technologies
The latest and greatest – we’re already using it.
We love figuring things out, and for us, finding innovative designs and solutions feels more like fun than work. The more challenging, the more we like it. Even when we come up with a smart approach, we’ll look at ways to improve it.
Internet-of-things
We live in a world where data can be captured wherever it’s generated, and leveraged instantly using sensors in machines and wearables. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) depends on these wireless and wired devices that talk to each other for medical devices for patient monitoring, robotic manufacturing, smart cars and many other industries and applications. Odic has significant experience in the technologies that fall under the IoT and wearable umbrellas:
- Extremely low power devices, including hardware and firmware designed to function in very power-limited applications.
- The smallest packaging requirements, using passive and active components that are almost too small to see without a microscope.
- Extensive use of a variety of sensors, including movement, light, sound, video, and location.
- Experience with a of all kinds of output devices, including graphical displays, and haptic feedback.
- Devices that communicate with each other in various ways. This can be over wireless protocols, or over AC (powerline), legacy wired connections, or the Internet.
- Collecting data, pushing it to the cloud, and making decisions based on it.
- Wireless protocols including Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE or BT Smart), or proprietary protocols at various frequencies to solve specific problems.
- Cellular modems (M2M) to get data to the Internet.
- Secure protocols to get information from a sensor to the Internet safely.
Other Technologies
Our experience with embedded electronics reaches well beyond the Internet-of-Things:
- Lightweight “bare-metal” systems without operating systems
- Real-time operating systems (RTOS)
- Linux (embedded as well as PC)
- Wearables (battery powered, graphics, wireless)
- Wireless networking (WiFi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), 433/915MHz & 2.4GHz proprietary radios)
- Extremely low power designs for battery applications
- Video sensors (MIPI and USB)
- Audio capture and recording
- Sensors (temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, light, sound, motion, gas, force)
- Biometric measurement (ECG, EEG, HR, SPO2, skin temperature, activity and orientation)
- Computer and sensor interconnects (USB, SPI, A/D, D/A, I2C, Serial, Ethernet)
- Battery-charging and power management circuits
- User interface hardware (graphic displays, touchscreens)
- Motor and motion control
Specialties
Years of building broad experience with electronics design have allowed us to develop specialties that allow us to add even more value to a design. Listed below are some examples.
TINY DESIGNS IN TIGHT PLACES
When space is at a premium yet functionality cannot be compromised, Odic puts its extensive miniaturization experience to work. Using such packages as micro-BGA and 0201 components, Odic shrinks considerable functionality into very small places.
Case Study
Physiological status monitor
This small, body worn battery powered device includes an ECG front end that senses heart rate, an accelerometer used to measure activity level, orientation, and a temperature sensor that helps approximate body core temperature, as well as long term data logging and wireless connectivity. All of this is contained in a very small wear-and-forget package.
VERY LOW POWER ELECTRONICS
Designing power efficient electronics is much like constructing the lightest and most fuel-efficient car. If the materials are lightweight, the engine can be smaller and the mileage will increase without compromising performance. For us, lightweight materials translates to low power components and resourceful use of power management that is implemented both in hardware and firmware.
Over the years, Odic engineers have learned how to squeeze every microamp from a system when needed.
Case Study
Digital Security Token
When asked to re-design what was at the time a new a battery powered digital security device, Odic proposed a solution based on an extremely low power processor, a power miserly algorithm and strategic use of on-chip resources. The security token, running on a digital watch processor, ran for over 6 years on a small cell battery. Since the product was made in the millions of units per year, and the processor cost 60 cents less than its predecessor, our customer saved over $1M per year because of the new design.