ur customers come to us because they are interested in their products functioning properly and reliably over a long period of time and under all the intended conditions of use, and being easy to maintain and upgrade. They also wish to minimize total product costs, and maximizing manufacturing yields. Here are some of the major factors by which we evaluate our professional performance, and a brief outline of how we achieve excellent results.

Requirements specification: The first key to achieving full product functionality under all conditions of use is properly understanding the requirements at the outset, stating them in a correct, complete and agreed specification, and keeping the specification up-to-date throughout the design cycle.

Application of diverse engineering skills: Our expertise in a wide spectrum of electronics areas enables us to rapidly generate complex analog and mixed-signal designs that work reliably first time.

Design procedure: In order to meet the specifications, we design methodically with constant reference to the requirements specification. As the design proceeds, flaws and omissions in the specification are rectified.

Peer review, testing and simulation: To ensure that a design will work first time, we check circuitry by peer design review, simulation, and real-life testing at every stage. Where possible, we test critical circuits before sending a design to the PCB artwork designer. To this end, we keep an extensive stock of electronic components in our lab, and are well organized for extremely swift access to other components.

Acceptance testing: Before putting a design into production, the best gauge of correct functionality is formal testing against an ATP (Acceptance Test Procedure) that relates to each and every requirement stated in the specification.

Good engineering practice: To achieve good reliability, we work to strict design rules, such as working within stated component stress limits, and leaving adequate safety margins (e.g. avoiding "typical" device voltage, current and timing parameters).

Simulation and testing: Circuit simulation and testing are not only performed in order to achieve design functionality, but are also crucial for ensuring reliability. Probing a prototype circuit with an oscilloscope can help spot dangerous issues such as unforeseen transient voltages that, if left untreated, might shorten product lifetimes.

Second-sourcing: For optimal manufacturability and minimum cost, we avoid single-source components as far as possible. We will ensure an alternative source of supply for all custom components that we design and specify, such as switching power supply magnetics.

Use of international distributors: As far a possible, we use components that are easily available from well-known international distributors. This helps ensure that components will be available at short notice and reasonable cost.

Early involvement of all project participants: Involving industrial and mechanical designers, PCB artwork designers and the assembly plant at an early stage will help ensure that the product can be easily assembled and that yields will be high.

Getting to the root cause of problems: Our experience tells us never to ignore anything that defies explanation just because it might seem irrelevant or statistically unimportant. Unexplained phenomena usually have an impact on product yield and also tend to worsen with time. Therefore, we make a supreme effort to understand the root cause of any problem, and come up with a complete, and preferably simple solution.

Doing things the right way: The expression "more haste, less speed" is as applicable to good engineering as to anything else. For example, drawing up a requirements specification before starting to write code and develop circuitry will avoid having to redesign portions of the product and add complicated and potentially unreliable patches that also tend to be hard to maintain.

Good organization: Preferring concurrent design steps over sequential ones, where possible; thinking and acting in good time; and involving all relevant people and organizations at an early stage. These are all critical ways by which we can get your product to market in the shortest possible time.

Low-level simulation testing: We pre-test critical circuitry and sections of code using simulation and hand-wired circuit prototypes before integrating them into a complete board or chip design, to help ensure that everything will fall into place swiftly and smoothly when the modules are connected together. We design right-first-time ASICs by following careful thoroughly-explained design with equally thorough simulation.

Standardization: To allow a product design to be maintained and upgraded, and to allow HDL and software code to be easily migrated between designs (to save development time and expense), we use only widely-accepted HDLs (Hardware Description Languages) and software languages, such as VHDL and C.

Documentation: The key to maintaining, modifying and upgrading a design, and reusing portions of circuitry and code in multiple products is ample documentation that explains the purpose of each module, the inputs and outputs, the rationale behind the design operation, and the signal or logic flow.