Hardware
Design
| Development of
Mini-ITX form factor Intel Pentium M processor ( 855GME chipset
) Industrial motherboard |
 |
Customer
An Industrial motherboard designer and manufacturer in USA
Business challenge
To design and build a prototype of Mini-ITX form factor motherboard
using Intel Pentium M processor and 855GME + ICH4 chipset
Solution
Caravel designed and built a prototype of the motherboard using
Intel Pentium M processor and 855GME chipset. It has standard features
such as dual SATA, LVDS for flat panel display, dual Ethernet, PCI
riser and mini PCI slots etc along with standard motherboard interfaces.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 10 layer
PCB, prototype board bring-up, validating the board for various
standard operating systems. Caravel transferred all the production
documents to the customer for carrying out the production at their
Contract Manufacturer’s facility.
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| Development
of EPIC form factor Intel LV Pentium M processor ( 855GME chipset
) Industrial motherboard |
|
Customer
An Industrial motherboard designer and manufacturer in USA
Business challenge
To design and build a prototype EPIC form factor motherboard using
Intel LV Pentium M / ULV Celeron M processor and 855GME + ICH4 chipset
Solution
Caravel designed and built a prototype of the motherboard using
Intel LV Pentium M / ULV Celeron processor and 855GME chipset. It
has standard features such as dual SATA, LVDS for flat panel display,
Giga Ethernet, PC/104-plus and mini PCI slots, SODIMM slot for memory
etc along with standard motherboard interfaces.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 10 layer
PCB, prototype board bring-up, validating the board for various
standard operating systems. Caravel transferred all the production
documents to the customer for carrying out the production at their
Contract Manufacturer’s facility.
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| Development
of Baby-AT form factor Intel Pentium M processor ( 855GME chipset
) Industrial motherboard with legacy ISA slots |
|
Customer
An Industrial motherboard designer and manufacturer in USA
Business challenge
To design and build a prototype of Baby-AT form factor motherboard
using Intel Pentium M processor and 855GME chipset with support
for legacy ISA slots
Solution
Caravel designed and built a prototype of the motherboard using
Intel Pentium M processor and 855GME chipset. It has standard features
such as dual SATA, LVDS for flat panel display, dual Ethernet, 4
PCI slots and 4 legacy ISA slots along with 2 SODIMM slots for upto
2GB memory etc along with standard motherboard interfaces.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 6 layer
PCB, prototype board bring-up, validating the board for various
standard operating systems. Caravel transferred all the production
documents to the customer for carrying out the production at their
Contract Manufacturer’s facility.
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| Development
of a reference motherboard to validate a proprietary 32 bit
RISC processor |
|
Customer
A leading research house
Business Challenge
To develop a reference motherboard on the lines of industry standard
PC architecture to validate a 32-bit RISC processor based on proprietary
architecture with instruction set. The developed platform should
easy porting of LINUX operating system to prove that this processor
can be used for workstation application
Solution
Caravel designed the motherboard using industry standard PC architecture
using Northbridge (Motorola MPC107), Southbridge ( Winbond ), super
I/O ( National ) and 4 PCI slots for inserting off-the-shelf VGA,
SCSI and Ethernet cards to make it a standard workstation.
Caravel developed BIOS for this processor and chipset on the lines
of industry standard PC BIOS using cross platform tools available
for this processor. Caravel also developed LINUX drivers for some
peripherals on the board.
The customer first synthesized the RISC processor in a Xilinx Virtex
II FPGA in low speed mode. First prototype is developed to support
this FPGA and processor functionality was proven.
Later the customer converted this into an ASIC working at higher
speeds and Caravel modified the board to support this ASIC and full
functionality was proven.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 12 layer
PCB, Assembly, prototype board bring-up using the BIOS developed.
Caravel also helped the customer at various stages in porting the
Operating System. After successful testing of prototype Caravel
carried out production of 8 numbers of these workstations.
Caravel worked closely with the customer processor development
team to come out with a time bound solution.
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| Development
of a Ruggedized Freescale PowerQUICC MPC860 processor based
Encoder / Decoder board |
|
Customer
A leading Defense research Laboratory
Business Challenge
To develop and manufacture a Ruggedized qualified Encoder / Decoder
subsystem board using Freescale MPC860:PowerQUICC Integrated Communication
processor
Solution
Caravel designed and built the prototype board based on MPC860 processor
with 4 MB SRAM, 4 MB Flash and 10mbps Ethernet channel. The board
also had two channels of 64KB dual port RAM channels for communication
with other subsystems. The card has 32 channel 12bit A/D converter,
2 channel 12 bit D/A converter, 32 channels of Digital IO and PCM
stream generator and bit synchronizer to decode the command PCM
data. The card also has 4 RS422 channels for communication with
other systems.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 10layer
PCB, Assembly, prototype board bring-up using the board bring-up
routines developed. Later Caravel also developed built-in self test,
driver routines for all peripherals onboard.
The manufactured board was put through various ESS tests such as
Vibration, low and High temperature operation, shock tests etc to
qualify the board to mil standards.
Later Caravel carried out the production of 6 boards to customer’s
requirement.
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| Development
of a Ruggedized Freescale HCS12 CPU based PCM Encoder system |
|
Customer
A leading Defense research Laboratory
Business Challenge
To develop and manufacture a Ruggedized qualified PCM Encoder system
Freescale MC9S12DP256BMPV Microcontroller
Solution
Caravel designed and built the system containing two cards. Main
encoder card is based on prototype board is based on MC9S12DP256BMPV
Microcontroller with 32 analog input channels ( 14bit A/D converter
), 32 bit digital I/O channels, Bi-phase PCM data output channel
and multiple RS232 ports. The second card is power supply card with
DC-DC converter with associated EMI filters working on an input
of 28V DC.
Caravel carried out the design of the board, layout in 6 layer
PCB, Assembly, prototype board bring-up using the board bring-up
routines developed. Later Caravel also developed built-in self test,
driver routines for all peripherals onboard.
Caravel also carried out the milgrade qualified mechanical enclosure
design with D38999 circular connectors in aerospace grade aluminum.
The manufactured system was put through various ESS tests such
as Vibration, low and High temperature operation, shock tests etc
to qualify the system to mil standards.
Later Caravel carried out the production of 12 systems to customer’s
requirement.
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| Development
of a Ruggedizedd Analog Devices Micro converter ADuC 834 based
Error Generation Card |
|
Customer
A leading Defense research Laboratory
Business Challenge
To develop and manufacture a Ruggedized qualified error generation
card based on Analog Devices AduC 834 based micro converter.
Solution
Caravel designed and built the board based on ADuC micro converter
ADuC 834 with an additional high speed 12 bit ADC ( 130 kSPS ) and
serial ports. The card is designed with Stachup connectors to stack
this card with other associated cards in the system.
Caravel carried out the design of this circular shaped board, layout
in 6 layer PCB, Assembly, prototype board bring-up using the board
bring-up routines developed. Later Caravel also developed built-in
self test, driver routines for all peripherals onboard.
The manufactured system was put through various ESS tests such
as Vibration, low and High temperature operation, shock tests etc
to qualify the system to mil standards.
Later Caravel carried out the production of 10 cards to customer’s
requirement.
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| DUAL
TI TMS 320LF2407 DSP based Variable Frequency Converter Board
Bring-up |
|
Customer
A leading provider of distributed power systems related products
and solutions in Canada.
Business Challenge
The customer designed a board for Variable frequency converter application
and needed a outsourced partner bring-up the board by writing necessary
FPGA code, DSP code and drivers to test the functionality of various
peripherals on the board. Carryout modifications on the board to
correct the mistakes identified.
Solution
The board was based on two TI DSPs TMS 320LF2407 connected to other
peripherals on the board using Altera Cyclone FPGA EP1C6Q240 . The
board has peripherals such as 32 optically isolated Digital I/Os,
16 Analog input channels along with Analog Devices Isolation amplifiers,
16 fibre out PWM channels and 16 fibre input feedback channels.
Caravel developed the necessary boot-up code DSPs using TI Code
composer studio, code for Altera Cyclone FPGA in AHDL using Quartus
II design software, developed driver routines to check and validate
the functionality of each onboard peripheral. The mistakes and corrections
required on the board were noted and modifications were carried
out on the board file of the PCB and modified PCB files were sent
to the customer.
Caravel got involved in board bring-up stage of the development
and offered a significant cost reduction to the customer.
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| Re-engineering
of a legacy hand held calibration terminal to take care of component
obsolescence and cost reduction |
|
Customer
Manufacturer of a broad portfolio of liquid level, flow, and pressure
sensors in USA.
Business Challenge
The customer had a legacy handheld calibration terminal designed
using the good old intel 8085 microprocessor and related peripherals.
These components are not readily available in the market and the
BOM cost is also very high. The customer was looking for a partner
who can redesign this terminal to take care of obsolescence of components
keeping the functionality, user interface etc as it is.
Solution
Caravel carried out the study of firmware in detail and prepared
the documentation. Caravel redesigned the circuit board using 8051
micro-controller. The firmware was rewritten / ported to 8051 from
8085 code. The redesigned system was thoroughly tested with end
equipment for complete functionality.
The component count (ICs) is reduced to 3 nos from original component
count of 16 nos and the cost BOM was brought down to 30% of original
BOM cost. The reliability of the system also increased due to reduced
number of components.
The customer gained in terms of reduced cost of BOM, less component
inventory, less manufacturing cost and improved reliability. |
