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By Maheshwari (Head – Product design services)
St. Louis, USA/Chennai, India – Aug 4th 2010 — I have always been faced with a question whether or not this is a right Computer on Module Company to partner with. Well, here is a checklist to help you determine the COM partner.
Target Usage
It is important to identify the applications for which a COM is going to be used. Customers always have a range of applications and would want to have the computer on module working across their different applications. It is obvious that one does not want to develop expertise with the different COMs and would want to spend time on the target applications. Think about the applications you will be probably deploying in the next couple of years and see whether the COM can fit in there. Once this is done short list the companies that provide these COMs that meet your requirements.
Life Time
Some applications like defense demand that you have life time for at least up to 10 years. The customer might order a few thousand pieces after 7 years of production. This is probably one of the challenging ones that a module manufacturer faces as he has to depend on the processor manufacturer for the life time. And unless the processor manufacturer is really committed to that processor, there is no guarantee that he would be continuing the production of the same. The processor has to be supported with huge volumes to stay in production. With the silicon manufacturing process improving at this break-neck speed, the fabrication technology of today becomes obsolete day-after-tomorrow and hence the older processors using older fabrication technology are difficult to produce or tend to be costly in the long run. It would be too much to ask the module manufacturer for a life time of 10 years but see whether he is interested to provide a pin to pin compatible module after the lifetime with similar capabilities.
This I think is reasonable and most module manufacturers provide this. So do not slog away if the lifetime doesn’t match your expectations, ask the manufacturer if you can get a pin to pin compatible module and if you look at their history you will probably able to figure out this.
Support
This is the most important thing to see whether the COM Company has thorough documentation in their website to support their module. For customers interested in designing a custom baseboard using a COM, having a set of application notes on usage of the COM from the COM vendor would be of great help as it would place you on the next orbit of the production design directly. Sometimes you may find the documentation is old and not updated. This is a sigh that there is not enough done for customer support. Check whether the company provides you ticketing support in case you have queries. This is another feature that is necessary and would come to play when you design custom carrier boards around the COM.
Figure 1: Support Systems
You might have multiple queries and you need to make sure that it might be a chain of email exchanges and probably you would need a log of them, So, I recommend tickets system for support. Another thing is that you have to look for is design support. You need to know if the COM Company backed up by a solid design team that can support your stuff like custom carrier board schematics review. Before you buy the Evaluation boards ask the COM Company as what is the support they provide. Some companies offer free support for a carrier board schematics review.
Reference Designs
Also, check the availability of the design materials of the reference designs using the COM from the COM manufacturer. This will help a lot in custom design. As every manufacturer offers reference design for any of the chip they make, availability of design materials such as schematics, PCB layout files of the daughter board from the COM vendor would be useful, especially while designing a daughter board using their COM.
Design Services
Sometimes it makes sense if the COM Company is also offering design services. This might be an important point if you do not have time to build the carrier board or the base board and you want the COM Company to do it. In future, if you require any customization of Software, does the COM Company have the ability to take it up? Or if they are too small, would they be able to take it up on time? So if the COM Company has a large resource pool, they might be able to provide resources for customization of Software.
Partner Status
If you choose WinCE or Windows XP Embedded or Windows Vista Embedded, it is good to have a partner status of Gold Partner. This would mean accreditation by someone on their potential. Also, this would help doing design services like driver development / application development.
BSP Quality
Whatever may be the OS, one has to know whether or not the COM Company provides enough documentation on their BSP Features. It is very important to ask for Release Notes of the BSP before selecting it.
You don’t want to spend too much time on debugging the BSP. You would ideally want to spend more time on writing your application that will achieve the marketing specification. Read the release notes carefully before selecting the BSP.
BSP Source
In my opinion, you would need access to it when you debug the drivers and add more code to the OAL layers in WinCE. This may not be needed for most of the customers but having an option to license the source IMO is very important factor. So see whether the COM company is willing to do that.
Sample Applications
Check whether the evaluation board has got sample applications for the peripherals you are interested in. If you are not good in ‘C’, then Linux may not be the option but if you are good in ‘C’, you can choose Linux as the OS. If you are familiar with C# then Windows CE with .NET compact frame work is the better option. See whether the COM Company is offering application on top of .NET compact Framework
Pricing
While choosing a module, pricing is one of the key factors. However, other than pricing of the module in various volume categories, you need to look for.
• What is the cost of loading my target image into the COM during production? This is often missed and it is better to discuss this upfront with the COM Company. A customer would want to load your target applications also so that it can be shipped directly from the factory. This might also save you the application loading cost. So talk to the company about loading the Kernel, file system and application binaries as the modules during production. There are hidden costs and the cost of the module should be calculated on the basis of this.
• Runtime license loading – Does the COM Company offer runtime license loading on the module. This saves your time and hence cost.
• Review of schematics – What is the cost of reviewing carrier board schematics? Some of the COM companies provide it free and hence if your COM Company is charging for it, it has to be added to the price of the module.
• Support Hours cost – What is the cost of support hours? You cannot discount this cost and need to factor this too.
In all, pricing is very important, but at the volumes that COMs are procured, the unit price does not impact very much. But the choosing a lowest cost COM that is not supported well or supported at exorbitant cost, would be disaster to the company that is planning to use such low cost module. With the goal being to get the product in to market faster using the COM, one should understand that though the module cost is marginally higher, it is the support (even paid-support) availability is the key criteria than rock-bottom cost COMs with little or no support.
About e-con Systems:
e-con Systems, acknowledged by Microsoft as a Windows Embedded Gold Partner, is an embedded product development services company focused on end-end product development. e-con Systems has expertise in mobile application processors including PXA270, PXA300/PXA310, PXA320 and has been using its product engineering services to help customers on development of product like digital picture frames, point of sale terminals, video surveillance, Low vision aid equipments, handheld single board computers etc. among others.
Besides this, e-con provides systems integration services such as Windows Embedded CE or Linux BSP porting solutions and device driver development. Also e-con’s design services have been used by customers across the globe for hardware design of their products. Visit www.e-consystems.com
For more information please contact: Lakshmi Narsimhan [email protected]
[email protected]
e-con Systems Inc., +1 314 732 1152
e-con Systems India Pvt. Ltd., +91 44 42033600
Website: www.e-consystems.com/alioth.asp