It's an exciting time to be interested in programming languages as the abundance of computing power, even in the smallest devices around us, makes almost every language a viable choice for implementation. Almost.
While it is true that we have quad-core Raspberry Pi computers and the term "bare metal" gets thrown around a lot, the reality of chips and architectures used in commercial embedded devices often create friction between the hardware and software world.
The journey of a design from engineering sign-off all the way to customer shipment takes many months of hard work and the smallest of hiccups could translate to severe delays. With many actors involved, how does it all work? What is involved in designing and shipping a consumer product with high volume manufacturing in mind?
This talk will give the audience a behind the scenes look at what it takes to ship electronics products at scale, particularly focusing on the approach, dialogue and the processes required to run a successful manufacturing project.
Tinkering with hardware has never been easier and anyone can build the next big gizmo in the comfort of their home with a very basic understanding of electronics and a couple of inexpensive modules. The proliferation of hobbyist prototyping platforms such as the Arduino and Raspberry Pi and the ecosystems built around these projects enable tinkerers and hackers alike turn their ideas into reality with relative ease. Meanwhile, turning a one-off prototype into a product that can be shipped is a very different proposal which can take a very long time and be rather costly, unlike the quick and painless iteration cycles in prototyping. From the factory processes to regulatory approvals, shipping hardware products require multi disciplinary thinking and experience. This talk will give the audience an overview of the long and arduous process of getting a hardware product into the market, focusing on areas that differ greatly between the hardware and the software worlds.
While the definition of the term IoT (i.e: Internet of Things) is as cloudy as the “cloud”, everyone seems to be doing it. With excitement levels reaching stratospheric levels, the amount of buzzword-driven articles and colourful (and oh so unnecessary) abstract vector drawings that depict toasters communicating with cars have essentially made lives of many engineers who just want to build things a living hell.
This talk will strip back the layers of marketing and aim to answer the question: “Which hardware platform should you use for building connected devices?”. With the plethora of chips/single board computers and specifically IoT-branded offerings out there, the platform choice does get a little difficult at times. By breaking down the application at hand into certain key requirement categories, this process could be simplified. There will also be mention of some of the most popular hardware platforms and how they differ from each other.
With numerous easily accessible embedded platforms around and concepts such as rapid prototyping and crowdfunding now being useful things as opposed to just buzzwords, designing the Next Big Thing without leaving your study is becoming a common story for makers and tinkerers.
While it is true that going from an idea to a finished product has never been easier thanks to the abundance of design resources and affordable manufacturing services, designing for volume manufacturing requires a different mindset that usually does not apply to casual weekend hacks. From component choice to packaging and logistics, there are several elements that needs to be taken into consideration, as they may cause significant headaches otherwise.
This talk will provide an overview of electronics manufacturing process, covering details such as managing design data, handling dependencies, component and process choices, testing and certification and several other aspects of DFM: Design for Manufacturability.
Linux is accepted as a standard component of the Internet of Things domain. With the abundance of development platforms and the abhorrent state of vendor provided SDKs, getting started with and more importantly the maintenance of Linux powered devices is pretty much a dark art these days.
This talk focuses on the mass market hardware platforms of interest to folks building the Next Great IoT ProductTM and how the development could be sped up with OpenWRT. To supplement the topic of product development, a couple of noteworthy System-on-Chip devices and how they could be adopted will also be discussed.