The Company
Active Silicon, founded in 1988, specialises in the design, manufacture and supply of specialist digital imaging products and technologies; in particular video acquisition, machine vision and networked video. These products have many applications throughout business, science and industry, including manufacturing, process control, scientific research, video-conferencing, remote visual monitoring and security.
The Challenge
For Active Silicon to stay ahead of the competition and gain market share, the company needed to release a new PCI Express Camera Link Frame Grabber. The company had to manufacture the new Frame Grabber in an extremely short time scale as customers were already awaiting the product. Late delivery would have meant loss of revenue and market share. In addition, the product required the use of high-speed circuitry bringing along all the associated problems that arise such as signal integrity and noise, areas in which Active Silicon did not have the high speed modelling tools in-house required for the project.
To meet the stringent production deadline meant reducing the number of prototype cycles, and to accomplish the high-speed design required bringing in experts.
The Solution
Historically, Active Silicon had undertaken PCB design in-house, only outsourcing on rare occasions as when they did, the company was rarely happy with the results.
For the design of the new Frame Grabber, Active Silicon wanted to make sure they worked with a design bureau that used the same design application software, CADSTAR, and that had high-speed signal integrity modelling capabilities. The company needed to ensure that it could model any potential issues before committing to production which offered the benefits of peace of mind, reducing overall development costs and of course minimising time to market. After establishing that Quantum CAD had the right blend of experience and a dedicated team of design engineers, work on the Frame Grabber could start immediately.
Quantum CAD's unique Pre-Design Study Service gave Active Silicon engineers access to both designers and CAD solutions so that they could assess the impact of high-speed technology on their PCB designs.
Active Silicon was able to analyse up-front how the critical parts of the design would work. 'What if' scenarios were set-up and simulated, setting the constraints by which the design would be created. Final simulation and comparisons to the 'What if' scenarios gave the engineers the confidence that the design, once manufactured, would work.
Significant time was saved by utilising Quantum CAD's web linked design process, whereby design reviews were carried out via the Internet in minutes. Critical circuit designs were subjected to modelled simulations allowing the designers at Active Silicon to decide on the optimum solution.
The Benefits
Martin Bone, Senior Project Leader of Active Silicon commented: "The benefits of using Quantum CAD's services were many. We managed to reduce production costs by lowering the number of components used in the device and by ensuring that the high-speed PCB could be manufactured right first time. And because the teams in both companies worked together via the Web, no travel costs were incurred and valuable time was saved. On top of all the monetary benefits, utilising the simulation work carried out in conjunction with Quantum CAD gave us peace of mind. We were completely confident that what we designed would work right first time and we look forward to collaborating again on future projects."
The PCI Express Camera Link Frame Grabber entered the market ahead of initial projections and within the forecast budget for R&D. In addition, due to the simulation and utilisation of 'What if' scenarios, Active Silicon's circuits are reliable and of high performance.
Martin Bone concluded: "Today, designers and engineers are forced to complete designs with fewer iteration cycles and to deliver designs that can be manufactured right first time, which is the ethos here at Active Silicon. With the speeds of signals and components rising into the Gigahertz range, relying on the traditional design and prototyping processes can result in a product never making it to market. By actively investing in modelling the design, we can ensure the best quality products reach the marketplace. Working with Quantum CAD and utilising their extensive experience, state of the art tools and solutions, gives us the confidence that we'll reach our goals and improve our return on investment."
