Prototypes to Production

In recent years the Arduino software framework, the existence of low-cost and widely available microcontroller boards, and a whole ecosystem of add-on peripheral boards from vendors such as SparkFun and Adafruit, have dramatically reduced the difficulty and cost of prototyping electronic products of many kinds.

For many of our clients, the first step in exploring their product idea has been to put together a prototype using an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board - either an original AVR-based board or one of the newer more capable boards based on MCUs such as an ARM Cortex M0 or M4, or ESP32, often with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities. Proof-of-concept firmware can be written quickly using the easy Arduino IDE and the wide variety of readily-available libraries for performing almost any task.

Outside of the Arduino ecosystem other frameworks such as ARM Mbed, microcontrollers such as the RP2040, and single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone have also played their part in enabling folks to get to the initial prototype phase on their own.

We can help projects get from this proof-of-concept stage to a robust and production-ready product. For lower-volume products we have helped clients refine their design and go to market with a circuit still based on off-the-shelf modules. We have also helped clients to design products for higher-volume manufacturing, based on custom circuitry.

We can also help with firmware. We are familiar with the Arduino framework and have used it with microcontrollers ranging from the simplest AVR devices to ESP32-based IoT projects with fully multi-threaded RTOS code. We can start from your code or write from scratch.

If your project is at the proof-of-concept prototype stage and you want to take the next step, ask us how we can help. Our services range from a simple design review through to complete production-ready design.

Next: Other design work