Once you have decided to explore the possibility of
developing a custom integrated circuit for your new product, how do you move
forward from there? If you do not have
in house IC design/development experience or expertise the most straightforward
choice is to seek out a consultant or design services firm specializing in
custom integrated circuit design and development. In particular when the product is heavy on
analog content (i.e. big ‘A’ little ‘d’) this can be the best approach given
the specialized knowledge and expertise required in the still-arcane field of
analog IC design.
A quick search on Google for ‘custom analog IC design
services’ will yield a number of firms both in the search results as well as
the associated Adwords advertisements on the page. You will need to investigate these once you
have determined and ranked the criteria you intend to base your decision
on. These criteria could include:
- Location/geography
- Demonstrated experience in the given application space
- Capabilities of the firm
- Flexibility of engagement model
- Resources
Once you have identified a number of potential candidate
firms and reviewed the material on their websites, the next step is to contact
them for a preliminary discussion in which you can get a good sense of their
capabilities and focus. If you have a
preliminary spec or datasheet for your product that can be disclosed without an
NDA it would be good to give the firm a chance to review it at this time to
provide you with some initial feedback.
This first interaction (be it by phone or email) will also give you a
gut check on things such as responsiveness, communication style and general
interest level in your project. When
you have identified one or more firms that you feel comfortable with and have
indicated that your project is something they feel comfortable with and have a
strong interest in working on, it is time to move on to the next steps.
At this point it is standard operating procedure to initiate
a mutual NDA with the firm. This will
provide a comfort level on both sides to disclose proprietary details necessary
to move the discussion forward. There
are many standard NDA forms available online, or your attorney can draft one. In general it makes the most sense for you to
provide the NDA since at this point you are the primary discloser. In any event is typical that the larger firm
in the transaction will generally provide the boilerplate NDA form to the
other. Once executed, a deeper dive into
the technical and business related details can ensue. Proprietary documentation can now be
exchanged and discussed freely.
Once the services firm has had a chance for their technical
staff to review your documentation and requirements, a telecon or face to face
meeting between the technical staff of each party is the next step in the
process. In this meeting questions and
clarifications can be exchanged in order to insure the best possible
understanding of the task at hand between the parties. In parallel the program and business managers
on both sides can discuss the framework of the working relationship including
details such as business model, costs, schedule, program management, formal
review process, etc. The end goal is to give the design services firm all the
information required in order to provide you with a detailed technical,
schedule and cost proposal, and at the same time help crystallize your
requirements and priorities.
Now the design services firm will go to work. Developing a detailed technical proposal is
typically quite time consuming and represents a significant investment by the
firm. There may be ongoing discussions
back and forth in order to iron out any remaining questions and details. It is critical given the work involved that
the proposal properly address all of your requirements and concerns adequately
and to that end good communication in this phase is the key. In general a good proposal will include most
or all of the following sections:
- Introduction
- Project Overview
- Development Approach
- Technical Discussion/Tradeoffs
- Detailed Statement of Work
- Schedule Estimate
- Costs
- IP Considerations
- Other Considerations
A strong and detailed proposal will go a long way to help
you make the final decision on whether or not it makes sense to move forward
with your project. Additionally, if you entertain
proposals from more than one design services firm you can take this opportunity
to compare and contrast the proposals and proposed technical approach as well
as costs and schedule. If even after everyone’s
best efforts the proposal does not meet the project requirements often a second
round clarification is called for as it may be that there has been a
miscommunication or misunderstanding of relative project priorities in the
first round.
In the end the proposal and especially the statement of work
will form the guideline and reference for the project once the go-ahead is
given, enabling you and the design services firm to be on the same page.
In summary, properly engaging with a design services firm is
critical to setting up your project to be successfully executed. These initial phases represent a significant
amount of work and communication by both parties but a strong effort in this
phase will be a good indicator of how the project itself will proceed.
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