Cost-Effective Development of Proprietary Analog IP

The independent development of innovative proprietary analog IP has always been a challenge for small design firms such as MIE Labs.  Such firms are typically self-funded through the design service revenues that they generate.  The process of taking a circuit concept through the entire design cycle through prototype validation is very costly and time consuming.  Without a paying customer behind this effort, this scope of effort is rarely justifiable or even feasible.  On the other hand, having a growing library of innovative analog IP is critical for the efficient development of analog IC products as well as providing a level of comfort to prospective customers that technical risk has been addressed to the greatest extent possible prior to undertaking a challenging product design effort.  The development of this sort of IP library can also provide a potential second source of revenue to the firm in the form of royalties and/or license fees to better support the operations of the design team, further enabling future IP development.

One compromise approach which addresses this issue of proprietary analog IP development is to have internal staff undertake to quickly and effectively develop new IP concepts only to the point that their performance characteristics can be readily demonstrated.  This can be accomplished in a cost-effective manner through the use of behavioral modeling and simulation.  Utilizing this approach, innovative circuit and system concepts can be relatively quickly evaluated and demonstrated.  Potential problem areas and critical performance limitations can be identified early in the development process.  Behavioral simulation models which include some non-idealities reflective of the real (transistor-level) analog circuits are utilized and therefore provide a reasonable level of confidence that performance demonstrated in a behavioral simulation can in fact be realized in a full transistor-level design moving forward.  In some cases actual transistor-level components and existing IP modules can be included in a mixed behavioral/transistor simulation (for example, actual output power FET models and parasitics used in a power switching device) in order to better represent the expected behavior of the real circuitry.

Through the judicious use of this approach, many analog circuit and product ideas can be explored quickly to a reasonable level, giving a better sense of what may be accomplished in a full transistor-level design implementation.  This technique goes a long way in demonstrating concepts and capabilities to prospective customers and partners.   Rather than simply present a draft data sheet and/or a block diagram, actual simulation results can be demonstrated under various operating conditions and specific tradeoffs can be explored ahead of time with significantly less upfront design effort.  MIE Labs is using this approach right now to flesh out some interesting analog product and IP concepts which we believe will greatly benefit our customers and partners moving forward.  If you would like to find out more, please feel free to contact me at echalfin@mielabs.com.

Leveraging a New Strategic Alliance to Better Serve Customers

It is rare that a technology service provider has all of the necessary skills and manpower in house to address every potential customer need.  This is particularly the case in small hardware service firms, and MIE Labs is no exception.  On the other hand there are many advantages to customers working directly with small firms, including flexibility, cost and expertise (not to mention the requirement in some contracts for a minimum percentage of small business participation).  So how can a customer navigate the identification and engagement of a number of small firms to ensure that the necessary capabilities and manpower are brought to bear on their project while at the same time minimizing the need for added management overhead?

To better address this need, a group of Maryland-based small technology service providers - including MIE Labs, Sensing Machines, Root3Labs and NeWo Technologies - has joined together in a new strategic alliance in order to provide our respective customers with the variety of skills and manpower needed to address their most challenging hardware development projects, while at the same time streamlining the entire process for the customer from a program management and procurement point of view.  To our customers, we provide the benefits of a single-point vendor contact while at the same time having strong coordination and cooperation between a variety of expert providers looking more like a much larger firm.

How does this all work?  When one of the alliance members identifies a customer project that requires expertise or manpower beyond their own internal capabilities, they will act as the project lead.  They will consult behind the scenes with other alliance members as needed to provide whatever additional expertise is required to fully meet the requirements of the project.  The project lead will deal directly with their customer as their single-point contact for the project, but the customer will benefit from the capabilities brought to bear by the entire alliance team.  As the project moves forward, any subcontracting between the alliance members will be handled entirely behind the scenes and the project lead will handle all internal project management tasks.

The advantages to the customer are manifest.  While working directly with a small firm with whom they are already comfortable, they will have the benefit of first-class expertise in a wide range of areas that they would be unlikely to find in any one small firm.  For the customer there is no longer a need to engage and program manage multiple individual small firms to provide expertise on a given project, while still maintaining the benefits of working with small company suppliers.  The goal of the alliance is to bring the capabilities of a larger company to bear with the nimbleness and flexibility inherent in the operation of our small company members.

This new alliance, in combination with other strategic relationships such as MIE Labs’ recent cooperative agreement with JVD, Inc. in Silicon Valley to provide backend chip production, enables us and our alliance partners to better serve our customers now and as we grow in the future.

When to Engage an Analog IC Design Consultant

There are many situations in which a product or system development firm might want to seek out and engage an analog integrated circuit (IC) design/development expert for consultation.   IC design is a small niche of the circuit design field itself, and analog IC design is in turn a tiny niche within that niche.  Strong, highly experienced analog IC design experts are relatively rare, in particular ones that are not tied in exclusively to one company as an employee.  But independent experts do exist and are quite willing and able to perform consulting services on an ad-hoc basis for those in need. 

  

It may seem at first glance to be more cost effective to have someone on staff with this type of expertise.  In reality, hiring (and keeping) someone on staff with expertise in analog IC design and development is rarely necessary or desirable in a typical product or system development company.  In fact, unless there is a significant baseline of analog IC design work being done in a given organization it does not make any sense whatsoever to try to develop this type of expertise in house.  The only way to justify doing so would be to envision a steady and growing stream (critical mass) of analog IC design work – enough to grow a group within the organization - and that is not typical in most companies that are not themselves focusing on the development and sale of analog IC devices (chips).   

That being said, in most electronic product development companies there are occasionally projects that come up where the need for an expert in analog IC design is critical, and this is where obtaining expert consulting services is the most effective solution.  Some examples of these situations are:

•  A custom analog IC design is needed for a new product for cost or performance reasons
• An obsolete IC in an existing product needs to be sourced or replicated
• For cost or performance reasons the potential options for integrating  some or all of the circuitry in a product must be evaluated
• Low  yields, poor performance or other technical concerns with existing IC devices used in a product need to be investigated and rectified
• Assistance/advice is needed in identifying and evaluating potential foundry, assembly and test vendors for an IC
• The possibility of generating a new spin of an existing IC for derivative products needs to be evaluated

The specific tasks and expertise that would justify the use of an expert analog IC design consultant are similar in all of these scenarios.   Some of the critical areas of expertise needed include:

• Detailed generation and/or review of technical specifications for an analog IC
• Evaluation of semiconductor processes - not only in technical but in economic terms
• Working successfully with missing or incomplete device modeling information
• Ability to evaluate existing ICs at the transistor level including understanding process and tracing circuitry
• Design and schematic capture of existing and new devices and simulation of critical performance specifications
• Evaluation and recommendation of fabrication, prototyping, assembly and production test options
• Prototype evaluation/characterization and validation
• Development of reference designs and application notes

In any situation, the analog IC design consultant must work closely with the rest of the product development team in order to come up with the optimal solution.  Excellent communication skills are paramount.  Independent design consultants are accustomed to this way of working and are generally very flexible in adapting to a customer’s standard processes and procedures while executing tasks that are not necessarily spelled out to the last detail.  In the best case, the analog IC design consultant will manage the IC-related tasks while interfacing closely with the customer’s Program Manager to insure a close and effective relationship.

Analog IC design is a highly specialized niche within the field of engineering, making it a difficult specialty to develop and maintain in the typical product development organization.  At the same time, in many development projects the need for this expertise is critical.  The use of a qualified analog IC design consultant in these situations can make the difference between success and failure.