Cypress Semiconductor/Infineon
The Problem
Designing an evaluation method for engineers, by engineers - to highlight low power operation value propositions for a flagship microcontroller product, in minimal amount of time, without needing to install any software on laptops, and without needing a lab/ test bench setup.
The Solution
A standalone, out of the box (DVD case sized) that did all of the above.
Microcontrollers are small and very, very powerful (and as a result, very complicated) devices, used and programmed by the finest of engineers in the industry. Knowing how much power one consumes can help us answer real world questions like 'how long will this blood glucose monitor's coin cell last using your solution versus a competitors?'
I was tasked with the design and development of an evaluation board, which would allow out of the box operation and interactivity in order to evaluate the chip's power consumption under different performance constraints.
For an engineer at the other end of the table, this typically requires connecting an eval board to a computer, downloading and installing vendor-specific software to program and test the device under different cases. Furthermore, evaluating power consumption requires connecting a voltmeter or ammeter in order to see how much current is being drawn by the the system. We wanted to make this process as quick and painless as possible, without compromising the integrity of the evaluation.