Design Review

Uncovering design flaws in the lab is expensive. Uncovering them in the field is worse yet. Functional tests do not uncover design flaws that can cause marginal behavior; nor will functional tests show poor EMI performance or noise sensitivity. Only a thorough design review can maximize the chance of first pass success.

Having Foresys review your design is a cost effective way to avoid design flaws. All our design review clients have found value in these services. As a matter of fact, many of our clients who utilize our turnkey development services originally came to us for a Design Review and were pleased with the level of accuracy and detail that we provide.

We engage in several levels of design review:

Architectural Review

We are engaged with our client early in the development process. We will review their architecture plans early in the design processes, providing important design guidance, such as power and ground management, EMI management, and performance analysis. Clients that utilize our services in this early stage usually continue to engage us in an Implementation Review.

Implementation Review

We cover a wide array of items that that are critical in design implementation for the schematic, PCB layout and logic designs. We frequently spare our clients the cost and schedule impact of having additional build iterations by resolving design flaws prior to build. Some of the items that we examine in our reviews are the following:

Schematic Review

  • Signal Integrity
  • BOM Review
  • Timing Analysis
  • Functionality
  • Connectivity
  • Power Design
  • Pull-ups
  • Voltage Compatibility
  • Decoupling
  • Thermal Considerations
  • Design for Testability

Layout Review

  • Post Layout Signal Integrity
  • Placement
  • Routing
  • Power
  • EMI
  • Footprints
  • Silkscreen
  • Design for Testability

Logic Review

  • Clock Structure
  • Functionality
  • Critical Code Checks
  • Power Considerations
  • Timing Constraints
  • Synthesis Flow
  • Testbench Review
  • Testcase Review
  • Coverage Analysis

Diagnostic Reviews

Also known as SWAT team reviews, diagnostic reviews are needed in the unfortunate case where our clients have already produced a design that is not functioning as expected or is failing a regulatory requirement, such as EMI. In this case, in addition to performing applicable tasks as outlined in the Implementation Review, we provide targeted diagnostic procedures to uncover the root cause of the failure. This may include testing of the hardware within our lab.