NXP Approved Engineering Consultant
Borea is proud member of formerly Freescale and now NXP’s network of partners. Being NXP’s Approved Engineering Consultant gave us opportunity to build extensive know-how of NXP’s QorIQ and i.MX processors. Over many years we are successfully utilising all gathered experience and deep insight into internal architecture of the chips to create efficient systems built around NXP technology. Furthermore this gives us ability to give our projects and our customers access to the gathered knowledge to quickly resolve and address complex problems each and every design process brings.
One stop shop
As advertised in our generic Embedded design services we are able to offer a very broad spectre of services covering everything needed in embedded electronics project based on NXP technology. From selecting the most appropriate NXP chip to providing manufacturing and certification processes.
For all our NXP based solutions we are providing our Linux system platform build on top of underlying i.MX and QorIQ SDKs provided by NXP.
For both i.MX and QorIQ devices we are providing specialised tailoring services where we can provide very quick turn-around times by reusing the technology:
Custom tailored i.MX solutions
NXP i.MX family of application processors is popular choice for wide range of embedded devices like multimedia consumer devices and also industrial gateway application. Based on our prefabricated Hardware IP blocks we can quickly and efficiently address customer specific needs. By taking one of our i.MX6, i.MX7 or i.MX8 base designs we can skip the lengthy basic platform development and rather focus on value-added application specific features which bring benefits to our customers. We support connecting our core CPU modules to multimedia peripherals like displays and cameras, to networking interfaces like Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth and also to to simple industrial interfaces.
Custom tailored QorIQ solutions
When requirements become stronger, environment harsher and performance requirements higher we suggest using QorIQ platform. We follow the same basic principle of reusing prefabricated Hardware IP blocks for LS1 based devices. Projects with higher-end devices like LS2, LX2 are doable but subject to deeper collaboration with the customer due to much higher complexity of the chips.
With QorIQ platforms we are able to offer our special microcoding services to even further extend already rich features QorIQ platforms have. Doing so unveils the real potential of this platform by empowering of all internal accelerators and co-processors.
Custom NXP QuiccEngine and AIOP microcoding
Since 2013 we are NXP Third Party with access to microcode development for QuiccEngine, eRISC based AIOP based processors found in NXP QorIQ devices. In addition to using NXP provided microcodes to accelerate network protocol processing we are able to develop entirely custom microcodes that can be downloaded into eRISC/AIOP enabled NXP chips during run time. We are developing custom microcodes since 2007. This gives unprecedented possibilities to extend abilities of certain QorIQ device in performance, functionality, protocol and interfacing aspect many times removing the need for costly additional FPGA or ASIC on the board.
Our generic design services which we utilise when performing NXP specific designs are as follows:
System design
Based on your requirements our mission is to help you create a system or a platform that will serve all your current and future needs. Over the years we have built an extensive knowledge in different segments that we can now fruitfully utilize to propose solutions that will last.
Hardware design
We offer hardware design services as an extension to our system design services or as a stand-alone service. We cover phases from forming requirements for specific hardware development project to providing you samples and even organization of mass production.
We are able to design high speed electronics, with CPUs running at several GHz clock frequencies, supporting high speed memory subsystems like DDR3, DDR4 at highest data rates and high speed interconnects like 10 Gbit/s Ethernets, all generations of PCIe, etc.
In addition to segments mentioned above we are also able to provide on board RF designs (not prefabricated Wireless modules) for technologies like WiFi 802.11ac/ax, Bluetooth and other wireless connectivity protocols. Antenna design to fit the enclosure and other requirements can also be provided by a partner company.
Software design
We can offer you software design services as part of our complete system/product design service or as a stand-alone software-only project. In either case we can guarantee a devotion of highly proffesional team working in embedded software design for many years.
We support many software layers starting down at lowest level with boot-loaders, operating system support providing a solid software platform for given hardware solution. Many we support Linux based solutions, but we also do bare-metal programming especially within our Extending system possibilities services. Usually we ship all our custom hardware designed platform with at least system level software which can be used as a stable and solid ground for customer to implement their own application on top of it.
But if required by the project we can also deliver application level software up to the user interface level of the product.
Extending system possibilities
We believe it is possible by doing it right to create better, more performant and more efficient (both resource and price-wise) systems. By correctly tailoring entire system where both hardware and software are working hand-in-hand by utilising all benefits certain components are bringing we are able to create systems that are bringing extraordinary performance compared to standard solutions.
EM Compatibility & Certifications
We can take care of entire certification process to get all lawfully required clearances and meet regulation requirements to enter worldwide markets (FCC, ISED, EU, Japan,…). Per project basis we can also perform special industry standards certifications set by special industry groups or protocols.
During early design phases of the project we make help you correctly set requirements so that the product you are designing will not fail certifications on and not pass them by too high safety margin which is very important for price sensitive applications. Some applications and designs must be as good as possible in all aspects while some must be just good enough. We are able to support both.
During the whole hardware and software design process we are carefully taking ways to make sure the end product will not have any issues during testing and certification processes.
Thanks to the presence of high quality test laboratory in our vicinity SIQ – Slovenian Institute of Quality and Metrology, we are able to offer together with them entire product testing and certification services at very competitive rates:
We can do among others:
- EMI/EMC compliance
- Safety
- RF emissions/immunity
- do all the paper work for certifying worldwide for you
If something still goes wrong, we will:
- diagnose and locate issues quickly
- fix issues either in testing lab or our premisses and very quickly return to the testing
Design hardening and manufacturing
During the whole design process we strive to create solutions that are most suitable for given production facility available to our customers for each project. We do not make too complex designs just to make our work easier. We look into the requirements of the customer. If there is no need for high-volume production or customer wants to produce using lower performance in-house manufacturing equipment, we can support that in the design phase of the hardware. Of course we can also optimise hardware design in such a way it is optimally producible in high quantities.
During the design process we do take care of testability of our solutions. Again we are taking into consideration the way device is going to be manufactured in order to provide the most efficient (cost and time-wise) solution. We also design our solutions in a way they can test themselves with as little external equipment as possible. And we provide end of line testing solution based on a robust core but tailored to each project’s specifics. Solution can work on a normal PC or specialised embedded computer and takes care of device programming and testing.
With help of our local EMS partners we can organise entire process of production, material procurement, testing and distribution. Or we can fit into very specific needs of customer chosen EMS or internal production facility by following internally established processes and obeying given design constraints set by the company.
This is how it goes
Prefabricated CPU designs
Especially for our collaboration with NXP we have developed so called Hardware IP Blocks some of which are even available for customers to integrate themselves into their PCB layouts. The general motivation behind this approach is to have in-house base of pre-designed CPU hardware blocks with all basic features such as CPU, memories, power supplies designed and ready to use.
Hardware development
This gives us ability to quickly and very price efficiently adapt to specific customer needs. Just taking the core of the system shortens time of development of CPU system to weeks instead of months and at the same time minimises the risks something basically would go wrong.
Software development
Similarly to the base of hardware blocks we have internally available Linux system platform specifically created to support our hardware offerings on NXP chips. This software package is built on top of NXP provided base SDKs for QorIQ and i.MX and extends them in all areas where most of systems delivered by us have common requirements (booting with dual image, failsafe upgrade process, basic management of the device, Linux kernel and user-space components updating, integration of common networking interfaces such as WIFi, LTE, …)
All the rest
We do not stop here. We are able to help you get to the market in time. Whatever it takes. Whether it is obtaining all necessary certifications for lawfully selling your product on all worldwide markets or making sure production process runs flawlessly without interruptions by adapting the design to address current component shortages on the market.