Embedded Software Development Along With PCB Assembly

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WEL COME TO PNCONLINE
Embedded Software Development Along With PCB
Assembly
No company can excel at every aspect of new
product development and trying to do everything
can dilute an organizations focus on the tasks
that are essential to its success. For example,
most companies have long ago outsourced the PCB
design and fabrication steps of new product
development. This same need to focus on the
essential is true of software development too. It
is difficult for a software company to excel at
every type of software development because of the
ever expanding universe of software languages,
operating systems, and architectures.  A cloud
based SAAS or PC based application is very
different from embedded software running C on a
16-bit processor, and it takes very different
software development skills to develop that kind
of embedded application.
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Unlike cloud based or PC based applications,
embedded software is optimized to run on a
specific custom hardware platform with limited
processing power and memory.  It often runs on a
real time operating system or no operating
systems at all, and the interface of an embedded
device may consist of only a small display, or
just a few buttons and LEDs.
The unique challenges working with embedded
systems is why many software companies outsource
their embedded software projects to experts like
PNC.  Here are three reasons why they do.
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The embedded system is not the organizations
primary product line.
Many products on the market require options or
accessories that are important to the customer,
but not are not similar technically to the
primary product. A cable set top box remote is a
good example.  Customers expect a cable set-top
box to have a remote, but the low power
microcontroller embedded in the remote is likely
to be completely different from the high power
processor and OS driving the set-top box
functions.  Similarly, Industrial or commercial
equipment may have optional modules to provide
additional functionality like a cellular modem.  
These optional modules have independent
processors and embedded software which is
unrelated to the primary product software.
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In these cases, software companies will choose to
focus their development resources on the primary
product, recognizing that it is more cost
effective to outsource the software development
for the ancillary embedded products to a company
that is familiar with embedded microcontrollers
and the constraints that come with low power
operation. If that company can design the
hardware and perform SMT assembly too, it becomes
an even better value.
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The software is deeply embedded and invisible to
the user
Successful software companies are highly focused
on the customer experience with their product.
They are constantly refining the look and feel of
the industrial design and user interface to make
the product more attractive, and easier to use. 
But what if the product doesnt have a user
interface?   What if it is a router or a motor
controller?  Products like these need a simple
interface for initial configuration, but they
typically operate in the background, invisible to
the customer.  In this case the goal is to
optimize for cost and performance rather than
user experience.  Deeply embedded applications
without a sophisticated customer facing
interface  are ideal to outsource to a company
like PNC because the product requirements are
centered on the embedded functionality there is
no need to maintain the same look and feel as the
companys customer facing products.
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The application requires specialized expertise
Sometimes a software company needs embedded
expertise that it just doesnt have in-house. 
For example, they may need a Zigbee or Bluetooth
RF stack, or expertise with digital signal
processing on low power Digital Signal Processors
DSP.  In some challenging embedded applications,
a company may need a partner with the expertise
to  iterate the design of both the hardware and
software simultaneously to arrive at an optimized
embedded solution.  In that case you need a full
service provider like PNC.
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PNC offers the full solution to developing
embedded products
When it comes to product development, PNC is not
just a PCB manufacturer.  The engineers at PNC
can work with you to design and manufacture the
product hardware, and then develop the embedded
software to run on that hardware.   If you have a
challenging embedded software or hardware
project, contact PNC today and find out how they
can help.
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115 East Centre St.Nutley, NJ 07110
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E-mail Address
sales_at_pnconline.com
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www.pnconline.com