We’ve had a lot of conversations with potential new customers where the PCB decision gets treated like a procurement question. Someone on the team identifies a module or development board that gets the system running. It works. It proves the concept. And then, six months later, that choice has quietly shaped the product architecture … Read more
I understand the pressure to move fast. When you’re leading a product development effort, there’s always urgency. Stakeholders want to see progress. Timelines are tight. Getting a prototype up and running feels like momentum—and in many ways, it is. But in electronic product development, I’ve seen teams get a prototype up and running in … Read more
In electronics product development, the pressure to adopt new technologies is constant. New processors promise better performance. Connectivity standards evolve. Sensors improve in accuracy and cost. Software frameworks expand capabilities. For engineering leaders responsible for products that may remain in the field for ten or even twenty years, however, integrating new technology is rarely straightforward. … Read more
Firmware issues rarely manifest as dramatic failures at the start of a project. They surface later — during integration, field deployment, compliance testing, or after release. That’s why firmware risk isn’t just a coding concern. It’s a leadership issue in modern electronics engineering and product development. For many organizations, firmware is still treated as … Read more
I recently read about the launch of the Bloomberg New Economy Energy Technology Coalition, a private-sector effort focused on accelerating practical, deployable energy technologies. The coalition brings together leaders across energy, infrastructure, and technology to address a growing reality: electricity demand is rising faster than our systems were designed to handle, driven by electrification, AI … Read more
When migrating embedded applications from one hardware platform to another, engineering teams anticipate challenges with drivers, toolchains, and performance tuning. What often sneaks up on migration projects, however, is memory and resource mapping. Subtle differences in address spaces, peripheral layouts, and resource arbitration can derail even the most carefully planned migrations. This article takes a … Read more
Industrial and IoT products face constant pressure to become smaller, faster, and more connected. A decade ago, many industrial designs commonly paired an STM32 microcontroller with an Anybus module to provide application control and industrial communications. The approach allowed platforms to support multiple protocols by swapping modules. The architecture was reliable and flexible, but today’s … Read more
Key Takeaways J1939 CAN protocol provides automatic unique identifier management, preventing cross-talk in complex multi-node industrial networks. Reverse-engineering an existing CAN network begins with analyzing message structure and gathering API documentation from all device manufacturers. Direct CAN bus message observation using a hardware analyzer is the most reliable way to validate network behavior before writing … Read more
Key Takeaways Established companies with strong internal engineering teams regularly use design firms to handle specialized work and bandwidth overflow. The most common trigger for hiring an external engineering partner is product managers demanding new features while the core team handles maintenance. Design firms provide flexible engineering capacity without the hiring risk, onboarding time, and … Read more
A Look Back at CES 2025: What Caught Our Eye CES 2025 was packed with innovation, and as expected, AI was everywhere. For DE Design Works, our focus was on the technologies shaping the future of embedded systems, connectivity, and smart devices. Here’s a rapid-fire recap of what stood out to us and what we’re … Read more