ROBUST ELECTRONIC DESIGN
Products
This web site is being maintained by John R. Barnes, who was the President
and Chief Engineer of dBi Corporation from 2002 to September 30, 2013,
when we closed because ObamaCrap made it too expensive for us to remain in
business.
John R. Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, Master EMC
Design Engineer, SM IEEE
December 19, 2010
jrbarnes@iglou.com
Companies and organizations develop products for sale to other people,
companies, and organizations.
Doing a good job of specifying the design requirements up front will almost
always speed up development of a product and make it go much more smoothly.
These design requirements not only include the functions and features desired
by users, but:
- Internal requirements for manufacturing and supporting the product for
the desired lifetime.
- External requirements, based on national and international standards,
laws, and regulations, so that the product can be sold and used in all
of its intended markets.
During development, a company may easily have ten times as many programmers/
engineers and testers working on the software/firmware as on the hardware.
But during production, replication of the software/firmware is a nit compared
to the time/effort/money spent:
- Finding/buying components and materials needed for the hardware.
- Making parts and subassemblies.
- Assembling the hardware.
- Testing the hardware.
- Repairing the hardware when problems are found.
Some major concerns when developing a product are:
- Once a product is sold, the company has little control over who uses the
product, when/where/how it is used, and how it is maintained.
- The product may be manufactured in high volume in various plants, and in
different countries, over its production life-- thus the company may
need to find substitutes for parts, materials, manufacturing processes,
and testing processes that become unavailable or too expensive to use.
- To be marketed in a country, the product must meet and may need to be
approved to that country's product safety, Electromagnetic Compatibility
(EMC), Electromagnetic Immunity (EMI), Electrostatic Discharge (ESD),
power, telecommunications, toxic materials, recycling, and other legal
requirements for that class of product.
- New/evolving data-exchange protocols, changing hardware/software
environments, and new marketing requirements to meet the competition may
force the company to upgrade/update units in the field to keep them from
becoming obsolete.
During development, new electronic products share many of the characteristics
of electronic equipment. But design, development, and testing must be done
much more rigorously to meet all the legal requirements. Documentation must
be very thorough and complete to meet the needs of:
- Engineering, over the life of the program.
- Manufacturing, including buyers, over the life of the program.
- Marketing and Sales.
- Users.
- Field Service, including third-party servicers.
The Robust Electronic Design process asks designers and developers to adopt a
"from the cradle to the grave" viewpoint of the product. Starting with the
earliest concepts, and clear into production, we need to consider:
- Our customers:
- Who are our intended customers?
- What do they need and want?
- Why do they need our equipment/product?
- Who will operate our equipment/product?
- Who will maintain our equipment/product?
- When and where will they use our equipment/product?
- How will they use our equipment/product?
- How will they power our equipment/product?
- Where do we intend to market our equipment/product, and what are
the national legal requirements for this kind of
equipment/product?
- Our design and development process:
- How will we design and develop the hardware?
- How will we design and develop the software/firmware?
- How will we integrate the software/firmware with the hardware?
- How will we build engineering units?
- How will we test engineering units?
- How can we make the design flexible enough to meet
additional/changing design requirements?
- Which Safety requirements must we meet?
- Which Radiated Emissions, Conducted Emissions, and Immunity
requirements must we meet?
- Which Telecommunication requirements must we meet?
- Which other special requirements must we meet (medical, intentional
emitter, etc.)
- What documentation will be needed for manufacturing?
- What documentation will be needed for customers?
- What documentation will be needed for service?
- Our manufacturing process(es):
- What are the capabilities of our manufacturing/test processes?
- Where will we get parts and materials for production units-- will
they be available at a reasonable cost for the intended production
lifetime?
- How will we build production units-- will the machines and
processes be available for the intended production lifetime?
- How will we test production units?
- Service:
- Who will service our equipment/product?
- Where will they service our equipment/product?
- What tools and documentation will they have available?
- How will they test/diagnose/repair our equipment?
- How will they get replacement parts?
- The ultimate disposal of the equipment/product:
- Update/upgrade to meet new or additional needs?
- Return to manufacturer for disposal?
- Recycle?
- Throw in a landfill?
- Incinerate?
dBi Corporation was a
one-man test house (testing laboratory) based in Lexington, Kentucky, testing
a wide variety of commercial electronic products for electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC), electromagnetic interference (EMI), and electrostatic
discharge (ESD) under its ISO 17025 accreditation. dBi was founded in
Winchester, Kentucky in 1995 by Donald R. Bush, shortly after he retired from
30 years service with IBM Lexington's/ Lexmark's EMC Lab. John R. Barnes,
who'd worked with Don at IBM Lexington and Lexmark, bought dBi in 2002
after Don's death, and moved the company to Lexington, Kentucky. John closed
dBi at 11:59pm EDT on September 30, 2013, because ObamaCrap had
increased operating expenses to the point that we could no longer afford to
remain in business.
We'd like to thank all of the clients who chose dBi to test their
products from 1995 to 2013. Below is a brief summary of our accomplishments
during the 18 years we were in business.
From 1995 to 2001, under Don Bush's ownership and operation, dBi:
- Did the official approval testing of 141 products developed by 20
client companies.
- Did the official FCC/ Industry Canada (IC) Verification and Declaration
of Conformity (DoC) testing of 92 products.
- Did the official FCC/IC Certification testing of 15 products.
- Did the official CE Marking testing of 100 products.
From 2002 to 2013, under John Barnes' ownership and operation, dBi:
- Tested 389 products and 2 testers developed by 44 client companies.
- Did the official approval testing of 357 products and 2 testers, getting
all but 5 of them to meet all of the FCC, Industry Canada
(IC), CE Marking, C-Tick, and Regulatory Compliance Mark (RCM) standards
and requirements for their desired market areas.
- Did the official FCC/IC Verification and Declaration of Conformity (DoC)
testing of 296 products.
- Did the official FCC/IC Certification testing of 24 products.
- Did the official CE Marking testing of 271 products and 2 testers.
- Did the official e-Mark testing of 3 products.
- Did the official Australia/New Zealand Verification testing of 170
products.
- Co-sponsored John's writing the
Robust Electronic Design Reference Book,
Volumes I and II.
- Served as an expert witness on electronics in three lawsuits.
Last revised December 19, 2010.
