Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the standard process for designing the board?
A: The board design process consists of the following steps:

• Schematic design
• Board layout
• PCB production
• Components purchasing
• Solder mask production
• Assembling
• Board verification and debug
• Software adaptation (optional)
• Production file preparation

Q: What does a customer receive upon completion of turn-key development?
A: Every customer receives:

• a pre-defined number of working prototypes
• complete set of files required for mass production of the product, including:
  

• Schematic design (OrCAD DSN file)
• Schematic (as PDF)
• Board layout (Mentor Expedition PCB project)
• PCB production file (gerber, IPC netlist)
• Solder mask files (gerber)
• Assembly files (solder paste and placement - gerber)
• PCB's DXF file (2D) for mechanical colaboration
• Bill of materials
• Firmware/software (optional)
  

Q: What are the costs of the development?
A: Cost of the development depends on several factors. These are:

• amount of engineering work to be done. Depends mainly on design complexity. 
• cost of components required for prototyping
• costs paid to subcontractors for PCB production, assembling and related activities

Q: What kind of information should be provided in order to receive a formal quotation?
A: Development costs may be estimated based on information regarding the future product feature list, mechanical constraints, certification requirements etc. The more details provided, the better.

Q: Will the BIOS sources be available for the custom board we'd like to develop?
A: If the product is a single-board computer built from the ground up, the BIOS will be purchased by the customer, and its sources (original and adapted) will be available upon design completion. In a case the product is based on one of the CompuLab's CoM's, the BIOS source cannot be
provided. CompuLab delivers a versatile BIOS installed on its every product, which would not normally require customization. If for some reason custom BIOS is required, a customization may be done by BauerTKP, and the customer receives the custom BIOS binary.

Q: Is it possible to test our product for industrial temperature range, vibration, shock?
A: Yes, it's possible. Our subcontractor, Hermon Laboratories, offers a broad range of in-house services for EMC, Radio, Product Safety, Telecom and Environmental testing, recognized by worldwide regulatory and certification organizations.

Q: Can all the component suppliers be specified and available for us?
A: Yes, we may provide a list of local and worldwide component suppliers for every part on the BOM.