As an electronics hardware engineer, you need to be responsible for the entire product development process. Therefore, each time period must be accurately grasped. Every project has a project cycle. Although the project manager is controlling the time, the specific operation has to be done by the hardware engineer.
Schematic and Detailed Design Proposal: 5 weeks, including reference PCB design and schematic review.
PCB layout: 4 weeks, including structure matching, circuit adjustment or components re-selection.
Prototype board fabrication and waiting for the reply from PCB factory: 2 weeks, these two weeks are the busiest, and the BOM must be uploaded at the same time. Check out your own schematic!
Check the board manufactured: 1 week, run firmware on your own board, you can burn uboot, and the network port can be pinged. Check for soldering problems. Contact the structure for machine assembly to see if there is any problem with the structure.
Drive debugging: 5 weeks, with the debugging of all the underlying functions.
Media version: 2 weeks, this is the first version to run the whole machine after the driver is debugged, ready to be sent to test engineer for testing.
Signal test: 3 weeks, complete the signal test with the signal test engineer. At the same time, prepare boards for business R&D personnel for their R&D.
Functional test: 2 weeks, cooperate with functional testers to complete environmental test, electrostatic surge protection test, other functional test, EMC test, etc.
Waiting for bug fix: 2 weeks, fix all the bugs mentioned above!
Redesign and re-manufacture: 2 weeks.
........
Of course, the specific time will vary with the complexity of the product and the urgency of market demand. The above is only for reference and cannot be generalized.
Regarding the description of hardware design, there is a more vivid saying on the Internet: "Hardware design is to use the current mature chip solutions in the industry according to the requirements of the product manager's PRS (Product Requirement Specification), and under the requirements of COGS (Cost of Goods Sale), complete hardware products that meet the following requirements within the specified time (note: it is a product, not a development board)."
Function
Performance
Power Supply
Power Consumption
Thermal/Cooling
Noise
Signal Integrity
Electromagnetic Radiation (EMC/EMI)
Safety regulations (Safety)
Component Sourcing
Reliability
Testability (DFT: design for test)
Manufacturability (DFM: design for manufacture)
It can be seen that, for a successful hardware design, the realization of the main functions is only a small part of all the links. Some green hands engineers may think that 50% of the work was completed after the design of the board circuit, and if the main functions of the PCB could be realized, then 80% of the work was completed. Actually not, the main functions of the PCB have been realized, not even 30% of the work.
Therefore, whether it is time or stage, the hardware design of a product is a long process, which requires continuous self-charging and learning.