Our client is a global technology leader specializing in the design and manufacture of high performance analog semiconductors. They leverages Silk Software’s expertise in embedded Software solutions to remedy its hardware design flaw by software means.
Our client is a global technology leader specializing in the design and manufacture of high performance analog semiconductors.
Challenge
The client has an in-house evaluation unit that has been used acrossed multiple ICs. The standard eval board communicates with these ICs through an standard I2C interface. However, due to a minor timing difference between SM bus and I2C bus, the standard eval unit is not been able to communicate with the newly design chip, which is SM bus compatible.
Instead of redesigning of the standard evaluation unit, out client turns to Silk software to find a solution that enable the standard eval unit to be continue used for this newly design IC without major hardware modification.
Solution
Simple-to-program and ease-to-control as the built-in I2BUS it is, however it also defects least-flexibility. Silk Software was invited to get these issues resolved.
Silk Software approached this problem by using the general IO functions of these pins to simulate I2CBUS. By accurately control the time sequence between these two pins using manually optimized assembly language, the the standard eval unit is made to communicate with new IC without hardware changes. This intelligent approach not only met the time sequence demanded by new chip, but also enable all the existing software tools to be used with this chip.
Result
An original hardware functionality was promptly expanded by software design without redesigning the hardware by the client. Other software functionalities embedded by the client also remained intact. Creative solutions also enabled our client’s product meet future business demands.
Benefits
Silk Software’s expertise in embedded software development offers a broad range of advantages to the client:
Lower cost of development
Quick turnaround
Greater flexibility is extended