Matharts Ltda., a contract company in electronic engineering:

The design experience I share with my project team is based exclusively on projects involving electronic design and development of special electronic products. The main clients are the Chilean armed forces through a contractor company, but also private companies in industrial and mining business areas. The work is done under several contractor formulas. Several developments are still under non-disclosure-agreements, but the use of the general concepts is allowed. All integrated circuits and components are from manufacturers from the USA, as well as all software tools.

Note:

What I have decided to show in the photo galleries is the unavoidable minimum necessary to demonstrate and offer this experience to this new global market, but this presentation is only a panoramic view with no useful details of the projects done for other companies.

The most important projects done during the last years in military and industrial electronics can be described as follows:

8-Channel Radar Bearing Direction Finder Unit. It is based on the fast acquisition of the radar signals incoming to a 3D array of up to 8 antennas. The solid angle is calculated pulse to pulse. It uses 8 ADC channels, 2 Xilinx Spartan FPGAs, several memory banks and an on-board communications processor.

Radar Synthesizer Unit, for the instantaneous time/spectral emulation of incoming pulses, and the re-emission to emulate bouncing back to the emitters. These equipments involve also the design of other minor units.

Mixed Microwave/Digital Acquisition Boards for radar systems. (See Defense Area gallery #1) This board includes two chains of microwave prescaler chips mounted on coplanar wave-guides printed on a multi-layer PCB. This unit also has a 2ns toggle rate Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) several sub nano second "tiny logic" gates and several ECL to HCMOS translator chips. The design also includes the Xilinx "gateware" inside the FPGA to process all signals and assemble a wide format data word to be sent to a PCI FIFO board. This project includes the design of other very high speed interface boards that allow the acquisition of all the parameters of the radar pulses in real time, including one with 9 logarithmic amplifiers based on Analog Devices AD8310 log amp + AD8138 diff amp, all of them assembled as identical function blocks on the same 4-layer PCB. A very large power dynamic range in dBm was attained.

Computer and instrumentation to monitor variables of frigorific trucks. (Under total N.D.A.)

Year 2002: Special display board for a "People Meter" for TV stations. (Under total N.D.A)

Radar Environment Synthesizer Boards. (See Defense Area gallery #2) These units have two high density Xilinx FPGAs with 2 nano second toggle rates, a bank of wide word size Flash-RAM memory and a standard interface to an existing STD bus system. These units are controlled from a computer to simulate complex radar environments, setting the radar parameters of a large number of emitters independently and in real time. The units are connected to microwave oscillators with agile control of frequency, amplitude, and other parameters.

Mixed Analog/Digital Acquisition Boards, for radar pulse signals. This board has three high speed differential receiver amplifiers, three high resolution differential ADC (AD6644) converters sampling at maximum speed, and a Xilinx FPGA as the main digital processor for these signals. The design also includes the Xilinx "gateware" inside the FPGA to synchronize the ADCs, control the sampling timing and generate wait states for transients.

Non-Heterodyne Transceiver for Gas Stations, project done in 2 months in Santa Clara, CA (Still under total N.D.A.)

Wireless Telemetry Systems for the acquisition and analysis of weather condition variables. (See Agricultural Area galleries #1 and 2) The project included the complete design of wireless telemetry stations, both, transmitting and receiving stations fed by solar panels and batteries. Currently there are 10 remote stations installed in several places of Chile, operating automatically year round, day and night.

Instruments Based on Special Electronic Sensors: Relative atmospheric humidity, photometric and pyranometric solar radiation in several spectral bands, and the most important, a volumetric subsoil moisture sensor that is installed forming part of a network with up to 256 sensors in branches of up 1000 meters length, for applications in agriculture and mining leaching stacks. This sensor is patented in the USA, USPTO # 6,014,029

Matharts operates as a team of independent professionals:
I count with the services of a team of independent professionals that covers the area of microsystems software in C or assembler, multi-layer PCB design with coplanar wave guides for microwave integrated circuits, electronic assembly with very high density integrated circuits soldered on surface like SOICs and TSSOPs, mechanical design and precision mechanical fabrication of special pieces.

My part in this team is the design of mixed analog/digital electronic hardware, Xilinx “firmware” or "gateware" using Xilinx Foundation Software, and the design circuits based on RF and microwave ICs, leaving the rest of the expertise areas to the members of the independent professionals of the team. Multi-layer PCB fabrication files are sent by Internet to US manufacturers as Sierra Proto Express and Accutrace, both in Silicon Valley, California, while 2-layer boards are manufactured here by CIGA Ltda., a company that has also developed a 4-layer PCB facility with CNC machinery and fine resolution imagery.

Project Steps:

The development of a new product or electronic system begins after meeting or communicating with the customer several times, as necessary to have a clear picture. After making the first steps into a new project, I use to disclose advance information to the customer to make sure these steps are going the right way.

In the design process, I usually depart from the highest integration level possible according with the elements that are already available in the market, searching first for those elements or components that can be integrated immediately, and leave for special electronic design those elements that are not available in the market at a reasonable price or that are not available at all. The idea is to "float" at an optimal integration level according to the market needs.

I design work using several CAD/CAE tools, Xilinx ISE 10.1, the venerable Xilinx Foundation 4.2i, and other popular software programs, and the work is done connected on line with component vendors and integrated circuit manufacturers of the USA, where I can found by far the best suppliers, and vendors like Digi-Key, for their technology and convenient logistics, and for the excellent quality of the information they supply, in special, the data sheets of integrated circuits, the RF models of discrete components and the excellent application notes provides by most manufacturers, like Xilinx, Analog Devices, National Semiconductor, Mini-Circuits, Agilent, On-Semi (Ex Motorola), etc.

The typical stages of a product development project are:

1) Search for available technologies and solutions, a study of the physical feasibility of the idea

2) Engineering design at top level, and first approach to cost constraints, meetings with customer

3) Detailed design, simulation, some lab prototyping of critical functions, hardware * software * "gateware" integration, design of special test fixtures if necessary.

4) Sub contract of PCB design service to an independent professional of the team, meetings for placement strategy

5) Recursive optimization of costs and performance, part list item count reductions, towards a final design

6) Final PCB design "freeze". Multi-layer fabrication files are e-mailed to manufacturers like Accutrace or Sierra Proto Express in San Jose CA, or to CIGA in Chile.

7) Fast component acquisition to vendors like Digi-Key, Newark, etc via FEDEX and international credit card

8) Assembly of a prototype of the product or system

9) Laboratory and field tests

10) Production documentation: CAD/CAE Schematics, EXEL part lists, PCB files (Gerber, Exellon)

11) Pre series fabrication, a short run as a trial promotion

12) Series production, sub contracted, first in Chile

13) Marketing, according to customer feedback

14) Engineering advisory for production, part replacements, software/gateware upgrades

15) Customer training.

Each of these stages has several sub-stages, but it is more practical to show more about with the photographs of this presentation.

I have been working continuously since 1982 in the design of new electronic products, without any interruption, and several of these products are currently being manufactured overseas, but contracted under the control of a customer. However, new production companies installed recently in Chile allow mass fabrications with the same quality attainable overseas, with the advantage of having direct control of all production issues. What I offer you is the development of the electronic part of new products and services based on this experience.

I promise to pay maximum attention to all what you need to explain, and guarantee to you the secrecy of all your ideas, and respect for all the intellectual property, direct or consequential that they could imply.

In this same spirit, what I have decided to show in the photo galleries is the unavoidable minimum necessary to demonstrate   and offer this experience to this new global market, but this presentation is only a panoramic view with no useful details of the projects done for other companies.

The most efficient way for you to send me a message is by e-mail, and with your data I contact you, and I hope to have the opportunity to meet with you to study your ideas.

Jaime Soto Figueroa
Electronic Engineer, UCV, Chile, Titled in May 13, 1982
jaimejsoto@gmail.com