Altium > Case Studies > Digital Design Corporation: Overcoming Design Challenges with Altium Designer

Digital Design Corporation: Overcoming Design Challenges with Altium Designer

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries
Sensors - GPS

Applicable Industries

Automotive
Electrical Grids

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Leasing Finance Automation
Material Handling Automation

Services

Hardware Design & Engineering Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Digital Design Corporation (DDC) is an engineering consulting company that offers high-end design services and products. The company specializes in video interfacing, enhancement, and recording, image processing, communications, DSP, and audio in a wide variety of military, automotive, medical, and other industrial markets. DDC architects, designs, and implements ICs (FPGAs, ASICs, etc.), associated circuits and software, and the systems that encompass them. The company has over 400 years of cumulative digital design experience, working the entire process from concept to foundry, including everything from initial architecture through complete design and verification, including the ability to provide prototype and/or production builds and support.

The Challenge

Digital Design Corporation (DDC) faced a complex challenge in designing a system capable of recording, processing, and analyzing video image data. The design requirements were demanding, including the need to withstand extreme temperatures and environments typical of military and rugged industrial applications. The system also had to cope with noisy power supplies, high G-forces, and vibration, all within a compact size. The design process required close collaboration among various disciplines, including system, schematic, board, mechanical, chip, firmware, and software design. The high frequencies involved in modern digital designs necessitated a broad experience base and high-powered tools. DDC's Video and Advanced Data Recorder (VAADR) was designed for military avionics applications, with most of its functionality residing on one controller board that interfaces with removable storage modules. The large sizes of the FPGAs used in the design presented a significant board design and layout challenge.

The Solution

DDC used Altium Designer to provide an integrated design environment for its hardware designers. This tool, with its comprehensive libraries, smart automation, and cross-discipline integration, allowed DDC to quickly balance all the design trade-offs within its most demanding products. Altium Designer's built-in component libraries made it easier to create schematics, even with the large Altera and Xilinx FPGAs that DDC depends on. Automation of data-intensive steps accelerated the design process and helped eliminate errors. The integration of schematics and board design also facilitated an efficient, error-free design cycle. Upon design completion, Altium Designer automatically generated the manufacturing output files. As the VAADR was tested, revised, and put through environmental testing, DDC made numerous revisions and improvements in the board using Altium Designer.

Operational Impact

The use of Altium Designer resulted in a successful design and implementation of the VAADR system. The first revision of the board was operational within an hour of hooking up the power supplies, and the FPGA designer was able to begin evaluation of the FPGA. The integration and automation in Altium Designer helped to catch errors before they could be released. The system was tested, revised, and put through environmental testing, with numerous revisions and improvements made to the board. The initial customer was very pleased with the system, and the resulting board is now part of DDC’s standard product portfolio. Today, DDC is launching the design of a new, even more powerful version of the VAADR – using Altium Designer.