Skillset & Portfolio > Mystery Medical/Dental Product (2014-2015)
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Version 1 - A Medical/Dental Product
This client’s product was very well defined from the beginning. In principle it wouldn’t need a MCU at all or at most the smallest, simplest & cheapest, except for the client’s requirement for an elaborate ‘license activation’ scheme via USB connection to a PC.
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Version 1 - Microcontroller Selection
With so many MCUs supporting USB on-chip it can be difficult to make a choice. Ultimately I settled on the Atmel AT90USB1286, however after significant software development, and as suspected, a MCU of lesser Flash/RAM/capabilities will suffice for Version 2.
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Version 1 - Low Power Design
Above all, and despite being a motorised application, this product needed to operate at very low power (~10uA) during sleep whilst maintaining its Real-Time Clock/Calendar, operating the MCU in its lowest power halted state most of the time, so as to achieve at least a week of operation from its 250mAH Li-Poly cell between recharges via USB.
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Version 1 - First Pass Engineering
This client’s product was fairly well defined from the beginning, providing an opportunity for achieving a ‘manufcturing candidate’ PCB on the first PCB iteration. That was indeed achieved, however further cost-optimisation will be well worth a second spin of the PCB.