I have written several blogs about setting up and running your own company (P2 here), the software tools and IT infrastructure required. As Adiuvo gets towards the 10 year point (11th December 2014 is its founding date) I thought I would explore a little the lab equipment which I have found useful over these years and should be considered if you are thinking of going our on your own.
The Basics
Power Supplies – Most development boards can be powered from a wall adapter however when you are working with custom boards it is often necessary to power the board from a bench supply. This enables us to initially power on with low voltages / currents to ensure there are no shorts or issues. For power supplies I prefer ones which can be controlled remotely so that not only can I enable / disable power remotely but we can also see and log the voltage / current being used. As most of what we do is relatively low power I tend to prefer power supplies which are adjustable between 0 and 32 volts and can supply at least 3A.
Multi Meter – The ability to measure voltages, currents and resistances is one of the basic tests we need to do when bringing new boards up or setting up test equipment. I still have one I bought 25+ years ago when I was doing my engineering degrees final project. Over the years I also have acquired several more different makes and models.
It might be old but it is trusted
Oscilloscope – This is another of the basic elements needed for bring up boards and debugging designs. I started out with a PicoScope (which I still have), then as needed I purchased stand alone oscilloscopes. One thing I do like is an old Tektronix TDS 744A scope I am looking after for a friend who rescued it from his works clear out. It might be a little old but still works correctly, even though I did have to by some 3.5 inch floppy disks and USB floppy disk drive for saved images.
Integrated Solutions
One interesting thing is over the 10 years what is available has evolved considerably too, just as FPGA and development tools have. While the basics above are useful as separate systems there exist several integrated tools which are very useful.
These integrated tools often combine a power supplies, logic analysers / pattern generators and of course oscilloscopes. The first, of these that I am aware of was the original analog discovery, over the years this has evolved to analog discovery 3 and larger desktop units which offer significantly increased capabilities. If you are starting out now the AD3 or the Analog Discovery Pro line are great starting points.
They do not offer everything which is needed but can be a great starting point, they are portable too, I often have a AD2 or AD3 in my backpack.
Specialised Equipment
It is not just the basic test equipment which comes in useful, when starting out especially in FPGA there are also several other things which come in very usefully.
Raspberry PI These are great for creating acting as video sources for testing image processing pipelines, alternatively they are also great for controlling test equipment and generating SPI, I2C and UART data packets for units under test.
Cables I Always found the one I needed was the one I did not have. This means not just a range of Ethernet, USB and HDMI cables. But cables to enable you to connect your lab equipment to the units being tested. This includes BNC, SMA, BNC to SMA cables, Power cables with stackable banana cables, banana cables with test hooks, banana cables with crocodile clips and of course mini test hooks. I would also recommend a lot of jumper cables, with a mix of terminators to able cross-connections between boards.
JTAG Programmer Not all boards provide on board JTAG programming, it is therefore a good idea to have a JTAG programmer. I started with a Digilent HS2 programmer, now we have a couple of SmartLynq boxes. There is also OpenJTAG which can be used with a range of devices including a RPI Pico.
USB Power Monitor These days I use a Joulescope to monitor power consumption, however when I first started out as a lot of boards are USB powered I used a inline USB power convertor to monitor the power being consumed by a module under test, it was simple but it worked.
HDMI to USB convertor FPGA are great for image processing, it is therefore great to be able to grab output images from the processing chain on your development machine. Having a inexpensive HDMI to USB frame grabber works well. As we have over the years also done a lot of SDI image processing, we also have Black Magic, HDMI to SDI and SDI to HDMI Convertors.
Using a RPI 4000 to stream test video which is converted to 3G SDI for testing on a customer project.
More niche equipment
Over the years I have also gathered a lot of test equipment needed for specific projects, I always view new projects as a time to invest in either new SW or lab equipment. As such we have thermal cameras which are useful for doing thermal surveys of boards, active loads, which are useful for testing power designs on boards.
I have also purchased things which will help me debug specific interfaces for example the Cynthion for USB or Glasgow interface explorer.
More recently I purchased a data logger to help me be able to test out the thermal response of a clients unit at temperature, in a chamber. Though I do not have a thermal chamber yet I have space for one in the office!.
Workshops and Webinars
If you enjoyed the blog why not take a look at the free webinars, workshops and training courses we have created over the years. Highlights include
Upcoming Webinars Timing, RTL Creation, FPGA Math and Mixed Signal
Professional PYNQ Learn how to use PYNQ in your developments
Introduction to Vivado learn how to use AMD Vivado
Ultra96, MiniZed & ZU1 three day course looking at HW, SW and PetaLinux
Arty Z7-20 Class looking at HW, SW and PetaLinux
Mastering MicroBlaze learn how to create MicroBlaze solutions
HLS Hero Workshop learn how to create High Level Synthesis based solutions
Perfecting Petalinux learn how to create and work with PetaLinux OS
Boards
Get an Adiuvo development board
Adiuvo Spartan 7 / RPi 2040 Embedded System Development Board
Adiuvo Spartan 7 Tile - Low Risk way to add a FPGA to your design.
Embedded System Book
Do you want to know more about designing embedded systems from scratch? Check out our book on creating embedded systems. This book will walk you through all the stages of requirements, architecture, component selection, schematics, layout, and FPGA / software design. We designed and manufactured the board at the heart of the book! The schematics and layout are available in Altium here Learn more about the board (see previous blogs on Bring up, DDR validation, USB, Sensors) and view the schematics here.
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