How do you handle obsolescence risks when clients demand rapid product updates?

To manage obsolescence risks, develop a proactive plan that includes regular assessments of your components and technology. Stay updated on industry trends and maintain strong relationships with suppliers to ensure early notice of any potential discontinuations. By forecasting future needs and securing alternative solutions in advance, you can minimize disruptions and meet client demands effectively.

Obsolescence is a huge concern and consideration when designing any product. Many consumer grade semiconductor ICs have supported lifespans of 5 to 10 years and many automotive grade semiconductor ICs have around 10 to 20 years. Early in the design phase, it is critical to work closely with the chip manufacturer to balance the project needs with the life cycles of the ICs. Based on the life span requirements for the product one can get ICs that will outlast the life of the product. Additionally, the layout of the IC, resources chosen and utilized need to be designed to support future enhancements or the need to re-spin the board for a new IC. Additionally, when designing for a new product, I try to put hooks in for future enhancements.

One of the best ways to mitigate this is having a functional library flow where designers can have all the parametric information available to them integrated with a design that will be part of the full product release. Within the library, you want to have the information of parts obsolescence readily available so designers can make informed decisions on which parts to use. If you see a vital capacitor that you will use commonly as a bypass, you want to make sure that part won't come to EOL within the next year or so. This will reduce costs as well as avoid those painstaking ECO process. Parts Obsolescence plays a crucial role in an integrated data management design flow.

Design flexibility often involves balancing future enhancements with keeping manufacturing and production costs low. If you’ve been in the industry long enough, you’re familiar with the standard advice: design with 50% more pins and 50% more memory than you initially estimate. While this approach has served me well throughout my career, I believe true design flexibility comes from empathizing with the end user. By understanding their needs and applying critical design thinking, you can incorporate necessary features into the design that might not be obvious to project architects. This approach allows for experimentation with new enhancements in early phases and opens the door for proposing future improvements.

I really love R&D Engineering, and one of my major joys is monitoring new technology. I stay updated through numerous sources and frequently meet with IC device manufacturers and vendor representatives. For me, it's not just about the excitement of learning about new technologies but also about envisioning how these technologies could be applied to future products or enhancements. Over my career, I’ve often found success by identifying and repurposing technology for uses beyond its original intent. I’ve never worked for a company with the extensive resources needed to create specialized ICs for specific uses, which has made this creative approach all the more rewarding.