| VLSI AND SYSTEM DESIGN |
| Case Study |
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| Value engineering: Enhancing revenues
through extended product life |
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| The customer |
| A leader in industrial
automation with its Headquarters in Japan. |
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| The challenge |
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The Client
wanted to extend the life of one of their
highly successful Industrial Automation products. |
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Wipro had to understand
the functionalities of the clients’
System, to suggest and implement suitable
replacements, thus enabling the client to
continue with the existing product. |
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| The solution |
Wipro replaced
several obsolete ASICs (Application Specific IC)
on the system with low cost, low grade FPGAs (Field
Programmable gate arrays).
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The designs
were with 5V tolerant interfaces,
while all present devices are either 3.3V
OR 1.5 V. So workaround was required for compatibility. |
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Incomplete database
documentation: Most of the design
inputs in the form of chip schematics or gate
netlists were either incomplete or in Japanese.
Wipro had to identify and reconstruct methodology
for all of the ASICs and then re-engineer
the design to FPGAs |
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Footprint Mismatch:
As the footprint of the new FPGAs were different
from the existing ASICs, Wipro also designed
the daughter boards which would interface
between the FPGA and the main system, without
requiring any change to the reset of the existing
system |
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| Measurable business benefits |
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Life
cycle Extension: With it’s
Value Engineering practice, Wipro allowed
the client to continue with it’s highly
successful product, hence increasing returns
without any substantial investment into a
new product |
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