Analog and Digital Designs

We specialize in analog and digital interface and signal conditioning for control, HWIL simulation, data collection, and monitoring. Our designs are simple, robust, and easy to manufacture and extend.

Below are examples of fully differential IAs, power op amp circuits, LED indicator power dissipation, a 'universal' solenoid driver, and a high voltage power supply conditioning and protection circuit designed in B2SPICE and Eagle Professional :

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PCB Designs

Depending on the customer, we use Eagle Professional 5.x.x and Autorouter, PCB123, or ExpressPCB to design leaded or lead free PCBs in 1-16 layers and up to 64"x64" in size. Designs in both SMT (preferred) and through hole technology are available with a wide variety of options on shape, silkscreening, solder mask and solder mask colors, and quantity pricing. Because a Light version of Eagle is available without cost (or very nominal cost, given some size limitations) and so called 'board house linked freeware' such as PCB123 and ExpressPCB also cost nothing, our customers do not have to invest in costly design software to modify their PCBs in the future.

We can also supply complete BOMs, test scenarios and instructions, CTQs and FOMs for circuit operation, as well as Gerbers. We use both ViewMate (again free so all customers can view their Gerbers without purchasing any software) and ViewMaster EZ (must be purchased but has editing capabilities) to share and work with Gerber files :

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Mechanical Designs

Today's machines benefit greatly from an integration of mechanical and electrical design. To the extent that synergistic relationships can be utilized or designed in from the outset, we use Alibre Design Expert, e-Machine Shop, and MITCalc to help design effective, efficient, and attractive end effectors, actuators, multifunction mechanical components, and enclosures to interface with the 'real world'.

Examples below are a battery powered, microprocessor and LCD based consumer product; two combination 6061-T6 heatsink, mounting block, and heat conduits; a representative worm gear power transmission design, and an analysis of the pre-stressing and clamping pressure (for heat transfer between held pieces) of 6-32 fasteners made of Alumina 998 (a high temperature ceramic with tensile strength of approximately 5ksi) :

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Machining and Metalworking

In keeping with the integrated electrical and mechanical nature of our designs, our mini machine shop can produce many (if not all) mechanical items required for prototyping and small production runs. If the required machining is beyond our milling, drilling, turning, sheet metal bending, cutting and rolling, boring, thread cutting, tapping, grinding, sanding, finishing, MIG welding, spot welding, plastic welding, or powder coating capacities, we use e-Machine Shop and Front Panel Express for CNC machining of the required parts at very reasonable costs and volumes. In addition to CNC, these vendors provide us with blanking, punching, bending, shearing, laser cutting, injection molding, and extrusions at industrial qualities and scales.

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Assembly and Production

Prototypes and small production runs are manufactured using conventional and dip solder techniques for through hole boards, and common reflow techniques for SMT PCBs. Our manual vacuum pick and place machine and tools, large (2.5'x3.0') stencil printer, large reflow/rework station, and reflow ovens allow manufacture of high quality PCBs up to 14"x12" in size.

Mechanical components are integrated during assembly and PCB circuits and systems are tested for proper operation and these CTQ (Critical To Quality) results are documented to the customer.

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VLSI Designs, PLAs, PLDs, CPLDs, and FPGAs

AetherMachines is experienced in schematic capture and HDL design with various Altera and Xilinx CPLDs/FPGAs. Our designs include clocked logic, Richards controller state machines, and combinatorial logic. We currently are specializing in the Altera EPM7128 and Xilinx XC95108.

We have the capability of programming in excess 30,000 parts from over 170 manufacturers, ranging from simple PLAs and PLDs to serial and parallel (E)EPROMs, micro controllers, PICs, FLASH memories, NVRAMs, PROMs, etc..

Examples below include an 8-bit register based uP implemented in Xilinx Foundation tools for the 4005 series FPGA with a VHDL op code handler (instruction state machine) followed by simple Altera and Xilinx, and Atmel ATF16V series examples :

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