Embedded Systems & Electronics
Our electronics practice takes a product from schematic to shipping unit: multi-layer PCB design, firmware, EMI/EMC and environmental qualification, and the test jigs and documentation that make volume manufacture repeatable. It is the same team that builds the flight and control electronics inside our group companies.
The shape of the work
Hardware and firmware, gated on both sides
Every design step on the way down has a matching verification step on the way up. Nothing moves to production until the step opposite it has evidence behind it.
Inside the Embedded Systems & Electronics practice
Hardware design
Schematic capture, multi-layer PCB layout, power and signal integrity analysis, thermal budgeting and component sourcing strategy.
Firmware & RTOS
Bare-metal and RTOS firmware, secure bootloaders, over-the-air update paths and hardware abstraction layers built for testability.
Qualification & compliance
Design for EMI/EMC, vibration, thermal cycling and ingress protection, with test campaigns planned against the applicable standards.
Production engineering
Test fixtures, end-of-line software, traceability and the manufacturing data pack your contract manufacturer needs.
What we build with
Representative — we choose per project, and we will tell you when the boring option is the right one.
- STM32 / NXP
- ESP32
- Nordic nRF
- Xilinx FPGA
- Zephyr
- FreeRTOS
- Embedded Linux
- Altium
- KiCad
- CAN / RS-485
Every engagement includes
- Full manufacturing data pack on handover
- Design reviews at schematic, layout and pre-production gates
- Sustaining engineering after launch
What this actually involves
The level below the summary — for readers deciding whether we do this work or merely list it.
PCB engineering
A board is an electromagnetic structure before it is a circuit. Stack-up is decided first, because it sets impedance, return paths and EMI behaviour — and it cannot be changed later without redoing the layout.
- Multi-layer stack-up design with defined dielectric and copper weights
- Controlled-impedance routing to a target tolerance, verified by coupon
- Signal integrity — reflection, crosstalk, eye-diagram analysis on critical nets
- Power integrity — PDN impedance targets, decoupling strategy, plane resonance
- EMI/EMC by design: return-path continuity, edge treatment, filtering at the boundary
- Thermal budgeting, copper spreading and component derating to class
High-speed and industrial interfaces
Above a few hundred megahertz, a trace stops being a wire. These are the interfaces we route, terminate and qualify as transmission lines rather than connections.
- DDR3 / DDR4 memory interfaces with fly-by topology and write levelling
- PCI Express, Gigabit Ethernet and SERDES lanes
- LVDS for sensor and display links
- CAN and CAN-FD for vehicle and machine networks
- RS-485 and Modbus for plant field buses
- SpaceWire for on-board spacecraft data handling
Programmable logic
Where the timing has to be exact and a processor cannot guarantee it, the logic goes into hardware. This is also where the determinism argument reaches its cleanest form.
- FPGA design and RTL development in VHDL and SystemVerilog
- Constrained random and assertion-based verification
- Timing closure against declared constraints, not best effort
- CPLD for glue logic, sequencing and power-up ordering
- Payload and sensor pre-processing offloaded from the main processor
Hardened for the environment it lives in
A board in a control cabinet, on an airframe and in orbit are three different problems. The design rules change per class, and so does the parts list.
- Radiation effects: total dose, displacement damage and single-event upsets treated as three separate problems
- Triple modular redundancy on critical logic paths
- ECC memory with background scrubbing, so one bit flip is corrected before a second arrives
- Independent watchdogs with a defined recovery action
- Component derating targets by class — commercial, industrial, airborne, space
- Conformal coating, vibration and ingress protection for field and airborne use
Packaging and manufacture
A design that cannot be built repeatably is not finished. Package choice, assembly process and inspection method are decided during layout, not handed to the contract manufacturer afterwards.
- BGA, QFN, flip-chip, wire bond and hermetic ceramic packaging
- Assembly-process selection with thermal-profile and reflow considerations
- Design for test: test points, boundary scan, in-circuit access
- Automated optical inspection and X-ray for hidden joints
- Approved manufacturer list with qualified second sources
- Full manufacturing data pack: fabrication drawing, assembly drawing, BOM, AML, test spec
An eight-layer stack-up, decided before anything is routed
Which layer a signal lives on is not a routing convenience — it is what sets its impedance, its return path and how much it radiates. Choosing the stack-up after routing means re-doing the routing, so the class of the product fixes it on day one.
Other capabilities
Enterprise Applications
Line-of-business platforms, integrations and modernisation programmes for organisations that run on custom software.
Read moreData Centre & Infrastructure
Design, build and day-two operation of on-premise, colocated and hybrid-cloud infrastructure.
Read moreSCADA & Industrial Automation
PLC, SCADA and telemetry systems for plants, utilities and distributed field assets.
Read moreHave a project in Embedded Systems & Electronics?
Send the constraints. We will come back with an approach, a rough shape of the team and what it would take.