Photo Printer Development Project



Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2007

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Project summary:



A development project for a new photo printer with high resolution and high speed printing either from digital camera's memory cards or a computer.

Product Life Cycle:

The inkjet-based print engine will be developed in-house as part of the existing product lines. Several decisions need to be made in this project:
1) Choose a contract design and manufacturing (CDM) partner to develop the photo controller or develop it in-house.

2) The interface between the print engine and the photo controller. The connection could be either serial or parallel. Either way, the communication protocol has to be defined.

3) Selection of core electronics components include ASICs, microprocessors, motors, sensors, memory devices, power supplies, optical components, or other custom-designed or standard electrical components.

4) Selection of key electronics suppliers.

5) Hardware/Software partition, i.e., implement USB/ IEEE 1284 parallel protocols in the hardware (ASIC/FPGA) or software (microprocessor-based software).

6) Embedded software/Host software partition, i.e., implement carrier position controller software in the microprocessor embedded software or host software.

 

Needs:



Color Printing

Connectivity

 

 USB, IEEE 1284-compliant bidirectional parallel
External I/O Ports

 

 1 USB port, 1 parallel, 4 memory card slots

Duplex Printing

 

 Automatic
Easy photo printing

  

 Direct photo printing from digital camera's memory card
Mac Compatibility
Print quality mode

  

 Draft, Normal, Best
Media Types

 

 Paper (plain, inkjet, photo, glossy, transparencies, labels, cards, iron-on transfers, banner paper)
Media Sizes

  

 US letter, legal, executive, envelopes, index cards, 4 x 6 in photo paper

Transportable

  

 Small enough for printing on the go
Compatible Operating Systems

 

 Microsoft® Windows (Me Millennium Edition, 98, 2000 Professional, XP); Macintosh (Mac OS 9 or OS X v10.1.2 or above on G3 processor or greater)
Preview photos on color LCD then use control panel to select photo size, color, and format
Energy Star Compliant
 

Requirements:

 

Print Resolution, Color

 

 4800 x 1200 dpi on Premium Photo papers

1200 x 1200 dpi when printing from a computer
Print Resolution, Black

  

 1200 x 1200 dpi
Print Speed Black, Draft Quality

  

 up to 17 ppm (page per minute)
Print Speed Color, Draft Quality

  

 up to 11 ppm (page per minute)
Input Capacity Sheets

  

 100-sheet input tray, 24-sheet 4 x 6 inch photo tray
Dimensions

(W x D x H)

  

 8.5x 7.5x 4.5in ~ 9.5 x 8.5 x 5.5in

 
Weight

 

 2.5lb ~ 3.5lb




Constraints:

  1. FCC Regulatory Compliance and CE (European Union) Compliance for Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).
  2. The product cost limitation will limit the memory size which limits the print speed.
  3. The width of the printer will limit the motor speed of the print head carrier which also limits the print speed.
 

Solutions:

 

Print Technology

 

 Thermal Inkjet

Memory

 

 8 MB

Print head carrier motor

  

 DC motor for higher speed
Paper feed motor

  

 Stepper motor for better position control
ASIC vs. FPGA

  

 FPGA for prototyping; ASIC for manufacturing
 

 

 

This is a time-critical project as the product development cycle is set as one year.

 

EVT1: 07/01 – 09/15

Tasks:

1)     Product definition, requirement analysis.

2)     Development partner selection, supplier/vendors selection.

3)     Print engine/photo controller interface protocol definition.

4)     Hardware/software interface definition.

5)     Embedded software/Host software partition definition.

6)     Core electronics components selection.

7)     Define program milestones, provide ongoing visibility of program schedule, critical path, and related issues. Prepare and deliver program checkpoints.

 

EVT2: 09/01 – 12/15

Tasks:

1)     Hardware-software integration.

2)     Component tests.

3)     Manage the life cycle of the engine development, ensuring that major milestones are achieved.

4)     Manage the co-development with the CDM partner to deliver designs and prototypes on time and at cost targets.

5)     Identify and manage key interdependencies between the engine and the photo controller.

6)     Establish the connection between the host software and the embedded software.

7)     Print engine-photo controller integration.

 

DVT1: 12/01 – 03/15

Tasks:

1)     Continue to integrate the print engine and photo controller.

2)     Start system tests.

3)     Manage the communication problems between the host software and embedded software.

4)     Manage the interface issues between the print engine and photo controller.

5)     Manage tradeoffs of engine/controller scope, schedule, and risk.

6)     Identify and communicate key integration milestones and the program critical path. Keep the program schedule up to date, accurate, and visible.

7)     Communicate the program critical path and any schedule gaps to the partners.

8)     EMI/EMC, ESD Compliance tests.

9)     USB IF Compliance tests.

10)  Port the FPGA design to a customized ASIC and mask the chip.

 

DVT2: 03/15 – 06/15

Tasks:

1)     Continue on EMI/EMC, ESD, and USB IF Compliance tests.

2)     Reviewed the risk of each change and prioritized the impact and severity of issues.

3)     Defect management including tracking, analyzing issues, moving the issues through the team, fixing issues, testing fixes, and verifying fixes.

4)     Improve print speed for each print mode (draft, normal, best).

5)     Improve the print quality with each print mode.

6)     Mask the second ASIC with modifications and fixes.

7)     Develop new ideas and methods to improve the overall efficiency of the development process.

8)     Improve the development of platform strategy.














TPMs:


1) Performance: print speed, size, weight, print head temperature, power consumptions, noise, ink drop accuracy.



2) Software: code size, reliability, user friendly.



3) Compliance: EMI/EMC, ESD, USB IF.



4) Supportability: supplier/partner relationship, standard electrical/mechanical components, Supply Chain, availability of hardware support equipment, availability of software support tools.



5) Producibility: high volume (>10k/month) and low volume (<1000/month) manufacturing environments, manufacturing facilities.

 

Resource margins:

List

 

 Margin level
Print engine hardware

  

 15% - inherited design with new features
Print engine software

  

 15% - inherited design with new features
Photo controller hardware

  

 25% - new design

Photo controller software

  

 25% - new design
Host software/firmware integration

  

 15% - inherited design with new features
Engine/controller integration

  

 35% - new system
 



Cost break-down:

1) Development cost.

2) Production cost.

3) Operation cost.

4) Disposal cost.

 

For this project with two options, the development cost and operation cost will be much lower if we choose a contract design and manufacturing (CDM) partner to develop the photo controller rather than develop it in-house. However, if we are capable of creating a photo controller in-house successfully within acceptable cost and schedules, the savings will favor an in-house development in the long run because we wouldn’t have to “pay” the CDM partner or ODM/OEM partners.

 





Project Tests for validation and verification:

1)     Functional tests.

2)     System throughput test.

3)     Print quality examination.

4)     Logic verification and timing analysis.

5)     Signal quality verification.

6)     EMI/EMC, ESD, and USB IF Compliance tests.

7)     Hardware/software reliability tests.

8)     Software tests (block box tests, white box tests, component tests, system tests).

9)     Ink drop accuracy measurement.

10)  Print head temperature measurement.

11)  Noise measurement.

12)  Safety tests.

 



Conclusions and recommendations:



1)     Co-design and co-development with third party organizations for a time-critical project.

2)     Introduce hardware/software co-design and co-verification to meet tighter schedules and reduce cost.

3)     Try to reuse modules from existing products.

4)     Software solutions for flexibility and faster, cheaper implementation; hardware solutions (FPGA, PLD, ASIC) for performance and better power consumption.

5)     Introduce CMMI process model to improve the process of hardware-software interface integration.
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