Specialized Products & Projects
Over the years, SC Solutions has undertaken various projects that have led to the development of specialized products. This line of integrated hardware and software solutions is complementary to its core business of providing custom model-based control and tuning products and solutions.
Custom Hardware
Why Custom Hardware?
Although our core competence is modeling and control design in software, many of our projects have required the development of custom hardware. Reasons for involvement in hardware development vary from acquiring capability to show ‘proof of concept’ for a particular idea to providing dedicated hardware for implementing very specialized high-performance control solutions. These applications include the development of a fast high-resolution macro-defect scanner, or the development of a frequency detector for Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM). Irrespective of the reason, we have the experience and capability to develop and deliver integrated software-hardware control solutions.
How do Specialized Products & Projects fit into our overall business strategy?
Specialized products complement our core model-based control and tuning business. We typically implement our software targeted to our customer’s hardware, but on occasion our customers request that we provide an integrated, stand-alone solution. This could be for prototyping use, or any of the other reasons described above. Some proposed solutions that may be demonstrated in simulation may not be considered practical for implementation, or achieve the predicted performance until it is demonstrated hardware. If the application is one in which we can develop the hardware part of the solution, we would undertake the project to add credibility to the claims of our simulation studies and model-based core business.
How much does it cost?
Specialized products and projects are typically funded on an hourly NRE basis.
Custom Software
Why Custom Software?
Here, we are referring to software other than controller software. Similar to the case of custom hardware, some customers do not have the expertise to develop their own software solutions. In some cases, they may have the expertise, but may not have the necessary resources to develop the software in a timely manner. On several occasions, SC Solutions has developed and delivered custom software in a relatively short amount of time. Examples include development of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for tuning and control, development of data acquisition software, development of a software harness for real-time implementation and execution of controllers, and software development for hardware testing. Most of our engineers have a software background that allows for rapid prototyping of different software applications developed using a range of programming languages.