4.4: Hardware System Design

ASIC Design Team

As mentioned earlier Network ASICs can be developed in-house (custom ASICs) or be procured from several merchant silicon vendors. The ASIC chipsets may have specific target markets: Enterprise, hyperscalers, or Service Providers.

Systems Design Team

An in-house system design team is usually of modest size, much smaller in general than the software team that is working on the project. The areas represented typically include:

• Chassis design. The chassis design is often done in concert with a senior system designer by mechanical engineers who prepare 3D models of the desired enclosure which will be fabricated using sheet metal, with necessary cutouts for front-panel I/O interfaces, removable power supplies, and removable fan trays.
• Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design. A PCB designer does the logical design of the board, connecting the pins of component to other components. If an outside vendor is used to perform the physical routing, the board designer would supervise that.
• Signal integrity engineering. This group ensures that signals remain usable as they traverse the full length of traces from one component to another.
• Power supply design. PSU designers are involved with working with outside vendors on new PSUs, validating off the shelf PSUs, or working on custom changes to existing PSUs.
• Compliance engineering. These professionals ensure compliance to EMC standards by going requisite testing in-house or working with outside vendors.
• Testing. This includes board bring-up and HALT testing. It may include people who write diagnostics, although they may reside in the software group.

If an ODM is being used to do an original design or port a previously existing design, a much smaller hardware team will likely be in place to oversee the work of the ODM. The team will likely be a group of experienced former hardware designers with various areas of expertise.