Debug and analysis considerations for optimizing signal integrity in your internet of things design

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand to include applications including home automation, fitness, video, and tracking as well as traditional embedded electronics use cases the needs for testing and optimizing these designs become clearer. Even as IoT expands, the test requirements have begun to crystallize into a set of capabilities that can assist a design team in achieving their goals. This is especially important given the smaller, more versatile teams and companies charting a path in IoT. As companies and engineers often new to large scale design work attempt to make new types of successful consumer products, IoT projects will continue to progress in fits and starts until designers find the optimal mix of form and function for each target application. Too much focus on form inherently creates reliability and annoyances like additional charging time. By first considering test requirements as a method for evaluating these concerns, a design team can speed time to market and ultimately reduce the iterations required to create a successful product platform. Selecting the best test equipment for the task at hand also enables engineers to stay within their startup budget requirements. Signal integrity is a key design aspecs whose importance is magnified by these inherent tradeoffs in the IoT landscape. Focusing on signal integrity as a key indicator of the optimal approach for an IoT application from debug through final design enables a small IoT design team to leverage their capabilities and ultimately reward their customers with performance and ease. Here we will be discussing important examples of signal integrity test methodologies for IoT devices and how they impact the user experience from form to function.