July 2017
6
C
OVER
S
TORY
Assured performance in extreme
environments
By Daniel Piper,
ADLINK
This article shows
that delivering truly rugged solutions
requires a focused strategy beginning
with R&D and ending with robust
products. Reliability in extreme
environments means more than
putting commercial motherboards
into an upgraded enclosure;
it demands a relentless pursuit of
assured performance.
n
As the performance density of integrated
circuits increases, every new generation of
microprocessor gives embedded computer
vendors the opportunity to address a wider
range of applications. Many of those oppor-
tunities now exist in industries that demand
more, not only in terms of processing per-
formance but in the overall system specifica-
tion. Unlike clock speed, memory bandwidth
or communications interfaces, these require-
ments are not so easily documented on a
data sheet. They concern how the system will
behave in environments that are extremely
hazardous to off-the-shelf computing plat-
forms.
Electronic systems are generally susceptible to
extremes in terms of temperature, humidity
and vibration. It is relatively easy for a manu-
facturer to describe a computing platform as
ruggedized if it has been housed in an enclo-
sure that provides some protection to envi-
ronmental conditions, but if that protection
doesn’t extend to every component within the
system, the guarantee may be empty. Nobody
invites failure but many industries cannot
afford to take that kind of risk; a single com-
ponent failure can take an entire mission-crit-
ical system offline and in many industries, that
is simply not an option. Because of its inher-
ent reliability, many industries now choose to
specify rugged electronics. The high reliabil-
ity requirements of the military, defense and
aerospace industries may have led the way,
but now other industries, such as drilling and
mining, mass transit and medical as well as all
automation industries, benefit from cost-ef-
fective and powerful ruggedized solutions for
harsh shop floor, outdoor or in-vehicle appli-
cations.
But OEMs need to be careful. Although
something may be marketed as designed for
extreme environments, or ruggedized, further
inspection often reveals components within
the system that are not designed to be exposed
to constant extremes in temperature, humid-
ity or vibration. If that is the case, the entire
system is compromised.
Thus, ruggedization isn’t something that can
be covered by only utilizing a rugged enclo-
sure; it requires an approach to product
design that takes nothing for granted. It must
start with R&D that is focused on taking elec-
tronics systems to extremes. It demands com-
ponent selection based on their suitability and
not just their features. And it requires that at
every step of the design and manufacturing
processes, the rugged credentials are veri-
fied and validated. Only through this robust
approach to product development can a man-
ufacturer really deliver solutions that can be
labeled as Extreme Rugged.
In order to deliver reliability at this level, a
manufacturer needs to have complete faith
in its products and processes; it must push its
own limits beyond even the customer expec-
tations. Only by doing this can a manufacturer
have complete trust in its own products and
ask the same from its customers. Of course, all
manufacturers offering rugged computer plat-
forms claim to test their products and comply
with industry standards for high reliability,
but without a demonstrable commitment
to testing at every stage, with documented
results that support a robust improvement
process, testing remains largely subjective.
This commitment must even extend to cus-
tomer support. Unlike many manufacturers,
ADLINK is a leading embedded computing
vendor that involves the customer at the earli-
est stages of product development, providing
a custom service that ensures the product(s)
not only meet the vendors own high stan-
dards for extreme ruggedness but meet the
exact requirements of the customer, too. This
level of commitment to customer satisfaction
results in embedded solutions that are guaran-
teed to meet the end-user needs. Extreme rug-
ged embedded solutions developed are tested
and certified to operate across an extended
temperature range of -40°C to +85°C (-40°F
to +185°F). This is far more specific and mea-
surable than the assurance offered by many
