Highlights
-
2024-01-22 20:06 In addition to the costs of engineering and manufacturing efforts to convert to the new design, there’s also the cost and risk of EMC (Electro-magnetic Compliance) lab testing. A certified test lab will provide a quote for the testing and filings needed. A ballpark cost for this testing and filings will be roughly $20,000 for US (FCC) and Canada (ISED).
-
2024-01-22 20:07 A shipping quantity of about 10,000 units annually is roughly the threshold where going “chip-down” starts to make sense, and it’s a “no-brainer” at volumes of 25k or more.
-
2024-01-22 20:07 In comparison, the time to create a design using a pre-certified module in the first place (just for integrating the RF module, assuming nearly identical firmware), will be 4 to 8 weeks of design work and about $3,000 of FCC/ISED testing. In total, the design cycle will probably take about 4 months.
-
2024-01-23 18:29 Your product, even without the radio, might have a noisy power supply or LCD data lines – among a host of other challenges. Adding a radio to that mix can compound and emphasize any EMC problems that product already has. Nonetheless, if your design has already passed EMC testing with a certified module, the chip-down design is relatively low-risk as long as you follow the RF chip manufacturer’s guidance carefully.