The SIE Computing Solutions design and engineering team has nearly 40 years of experience in building customized solutions to application challenges. With specifications, design questions, or even nothing more than system requirements, our customers come to SIE with their rugged electronic system needs assured they can rely on our expertise in design and development for ultimate reliability in any environment in the world.

With extensive engineering experience with all major open architecture platforms, including VME, VXS, VPX, PXI, Compact PCI, AdvancedTCA, and microTCA, SIE has all the tools to design and build customized enclosure solutions that can be easily configured to meet performance requirements at every level.

Total design and engineering services include program and product lifecycle management from a team of engineers and product managers dedicated to the project from concept through the life of the product:

• Develop work statement that covers the design of each system level
• Establish a project schedule, identifying major milestones as well as critical inch stones
• Document all meetings and establish action item lists
• Coordinate certification test requirements and schedule the test facility
• Drive all action items to completion
• Prepare and coordinate all presentation and meeting material
• Complete design documentation package

Electrical Design

• System control and hardware monitoring
• Backplane design, cable and interconnect
• Serial I/O design
• Storage systems
• Custom power supplies and distribution systems

Mechanical Design

• Enclosure design
• EMI and RFI cabinet and enclosure design
• Low MTTR & High MTBF
• Thermal simulations
• Outdoor and harsh environment packaging

Software Design

• System control
• Programming and configuration monitoring

At SIE Computing Solutions, new product specifications are more than simply technical requirements to be met. We treat all specifications as benchmarks to be surpassed, and with industry-leading systems engineering expertise in everything from thermal management, shock and vibration, and size and weight constraints, to networking requirements, sand and moisture protection, and a host of other environmental challenges, we can apply extensive experience in any engineering specialty for problem-solving custom and prefabricated solutions.

As leaders in the engineering, design and development of open architecture bus structures such as VME, VXS, VPX, PXI, Compact PCI, AdvancedTCA, microTCA, and more, we have designed custom solutions to meet deployment demands for embedded systems of every platform. Our customers continue to come to SIE assured of our technical superiority and years of proven production, and we deliver on this quality promise, every time.

Custom engineering capabilities include:

Electrical Design

• System control and hardware monitoring
• Backplane design, cable and interconnect
• Serial I/O design
• Storage systems
• Custom power supplies and distribution systems

Mechanical Design

• Enclosure design
• EMI and RFI cabinet and enclosure design
• Low MTTR & High MTBF
• Thermal simulations
• Outdoor and harsh environment packaging

Software Design

• System control
• Programming and configuration monitoring

Thermal Simulation Services

The demand for higher-speed processing and higher performance, combined with the continued pressure to keep size, weight, and costs down, have made thermal issues one of the most critical engineering challenges in high-performance embedded system design. As a result, thermal requirements must be addressed at the beginning of the design cycle in order to improve design reliability and avoid costly redesigns. Validating thermal management early in the design process also allows any potential problems to be addressed before the system is built.

SIE's in-depth airflow modeling and thermal simulation testing services are a critical step in the design process to verify that our rugged electronic enclosures will be able to withstand the harsh environmental conditions in which they are designed to thrive, and most importantly, work as planned. Thermal simulation testing can also aid in designing the optimal system temperature requirements. Our products are proven to withstand even the most rigorous environmental challenges. Our customers come to us with their every requirement and rely on our expertise and thorough thermal simulation testing services to get a clear picture of what a specific enclosure can handle - and then to push the envelope.

Using the industry-leading CFdesign software, SIE provides modeling for air-cooled, conduction-cooled, or liquid-cooled applications. SIE maintains a close working relationship with the makers of CFdesign and consistently incorporates our growing knowledge into our world-class airflow modeling and thermal simulation testing services.

Additionally, SIE provides analytical testing services after the enclosure is designed in order to generate the statistics necessary to verify that the design does exactly what it was intended to do, and correlates thermal simulation results to the results obtained from the analytical test of the fully designed system.

Electrical Simulation Services

SIE Computing Solutions utilizes advanced electrical simulations to ensure successful and efficient design solutions for high-speed communications systems. Electrical simulation results provide our engineers with insight into the expected performance of a backplane based on specific design criteria and also allows them to view these results in relation to the system's boards.

For example, if a customer has a specific requirement for a system with a data link that can run at 6.25 GB per second, an electrical simulation is performed on the high-speed serial data link, resulting in an eye diagram for analysis. The eye diagram effectively displays the channel's net ability to transmit data. In addition to the eye diagrams, our team of engineers analyzes elements such as bit error rate, trace geometry, trace length, trace spacing and trace-to-trace spacing to generate "design rules" to use when designing the backplane.

SIE Computing Solutions also utilizes extensive signal integrity analysis to guarantee the execution of a design and ensure successful backplane performance.

Our world-class team of engineers has over 35 years of combined experience in electrical engineering. Trust SIE Computing Solutions to put our extensive engineering and design knowledge to work for you.

SIE Computing Solutions boasts state-of-the-art technology to consistently meet and exceed our customer's specifications. SIE's backplane characterization service measures the actual signal integrity of the backplane after assembly has been completed for design verification. This also allows us the opportunity to confirm that our simulation results and actual results match, to ensure that the backplane will perform as expected before being shipped to our customers.

SIE's extensive structural engineering services are performed post-design and pre-fabrication to provide a comprehensive structural analysis of our rugged electronic enclosures. Our complete array of structural engineering services ensure the fortitude of an SIE-designed enclosure and provide metrics to validate that the enclosure is structurally sound, will meet our stringent design requirements, and will be able to withstand the harsh environmental conditions for which it was designed.

Our structural engineering services include shock and vibe testing, stress testing, military standard testing, NEBs testing, and more.

SIE Computing Solutions offers complete system integration services for enclosures and racks that support open architecture bus structures such as VME, VXS, VPX, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA, as well as other switch fabric technologies. As technology advances and customer demands are more specified than ever, SIE Computing Solutions has developed a dedicated, board-agnostic system integration area that enables chassis integration, rack integration and full turn-key product integration.

SIE Computing Solutions provides the following system integration services:

• Enclosure, backplane and system design and manufacture
• Thermal simulation, air flow simulation, thermal modeling and thermal testing
• Electrical simulation
• Integrity testing for backplanes
• Full range of environmental testing services, through agency approvals such UL and CSA for safety, Mil Spec certifications for shock and vibe
• Mechanical integration through software load and test
• Program management and documentation services, including test plans, test procedures and in-depth scheduling
• Program lifecycle analysis and management

SIE's integration expertise and unique combination of in-depth mechanical, electrical, and system design knowledge is gleaned from nearly 40 years of work on some of the most performance-critical and demanding embedded computing applications in the world. And because we know our customers have precise specifications and specific vendor preferences, we are committed to a board-agnostic approach. No matter who you choose to supply your parts, SIE can provide the integration. Our dedication is to YOUR system - and whatever pieces you need to deliver on a mission-critical demand.

SIE's commitment to quality is a core tenet of our business and comes as a necessary by-product of our decades of experience working with some of the largest industrial companies and defense contractors in the world. When mission- and performance-critical reliability is on the line, SIE has delivered time and again. Our stringent QA requirements reflect the best practices of the entire industry, and the results are some of the highest quality ratings in every market we serve. Complete vertical integration also ensures quality assurance measures that run through the entire development process, from design to engineering, metalworking to final product testing.

SIE's AS9100 and ISO 9001 certifications are complemented by strict internal training to numerous standards for development and manufacturing of electronic assemblies, including IPC requirements IPC A-610, IPC A-620, and J-STD-001. A new training program also provides all manufacturing employees with a comprehensive skill set for basic operations, and a foundation for consistent quality workmanship across the workforce.

Encompassing everything from specific ESD instruction designed to prevent electronic assemblies from static charge to company-wide skill reviews, SIE's processes and procedures are designed to build quality directly into our products with end-to-end training, rather than primary reliance on post-production inspection and testing. While rigorous testing is an important piece of the process and one we take very seriously, our overall approach to QA is based on an investment in our assets - our people - and their ability to build a quality product from the very first step. And as a vertically integrated supplier, total quality control is not just a priority - it is a guarantee.

Testing Services
Enclosure-level test
Integrated cabinet-level test

SIE Computing Solutions offers comprehensive program management services that track all major milestones and key elements of the design and manufacturing phase, including procurement, manufacturing, test and qualification.

At the project's onset, SIE assigns a dedicated program manager to develop a master schedule and generate a list of action items for complete tracking throughout the program. The program manager also helps to create a risk assessment plan, as well as test plans and preliminary bills of materials for chassis design.

Risk Assessment
The risk assessment plan identifies critical risk elements (high-, medium-, and low-risk items) as they pertain to schedule and design and is tracked throughout the entire program. This assessment also includes a mitigation approach, tracked weekly.

Design
SIE program mangers work closely with our customers on preliminary and critical design reviews. A preliminary design review (PDR) includes all preliminary design data, including MTBF numbers, thermal and structural analysis, preliminary drawings, TPM data, preliminary test plans, continued risk assessment, and the action items list review. The critical design review (CDR) reviews the detailed design package itself, which also includes all items above, as well as initial test procedures and all final documentation.

Also included in the complete program management service are the coordination of all analysis and qualification testing for compliance, as well as the creation of a compliance matrix that outlines how all requirements will be met for the project.

Customer Engagement
Most importantly for ensuring continued communication and efficient project progression, the program manager will hold weekly design and schedule update meetings with the customer. Production readiness review meetings and test readiness review meetings are also scheduled as the program moves along, and technical interchange meetings (TIM) will take place as needed.

SIE Computing Solutions Complete System Maintenance Services

SIE Computing Solutions offers complete system maintenance services for integrated systems that include an SIE chassis or backplane. SIE will perform troubleshooting, diagnostics, maintenance upgrades, replacement, redesign, repair and lifecycle support services on all SIE and third party components including enclosures, sub-assemblies, boards and integrated systems.

The system maintenance service offering provides our customers with a single point of contact for service of a system comprised of multiple vendors' components. Frequently, a system integrator is forced to take a serial approach to troubleshooting a system across multiple vendors, and may not be capable of reproducing problems due to a lack of interoperability expertise. Eliminating the need to manage multiple vendors, working on multiple components, results in reduced down time and lower system costs.