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Seeking Your Feedback on a Beat Our Board Design Challenge - Grand Prize $5,000

rscasny

I've been in discussions with a component supplier who would like to sponsor a Design Challenge.

But its vision of the Design Challenge is a little different than how element14 typically administers a Design Challenge. I want to tell you the details below. I would really appreciate you voting in the polls and offering feedback on the challenge. Thanks.

Randall
-element14 Community Team


What is the Beat Our Board Design Challenge?

The goal of PI Beat Our Board Design Challenge is for the participants to design a board that improves or beats the sponsor's DER-953 board. Below, I've posted a short video and a schematic of this RDK, as well as the datasheet.

image

How Applicants are Selected as one of the Top 10

The Top 10 submissions get to advance to the next stage and will be given the DER-953Q plus a $250 shopping cart to buy materials – fulfilled by Farnell. The sponsor or its representatives will judge the finalists. They are awarding $5,000 to the grand prize winner and $2,500 to the 2nd place winner.

The enrollment period will last 6 weeks.

What they need to show to be one of the top 10

To be selected as one of the Top 10, the applicant needs to show the following:
• Topology / switch type
• Transformer size
• Preliminary schematic

The length of the challenge is about 6 months (ends June 2024).

Here are the criteria to win:

• Cannot use InnoSwitch
• Beat the efficiency – 10%, 25%, 50% and 100% no-load
• 40-500 V DC input
• Size/ volume of board must be same size or smaller
• Must meet thermals – 85 degrees Celsius – no heatsink
• No optocouplers
• Component count
• No-load consumption
• Automotive qualified components only
• Transformer exempt
• Up to and no more than a 6-layer PCB
• Specify PCB stack up weight per sq foot- 2oz 1oz 1oz 1oz 2: Maximum copper thickness on top and bottom layers
• Overload power current limit = 8.1 A

What do you think of this challenge? I invite you to offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

I also invite you to vote in the following polls:



Parents

  • I have mixed feelings about this type of challenge.

    Some companies prohibit their employees from using their talents in this type of event as they might unwittingly reveal company trade secrets.

    This is not a trivial challenge, to succeed you will have to have some very good engineering skills and access to some sophisticated test equipment.

    There is also the issue of intellectual property.

    If someone comes up with a better design, will the sponsor own the rights to manufacture the solution or variants using ideas from the challenge?

    Yes, you could win $5,000 , but you could miss out on potentially high value royalties from the sale of the product.

    Even if I had the skills, I would not enter this type of challenge without first consulting a lawyer on my IP rights.

  • in reply to DAB

    I think it is the unusual optics of the challenge that seem to raise IP issues. Every project published on a forum has the same IP issues. If someone develops some IP they want to protect, they simply wouldn't publish it on a forum - no risk and no stress involved in that course of action.

    I don't think the manufacturer is fishing for some brilliant new design that doesn't even use their product. They are just taking a fun approach to illustrate that it is hard to develop a circuit that outperforms their product. And they are forking out some nice no-risk incentives to drum up interest and entice members to participate.

    It should be a lot of fun for designers. I'm a little mystified why everyone seems to think it is scarier than any other design challenge. Except of course working with high voltage is scary... Japanese ogre

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  • in reply to DAB

    I think it is the unusual optics of the challenge that seem to raise IP issues. Every project published on a forum has the same IP issues. If someone develops some IP they want to protect, they simply wouldn't publish it on a forum - no risk and no stress involved in that course of action.

    I don't think the manufacturer is fishing for some brilliant new design that doesn't even use their product. They are just taking a fun approach to illustrate that it is hard to develop a circuit that outperforms their product. And they are forking out some nice no-risk incentives to drum up interest and entice members to participate.

    It should be a lot of fun for designers. I'm a little mystified why everyone seems to think it is scarier than any other design challenge. Except of course working with high voltage is scary... Japanese ogre

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