Hardware prototyping & bring-up
A working board, then a production line: hardware and firmware as one team.
Turning an idea into real hardware is where products stall: a board that won’t boot, revision after revision, a design the factory can’t actually build. We take it from schematic to a working board and onto a production line, the same way we build our own robots, radios and aerostats, and always with the firmware team in the room from the start.
01 / What it solves
Multi-layer boards with the MCU, power, sensors, radios and high-speed interfaces your product needs, right the first time.
Quick-turn fabrication, assembly and a documented bring-up for every revision, so you hold a working board sooner.
Antenna keep-outs, thermal paths, connectors and ingress decided together with the enclosure, not after it.
DFM/DFA review, BOM lifecycle checks, test fixtures and line programming so the pilot run goes smoothly.
02 / Stack
Industry-standard, boring in the good way: tools with a future, that the next engineer will know too.
Design
KiCad & Altium
Schematic capture, multi-layer PCB layout, libraries
LTspice & simulation
Power, analogue and signal-integrity checks before fab
Impedance-controlled layout
High-speed digital, USB, Ethernet and RF traces
Power design
Battery charging, DC-DC conversion, protection and sequencing
Prototype & test
Rapid PCB fabrication
Quick-turn boards and assembly for EVT rounds
Bench instrumentation
Oscilloscopes, logic analysers, power profilers, spectrum analysers
Functional test fixtures
Bed-of-nails and jig-based tests for production
Environmental testing
Thermal, vibration and ingress checks for field products
Manufacturing readiness
DFM / DFA review
Designs that assemble cleanly at your contract manufacturer
BOM management
Lifecycle, alternates and supply-risk checks on every part
Programming & provisioning
Flashing, key injection and serialisation on the line
Pre-compliance
EMC and RF pre-tests before the certification lab
03 / Approach
One team owns the schematic and the code that runs on it, so pin choices and drivers agree from day one.
Every rail, clock and radio is characterised on the bench before the next revision is ordered.
Protection, ESD, thermal and ingress considered on the first board, not discovered in the first trial.
Quick-turn prototypes and a fixed review cadence keep the project moving between board spins.
04 / Standards
We adhere to industry standards and proven methods on every project — they are what makes the estimate hold.
05 / Infrastructure
Good questions
Straight answers to what buyers ask before they start.
Yes. When on-device AI is planned, WNC selects parts with firmware from the start, including an NPU or AI accelerator, and keeps a BOM with approved alternates and supply-chain risk notes.
Related work
Projects and products of ours that involved this service.
Start
Tell us what the device has to do and where it will live. A hardware engineer writes back with an honest scope and price.
Let’s manage or see embedded firmware
