Apex 2022 5
COTS vs. Discrete Design
As compared to discrete design, COTS solutions typically
offer several important advantages to the system
designer.
One of the most significant benefits of a COTS approach
is the decreased time to market. In a discrete design,
engineers must complete the entire design and
validation process from scratch—a process that often
takes up to a year, if not longer. COTS products, on the
other hand, have already been fully designed, tested, and
validated by the OEM. By replacing a discrete design with
a COTS solution, an engineer can almost immediately
have a working solution—reducing the time to market for
the final product by a significant margin.
With respect to high-reliability design, COTS can
offer engineers an unmatched degree of assurance
in their designs. When designing a discrete solution
for high reliability, engineers must consider
factors like thermal management while balancing
the size, weight, and power (SWaP) tradeoffs
inherent in electronic design. With a COTS solution,
engineers can take solace in the fact that the OEM
has leveraged its extensive design experience
to produce components optimized for reliability
while balancing SWaP considerations. Engineers
can also perform this evaluation themselves;
all COTS solutions come with product-specific
documentation describing device behavior and
specifications. In this way, engineers can choose
the COTS solution that best meets the requirements
of their application.
Attention to every detail is always important when it comes to electronic components and
even more critical for high reliability applications. The manufacturing process used to create
high reliability components is as important as the electrical design itself. Watch the video to
discover how Apex manufacturing processes help guarantee long-term reliability.
5 Reasons the Apex Manufacturing Process Helps Guarantee
Long Term Reliability
