Indesign Designated as an Elite Design House for Texas Instruments

February 2, 2009 | News
Indianapolis-based engineering firm, Indesign, LLC, was recently designated as an Elite Design House within the Texas Instruments Developer and Design House Network. This network is an elite group of highly skilled companies that offer system-level design and product design services. For more information go to the link below: www.TIDesignHouse.com
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Indesign develops ECCO™ for IDC Design Corporation – a 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Innovations Award Winner

January 2, 2009 | News
Indianapolis-based engineering firm, Indesign, LLC, was the electronic design and development firm for personal GPS device ECCOTM for IDC Design Corporation - CES Innovations award winner - 2009. To find out more about the winning design for ECCO™ visit the websites below: CES - http://www.cesweb.org/awards/innovations/2009honorees.asp?category=905093 CES - http://www.cesweb.org/awards/innovations/2009honorees.asp?category=905099 PC Magazine - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338868,00.asp IDC Website - http://www.idcgps.com/ To register for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009, visit www.cesweb.org.
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Atmel’s AT91SAM9260 Processor drives Indesign’s Computer-On-Module Reference Platform

October 8, 2008 | News
Atmel® Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) and electronic engineering design services firm, Indesign, LLC, announced today the availability of a Computer-On-Module (COM) reference platform for use in products designed by Indesign engineers for their clients. The COM platform is based on the Atmel AT91SAM9260 processor that runs the ARM926EJ-S core at 200MHz. It will enable Indesign engineers to implement designs for their customers more quickly and at lower development costs. Targeted applications include electronic products with no user interface requiring significant processing capability and supporting a variety of interface peripherals including Ethernet, USB, I2S audio and USARTs. These applications take advantage of the high internal data bandwidth that is one of the distinguishing features of the AT91SAM9260, enabling it to simultaneously process and transmit/receive large quantities of data. The COM reference platform, in a mini-PCI physical form factor, contains 3.3V and 1.8V power supplies for the processor and memories. With the addition of a 1.0V power supply, the board also supports the 400MHz Atmel AT91SAM9G20 for double processing power. The use of 3.3V on the IO pins is ideally suited for industrial type markets where the majority of devices still operate at 3V or higher. The memory interface can be supplied with lower voltages down to 1.8V to enable use of lower cost and lower power memories more widely available. Indesign has adapted the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 board support package with the technical support of Adeneo for the COM with plans to support embedded Linux . Indesign also offers consultancy services for ARM -based designs. Memories and Peripherals. The COM reference platform includes on-board memory of 64MB mobile SDRAM, up to 128MB NAND Flash, and up to 8MB DataFlash for bootloader and program storage, and has the option of booting from DataFlash or NAND Flash. In addition, the reference platform includes the following on-board peripherals: 10/100Mb Ethernet MAC with MII or RMII interface, 4 UART ports (1 full feature, 3 four-wire, IrDA), 2 two-wire UARTs, 2 SPI ports each with 4 chip selects, I2S audio, 2 USB 2.0 Full Speed Host ports, 1 USB 2.0 device port, four 10-bit A/D inputs with on board 3.0V reference, 1 SD card interface, 1 Two-wire (I2C) interface, watch dog timer, a real time counter, and up to 77 general purpose I/Os. About Atmel Atmel is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of microcontrollers, advanced logic, mixed-signal, nonvolatile memory and radio frequency (RF) components. Leveraging one of the industry's broadest intellectual property (IP) technology portfolios, Atmel is able to provide the electronics industry with complete system solutions focused on consumer, industrial, security, communications, computing and automotive markets.
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Indesign Featured in Chamber of Commerce Spotlight for Wellness Program

August 18, 2008 | News
This article was excerpted from the local Chamber of Commerce. Anne Walz, Human Resource Associate with Indesign didn't realize how easy it would be to launch a corporate wellness program until it began nearly 4 weeks ago. She was pleased to see that of their 60 employees, 85% of the company signed up to participate. Their success could be because their particular program sounds remarkably easy to implement and not intimidating. Indesign calls the first program challenge "Summer Strides," and the goal is for employees to monitor their steps each day toward a weekly goal. Participants were randomly divided into teams and scores are kept by determining a team average per day. "We've actually had a team do 15,000 steps in a day," Anne said. (The program has shown that there are some very competitive people working at the company.) To begin, Indesign purchased pedometers for participants, not an easy task since most stores don't carry the large number of pedometers needed for all of the employees who signed up. Employees were given an activity conversion chart so they can convert other activity into steps. "Spinning (indoor cycling) is approximately 250 steps per minute for a man," said John Sawyer, program participant and software engineer with the company. "For a 45 minute class, that's a lot of steps," he added. Each challenge is 4 1/2 weeks in length, and the company is nearly finished with their first challenge. Once it's over, Anne will re-team all participants, placing the highest achievers in different teams to make things more fair. As each challenge is finished, new and more aggressive goals are set for the participants. The program works because it encourages camaraderie among the employees and encourages them to get moving more. "We've got employees actually going out in groups over their lunch hour and walking around the Loop," said Kathy Rima, Executive Vice President. Kathy also said that they did the program to ultimately reduce health care costs, as companies who implement wellness programs over a period of time are considered to be more "well" by insurance companies. Before getting started, Anne surveyed the employees to learn what was most important to them. What they learned was telling of the age of their group, which is largely in their 40's and 50's. Only twenty percent of employees fall in their 20's. Employees cited as their top five interests: learning small steps for increased fitness, men's health issues, heart disease prevention, vitamin facts and information, and tips for increasing physical activity. Indesign is a fit company in the business sense as well. The company develops all kinds of electrical products for companies such as Roche, Thompson, and Microsoft. And, they stay busy doing it, working on 60 - 70 projects per year. Thirty-four people who came from Bell Labs formed Indesign in late '96 and opened their doors in February '97. The company was located at Patriot's Place on Caito Drive until their move into their new building in the fall of 2001. Based on Indesign's proven track record over the past four years, they anticipate a 10% growth in personnel each year. "What we do is fun for engineers," Kathy said. They hire software, electrical, mechanical and test engineers and recruit heavily at Purdue and Rose Hulman. "Recruiting is easy because once engineering students see what we develop, they get excited about working with us because what we do is exactly what engineers like to do."
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Indianapolis-based design engineering firm, Indesign, LLC, achieves growth of more than 15% through mid-year 2008

June 15, 2008 | News
Indianapolis-based design engineering firm, Indesign, LLC, achieves growth of more than 15% through mid-year 2008. Indesign, LLC is one of the premier embedded software design and development engineering firms in the country that develops high-tech electronic products for a broad customer base. Indesign, with a history and ongoing commitment to continue to offer the best service to their customers, recently added several new positions in the various disciplines within the company. Increasing staff by 9 fulltime employees in electrical engineering, software/firmware design, testing/validation services, and project management brings the total number of fulltime staff to 59. As a member owned LLC, Indesign also just added 7 new members to the company. This increase in staff is over 15% growth for the company during this period. Indesign, dedicated to its continued success and success of their customers, offers state of the art design and development through innovative concepts and design of comprehensive engineering design services for embedded electronic products and systems. These services include electrical circuit design, RF, software/firmware design, mechanical design, testing/validation services, project management and a host of other services dedicated to the development of electronic products and solutions.
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Indesign, LLC, recently announced the acquisition of PCB Assembly Equipment increasing rapid prototyping capabilities on site

January 10, 2008 | News
Indianapolis based firm, Indesign, LLC announces the recent purchase of new PCB Assembly Equipment to assist in rapid prototyping capabilities on site. Indesign, LLC is an engineering design services company that develops high-tech electronic products for a broadcustomer base. Indesign, with a commitment to offering the best quality and service to their customers, purchased new PCB Assembly Equipment manufactured by Essemtec to assist in their prototyping assembly area. The equipment will benefit their clients with rapid product development, faster turn around and quicker prototyping. The equipment is located at their facility in the assembly area of the building. With this additional equipment - Automated parts placement machine and Reflow solder oven - in-house prototyping capabilities now include BGAs, leadless parts, small components like 0201 and .5 mm Pitch, RoHS or non-RoHS, and top side and bottom side reflow. This commitment to offering the best service to their customers will reduce product offerings time-to-market for customers. Indesign is dedicated to its continued success by offering state of the art design and development to their customers through innovative concepts and design of comprehensive engineering design services for embedded electronic products and systems. These services include electrical circuit design, RF, software/firmware design, mechanical design, testing/validation services, project management and a host of other services dedicated to the development of electronic products and solutions.
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Engineers designed firm after losing corporate jobs Ownership stake gave workers even more motivation to succeed

December 15, 2007 | News
This article was excerpted from the Indianapolis Business Journal. Eleven years ago, AT&T/Lucent Bell Laboratories announced it was closing its wired consumer product design division in Indianapolis and consolidating operations in New Jersey. That left about 90 employees here with a choice: Move or find another job. Most went or joined other companies. But 34 decided to stick together and start their own business here-Indesign LLC. Today, the high-tech electronic design and development company near Fort Benjamin Harrison is a $6 million-a-year business with 53 employees and clients that span the country. "None of us had any experience starting a business," CEO Jerry Gotway said. "But we believed we could do it. That's what made it possible." Indesign helps other businesses create products-everything from Internet telephones to medical devices. Some clients come in with high-level concepts, as San Antonio-based LIFETECHniques did with the "smart" pillbox that connects to the Internet so doctors can monitor whether a patient is taking his medicine. Indesign did all the design, from the circuit board to the plastic parts, Gotway said. Other companies bring detailed specifications and have Indesign work with their in-house engineers. Indesign worked with Microsoft, for example, to develop RoundTable, a videoconferencing phone with a built-in 360-degree camera. The Indianapolis firm did some of the electrical and software design, and also helped get the manufacturing process started. Working with an Illinois company called Lares Technology, Indesign created a printed circuit board for Lares' electronic home-detention monitor. "We couldn't be more pleased with the work they did," Lares President Kevin Hartman said. "They had some innovative ideas that complemented what we had done and worked with us very well." Gotway said getting to this point in Indesign's history required driven, devoted employees who checked their egos and opened their wallets. To finance the startup, the 34 founders kicked in $4,000 to $25,000 each and became part owners. Even today, new employees are given the opportunity to buy a share of the company's future profits. Most do. "I think that's a lot of what's fueled their success," said Tom Stahl, who worked at Lucent Bell Labs with Indesign's founders and now is an electrical engineer for Thomson Inc. in Carmel. "People were looking at it like, 'I'm a part owner and I'm going to make this succeed.' I think it's impressive what they've done." Early on, Indesign's employees also learned to diversify. While everyone had experience developing consumer telephones as well as answering, security and video systems, "that amount of expertise wasn't broad enough to make us the kind of company we wanted to be," Gotway said. They set a goal to broaden into the medical, military and wireless fields. Gotway recommends diversifying as a matter of course for small businesses. With clients in several sectors, there's less risk they'll suffer downturns at the same time. Indesign typically finds its clients through Web-based marketing and wordof-mouth referrals. Referrals go a long way in an industry where employees tend to jump from company to company. Not at Indesign, though. Eleven years in, 22 of the 34 founders are still there, solidifying the company's foundation. "My advice to other entrepreneurs," Gotway said, "is to pull together a team of really good people. If you have people with good skills, passion for the business and a lot of energy, then you can accomplish what you set out to do. That's what made us successful."
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Freescale™ Design Alliance Program: Creating Solutions Together

June 15, 2007 | News
About Freescale™ Semiconductor Freescale™ Semiconductor, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale™ is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with sales of $6.2 billion (USD) for the most recently reported four quarters. www.freescale.com
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Indesign partners with Ember to deliver ZigBee™ Solutions

February 27, 2007 | News
Indianapolis-based engineering firm, Indesign, LLC, announced it has become an Ember partner to help customers bring ZigBee™ products to market. Indesign, LLC, is an engineering design services company that develops high-tech electronic products for a broad customer base. The company is a ZigBee™ Alliance member with a notable history of working with different manufacturers' ZigBee™ chipsets to provide solutions in various product categories. Skilled in product architecture, development, testing, and certification, the design team has engineered hundreds of new products. They have also integrated ZigBee™ into new and existing devices to enhance features or provide functionality that was previously unavailable. Ember is the ZigBee™ platform of choice for the vast majority of OEMs. Headquartered in Boston with a chip development center in Cambridge, UK, Ember Corporation offers the most integrated, complete and feature rich ZigBee™ solutions available. Solutions start with high performance 2.4 GHz low power wireless semiconductors integrated with the most reliable, scalable and advanced ZigBee™ software. Ember's solutions are supported by best in class development tools, training, and technical support. Indesign and Ember will collaborate in all aspects of hardware and software development through network architecture design and deployment to help OEMs bring ZigBee™ products to life. The partnership will leverage the wireless networking knowledge and experience of both companies to help customers dramatically reduce time-to-market. Information about Ember can be found at www.ember.com. About Ember Corporation Ember develops wireless sensor and control network technologies that help make living and working environments safer, smarter, more comfortable, and energy efficient. Ember's ZigBee™-based semiconductors and software enable communication between devices embedded in a variety of building and home automation products. Ember is a lead member of the ZigBee™ Alliance, and its platform is the National Technical Systems' (NTS) "Golden Suite" for 802.15.4/ZigBee™ interoperability testing.
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Freescale™ and Indesign join forces to develop a secure industrial point-of-sale platform

January 31, 2007 | News
Freescale™ Semiconductor and Indesign, LLC, a Freescale™ Design Alliance Partner, have joined forces to develop a secure point-of-sale (POS) reference design for industrial control applications. Based on Freescale™ microcontroller (MCU) technology and open-source software, the POS reference design is designed to provide a fully functional, cost-effective solution that addresses the design challenges of secure connectivity, human/machine interface and open-source software development. The POS reference design demonstrates how the control, security and connectivity capabilities of Freescale™'s 32-bit MCF5329 ColdFire® MCU and 8-bit MCS908QG8 MCU work together to help the designer create a secure industrial point-of-sale solution. Offered with an open-source embedded uCLinux software solution, the POS reference design targets industrial system designs that require flexible connectivity options, secure communication and a straightforward human interface with a fast development cycle and cost-effective approach. "Successful industrial point-of-sale solutions require elegant, cost-effective integration of complex technologies, from hardware encryption to industry-standard connectivity to intuitive user interfaces," said Mike McCourt, vice president and general manager of Freescale™'s Microcontroller Division. "Freescale™ offers the advanced microcontrollers and Indesign has the engineering design excellence to deliver a POS reference design that meets the exacting requirements of the industrial market." Indesign provides comprehensive engineering design services for embedded electronic products and systems. These services include electrical circuit design, software/firmware design, mechanical design, testing/validation services, project management and a host of other services dedicated to the development of electronic products and solutions. Indesign developed the hardware and mechanical platform for the industrial POS reference design. Freescale™ partnered with Indesign to leverage the company's expertise in hardware design to help ensure that the industrial POS system meets the specific security and operational requirements of typical industrial POS applications. "The POS reference design serves as an excellent starting point for developing a custom solution for many industrial point-of-sale applications," said Jerry Gotway, president and CEO of Indesign. "Some developers will have the expertise to customize the POS reference design on their own. For those that need help, Indesign engineers already have experience working with Freescale™ on this design and can easily modify the design to meet most any requirements." Dual microcontroller solution The foundation of the jointly developed industrial POS reference design is a combination of two Freescale™ MCUs optimized for industrial control. The ColdFire MCF5329 MCU serves as the host processor in the industrial POS system and is the first in a series of ColdFire devices to feature an on-chip LCD controller in addition to several connectivity peripherals including USB host and USB on-the-go. The 8-bit 9S08QG8 MCU stores data used by the MCF5329 to enable a secure POS system. It also features an enhanced 8-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which is used to provide audio support for the industrial POS system. Open source software Software designers constantly face the challenge of developing robust, cost-effective software solutions. Increasingly, designers are turning to open-source development tools to address the demand for lower cost software solutions. Recognizing this trend, Freescale™ has focused the software implementation of the industrial POS reference design on open-source software solutions, including the uCLinux operating system (OS). The Freescale™ Linux Board Support Package (BSP) for the MCF5329 serves as the primary open source development tool for the industrial POS reference design. The BSP contains the uCLinux OS, which is used to process information from different input mechanisms, refresh the graphical user interface (GUI) on the LCD screen, maintain communication between Freescale™ MCUs and communicate with a transaction database via Ethernet. The GUI is developed using NanoX, an open-source GUI configuration tool that is available in the Freescale™ Linux BSP for the MCF5329. The uCLinux environment also supports access to the remote server containing the MySQL transaction database. The Freescale™ Linux BSP for the MCF5329, associated drivers and related software applications are available as a reference to assist with open-source software development on ColdFire devices. Key features of the industrial POS reference design An 800x600 SVGA LCD panel driven by the MCF5329 MCU Support for four data input mechanisms including Smart card reader enabled by the MCF5329 USB modules Bar code scanner enabled by the MCF5329 USB modules Magnetic card reader enabled by the MCF5329 USB modules Key pad enabled by GPIO signals on the MCF5329 Secure, networked transactions via integrated Ethernet and hardware encryption on the MCF5329 Audio support driven by the MC9S08QG8 on-chip timer signals Volume control via the integrated ADC on the MC9S08QG8 Secure access to external memory enabled by the internal flash on the MC9S08QG8 Open-source software solutions including: The Freescale™ Linux Board Support Package (BSP) for the MCF5329 which contains the uCLinux OS Intuitive GUI enabled by the NanoX GUI Configuration Tool available in the Freescale™ Linux BSP for the MCF5329 MySQL Server Database used to store and access sales transactions Bootloader developed using CodeWarrior® Development Studio for ColdFire® architectures Information and availability Information on the industrial POS reference design including documentation, design resources and source code is available at http://www.freescale.com/files/pr/rdmcf5329pos.html. Prototypes of the industrial POS system also are available. To arrange a prototype demonstration, please contact local Freescale™ sales representatives. About Freescale™ Semiconductor Freescale™ Semiconductor, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. The privately held company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale™ is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with sales of $6.2 billion (USD) for the most recently reported four quarters. www.freescale.com
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