Monocerus Development Platform Speeds Up Development of New Devices

Holst Centre and imec have fabricated a development and evaluation platform, called Monocerus, to speed up and simplify the development of new devices and the evaluation of individual building blocks. The platform allows development of new components individually and to exchange different versions or brands of these components in system development.

Modern electronic systems contain many different components, coming from different suppliers or different groups within an organization, for example sensors processor, radio, and user interface components (e.g. touch screen and display). During the development of these systems, each component has to be selected from all available options on the market and new elements have to be tested.

To speed up the development of new devices and the evaluation of individual building blocks, Holst Centre and imec have developed the Monocerus development and evaluation platform. It consists of a main board which provides development support features, and a collection of daughter boards containing the individual components. This platform enables Holst Centre and imec, their partners and other interested organizations to develop new components individually and exchange different versions or brands of these components.

Because components are mounted on individual boards, there is no need to design a new system board every time a new component is available, and replacement of individual components is a matter of minutes instead of months.