I used these slides during my talk at DroidCon India/2012. More details of the talk can be found at this link http://funnel.hasgeek.com/droidcon2012/483-behind-the-scenes-creating-android-devices

1. Creating Android Devices
Behind the scenes, from concept to prototype
Shree Kumar
InnoMinds Software

2. Speaker Intro
Shree Kumar
InnoMinds Software

3. Overview
• Android Proliferation, how & why
• Reference Designs
• Typical Customizations
• Workflow from Concept to Prototype
• Software Perspective
• Life-saver tools

4. Android Proliferation
• Thousands of types
• ~4000 active device
types in OSM study
(May 2012)
• Possible reasons
Source : OpenStreetMaps, “Android Fragmentation Visualized”
– Ease of porting
– Apache 2.0 user-space
– Reference designs are a
great starting point!

5. Reference Designs
• Complete Android implementations
– Time-to-market acceleration
– Easy adoption of designs
• Who provides ?
– your favourite vendor <X>
• What’s included
– Hardware, Software, ID
– Documentation…
– BOM, Tools, Manufacturing processes

6. If it is not broken, why change it ?
• Feature subset
• Cost optimization
• Leveraging economies of scale
• Differentiation

7. What is changed ?
Customization ID
Display, Touchscreen
Sensors, Keys, Speakers
Camera Modules, Storage
Communications
Memory
Graphics, Codecs
Modem
Selection
Processor

8. Workflow
Project Goals Change List Reference Design
Hardware Software
ID Design Design Design
Bring-up, Tuning
Prototype

9. Challenges
• Short timelines
– 1-2 months for prototype, production!
• Limited expertise
• Scarce resources
• Sparse documentation
– Hardware, software co-design…
• Fragmented support
• Language barriers !

10. Gamut of Changes
Change Example Changes
Skinning, Wallpapers, Packaging
Bundled apps Media
ID New shell Key mapping (perhaps), RF tuning
Sensors Gyroscope Kernel
Basic I/O Display, Touch Kernel, System Properties
Complex I/O Camera Kernel, ISP, HAL implementation
RF WiFi/BT chip Radio interface layer, kernel
Non- USB dongle, Potentially everywhere
standard HDMI, 3D
functionality

11. Life-savers…
• Swiss-army knife
– VNC
– Serial port
– SSH
– “logcat”, “dmesg” and others, of course!
• In-Circuit Debuggers – JTAG, etc

12. Summary
• Android changes takes surprisingly little
effort
• Turning out fast prototypes is feasible
– Pre-production testing highly recommended!

13. Questions ?
Shree
shree.shree@gmail.com