

Ask HN: Any hardware startups? - Keyframe

I'd like to hear about hardware startups and your troubles and problem solving. Particularly if there are any IC manufacturers or fabless startups.<p>This is an area (EE and ICs especially) I was always fascinated by, but I have no practical knowledge about. Yet, I have several ideas which I would like to develop into a HW product (one of million ideas we all write down), but I have no one to talk about since I don't know any people that are experts in. My exposure to the area comes mostly through occasional scouring through IC manufacturers news/prs/blogs, eetimes and wiki (so it's nothing basically).<p>Is it possible at all for a small yc-like startup to break into an IC field at all (fabless like Nvidia or manufacturer area). Costs associated seem to be astronomical.
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harnhua
I'm currently working on an FPGA-related startup, not manufacturing hardware
but developing an online FPGA development platform (<http://www.plunify.com>).

Octopart is a YC-funded search engine for electronic parts.

One reason why I'm listing these indirectly-related examples is that hardware
for me seems to involve an ecosystem of different companies, each painting
part of the overall picture. To me it's a very inter-connected industry: from
the hardware manufacturers to the design houses to the software tool providers
to the customers, etc.

As you said, manufacturing and selling a hardware product requires a sizable
capital investment, not to mention challenges of maintaining a logistical
operation. If the product design is not too complex, one can get it
manufactured for cheap in Taiwan or in China... startups based somewhere else
will just have to find the nearest board house to do the first prototypes.

Fabless is of course a good way to go as it eliminates a lot of the costs.
That also brings with it business-model-related questions: do you sell the IP
or do you actually want to make something in the end? Are you thinking about
opensourcing your IP? Etc...

There are hardware-as-a-service startups, opensource hardware startups like
Arduino(<http://www.arduino.cc/>), and many such companies coming into the
market in recent years. It's definitely a rich playground with decent barriers
to entry(hardware expertise, market knowledge, connections) and I feel that
there isn't a "killer" business model out there yet for smaller players to
capitalize on.

Would be interested to know what other hardware-related startups are doing!

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doosra
I love the idea of Plunify. I tried to find pricing information (for future
use) on the website, to no avail. But if this cuts down the cost for CAD tools
as an independent developer, it will be huge for me!

~~~
harnhua
Thank you!

We're in beta and are still figuring out the pricing as we go along.
Absolutely agree that cost, among other things, stands in the way of many
independent developers.

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follower
I'm interested in hardware startups but at a higher level than chip design.

Some semi-random pointers which might be of interest:

* OGP is an open source hardware project to create open source video graphics hardware which currently uses a FPGA: <http://wiki.opengraphics.org/tiki-index.php>

* Bunnie is one of the people behind the Chumby and has documented his manufacturing experiences on his blog but that seems to be at a higher level than what you're looking for: <http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/>

* ARM is an example of something that started out with a small development team: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture>

For prototyping purposes my limited understanding is that software simulation
and FPGAs can be used initially. If you're interested in FPGAs this site of
open source FPGA code might be of interest: <http://opencores.org/>

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Keyframe
Excellent sources. For what I would like to do, FPGA with a custom PCB seems
to be a right choice anyways. I would like to do something what AJA (
<http://www.aja.com> ) and BlackMagic Design do ( <http://www.blackmagic-
design.com/> ) - basically broadcast equipment. AJA uses FPGA for their IO (I
know because when I boot it it says initializing FPGA :) ). I also have an
interest in SSDs. Thanks!

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acgourley
Just want to make an important distinction. OP is talking about hardware
startups. Someone below mentioned WakeMate, and I want to clarify that's not
what we should call a hardware startup - it's a very very different beast from
a company that designs ICs.

I've heard Brad Feld use the term "software enabled hardware" and I think
that's as good as anything else to talk about companies like WakeMate.

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aberkowitz
I'm working on a very early stage hobby startup based around preexisting open
source hardware / software.

It's going very slowly due to my lack of knowledge with regards to hardware
development and manufacturing.

The only YC company I know of that does hardware is WakeMate and they have
been plagues by numerous manufacturing and licensing problems.

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Keyframe
Can you provide more info about what are you trying to do? Looks like post got
no traction, which is a shame - I really wanted to hear about HW manufacturing
issues from a startup perspective, especially IC.

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aberkowitz
Sorry, I'm intentionally being vague at this point.

If it ever amounts to anything, I will let you know.

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follower
As I'm interested in open source hardware and hardware startups I'd be
interested in learning more too when you're ready to do so. :)

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GregBuchholz
You'll want to check out Mosis for getting ICs fabbed on the cheap.
<http://www.mosis.com/>

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AlexBlom
You should check out Kogan. I don't know the guys personally but they have
successfully built a hardware brand in Australia.

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Keyframe
Thanks. From a glance ( <http://www.kogan.com.au/profile/> ) it seems more
like a trading company that slapped brand on hardware deals they got through
alibaba.

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deutronium
I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but was wondering if you could use
FPGAs or microcontrollers.

