Behind the scenes at Oclea

Delegates to the Embedded Vision Summit in May were some of the first people to see Teknique’s new range of Oclea™ integrated camera modules. Outside the buzz of the exhibition halls, clients are applying our SoMs to solve practical problems facing manufacturers of vision-enabled products.

We spoke to Cathy Liu, Oclea’s Operations Manager to understand how SoMs are making a difference to clients.

Editor: Cathy, how are SoMs being incorporated into new product development?

Cathy: A recent project involved a field trial for a dashcam to capture audio, video and sensor data. Up against a tight deadline to deliver the first batch of production units for their field trial, our client selected an Oclea™ SoM ‘off the shelf’ to speed up their development process.

Editor: What made a SoM the right solution for this project?

Cathy: From our client’s perspective, ‘speed was of the essence’ as they needed to move fast. If customers can save themselves 6-12 months of development time with a SoM it opens up possibilities for new products while reducing their development costs and associated risks.

Editor: Which Oclea™ SoM did you recommend?

Cathy: The Oclea™ S5L66 uSoM as it met all the functional requirements for the new dashcam such as the ability to simultaneously process the data received from two cameras (forward-facing and inward-facing), and also comes in a tiny form factor which made the mechanical integration simple.

Editor: What did the Oclea™ team learn from this engagement?

Cathy: When ‘speed to market’ is key to success, it’s even more critical for our sales and consulting team to engage with clients as early as possible to understand their requirements so that we can recommend the most suitable SoM. Close collaboration should continue throughout the project too, for example providing training on how to integrate our automated production testing system to ensure world-class manufacturing quality is achieved.

Editor: Can the Oclea™ SoM be customised to meet a client’s specific requirements?

Cathy: Yes, we offer flexible SDK and the hardware evaluation kit alongside the Oclea™ SoM hardware so when a customer wants to manufacture at scale they can develop their specific applications on the production hardware immediately, knowing that popular integrations have already been done. Our engineering team works closely with customers post-manufacturing to assist with software integration and personalisation.

Editor: What’s next for Oclea™?

Cathy: We will continue to expand the Oclea™range. Look out for new SoMs incorporating the latest Ambarella™ SoC and also in new form factors.