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Hardware and manufacturing overview

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This topic contains information for designers of boards and modules that incorporate an Azure Sphere chip as well as manufacturers of connected devices that incorporate a chip or module.

As you design your module or board or prepare for manufacturing, we suggest that you proceed in the following order:

  1. Become familiar with MT3620 status and currently supported features.
  2. Prototype your hardware by using the MT3620 development board.
  3. Design your hardware, borrowing from the MT3620 reference board design as appropriate.
  4. Develop a programming/debugging interface that enables communication and control between a PC that runs the Azure Sphere tools and a product that incorporates an Azure Sphere chip.
  5. If you are designing a module or custom board, evaluate and certify radio frequency (RF) performance. RF test tools describes how to program product-specific radio frequency (RF) settings in e-fuses, such as the antenna configuration and frequency, and how to tune individual devices for optimal performance. Alternatively, you can work with an RF test equipment vendor who supports Azure Sphere; Microsoft has currently partnered with LitePoint to offer RF testing support for the MT3620.
  6. Set up the volume manufacturing and testing of an Azure Sphere connected device.

Supplementary tool packages are available for hardware designers and manufacturers:

  • The RF Tools package contains an interactive RF command-line tool, an RF settings checking tool, and a C library for programmatically accessing RF testing functions. It also includes the iPerf3 tool for measuring the maximum achievable bandwidth on IP networks. Please contact your Microsoft representative if you need this package.

  • The Manufacturing Samples package contains sample scripts for performing a "device-ready check", for recovering (updating the OS) on multiple devices in parallel, and for preparing devices for cloud-loading before they ship. This package is available on GitHub.

    Caution

    If you are running concurrent instances of the Azure CLI ensure that you have disabled logging or it can cause the Azure CLI to crash or report an error.

Please contact your Microsoft representative if you need one of these packages.

These tools and samples require the Azure Sphere SDK, which includes all other tools and utilities that are used to manage Azure Sphere chips.