Charge for redesign of a receiver chain

i would like to know how much usually design services companies will charge for work.

The S-band receiver chain with a postselector Filter, two LNAs, a mixer and an LO/FGU is given. All these are Chip/IC component

we are trying to redesign two LNAs, a post selector filter, and a mixer. we also will add a preselector filter. We will do a discrete design with transistors and lumped element instead of buying "off the shelf IC" and implement it.

what is the market rate that a design firm will charge for this kind of work?

Usually people believe that "redesign" means an easier job involving just small adjustments. Other similar words will be: redecorate, repaint, rebuild, redraw.
Unfortunately in electronics, "redesign" means doing everything from scratch. Also this involves some basic lab measurements after the circuit is done.
Depending on how many hours are allocated for this work (and rate/hour), I guess that most of the consulting companies will charge you anywhere between 5000 and 10.000 bucks for this work.
If you are located in Silicon Valley (it looks like), perhaps you will pay even more, as a premium location..

hi Vfone,
you are right. the scope is designing from scratch for hardware (LNAs, filters, mixer) but since the same old RF baseband is used, the software can be optimized.

10,000 sounds very cheap because we have to design LNAs, filters, the mixer for 50ohm in a separate PCB board and test them and optimize them to meet the spec.

after that, we need to integrate all this into receiver chain and run system level test and optimize the receiver to make it pass the system test.

the software is minor work since modifying from original but its crucial for system level test. software have to be ready and work on the hardware for system level test.

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yes im located in silicon valley

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the software tool alone (ADS) to do this work will be > 30k

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I'm asking commercial/market rate a design firm will charge for any client who needs this kind of service.

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it is RF radio design project

For such consulting/design jobs, I break down the task to smaller work items, for an estimate of required time.

good idea. i will do that. what is the estimated charge per hour for Expert RF engineer and Expert embedded engineer in bay area?


i left out one important point. the customer own all the IP from this design so there will be no royalty revenue or what so ever.

I have no idea. I'm located in Germany and don't want to my disclose my rates.
It might also depend on the lab equipment required for the job, besides simulation.

No royalty revenue is rather typical for such design jobs.

i have another question. how much mark up from hourly rate will a design firm will do for this kind of services? i doubt they will just charge hourly rate only!

pragash said:

i have another question. how much mark up from hourly rate will a design firm will do for this kind of services? i doubt they will just charge hourly rate only!

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I don't know about the business strategy that others apply, I charge the hours x hourly rate. If a small design job just takes 2 days, that's what I charge. Happy long term clients who don't feel ripped off. The deal needs to make business sense to both parties.

thanks alot for the clarification

i have one more question. if we need to purchase special equipment/software for the project, do we charge to customer or absorb the cost?

If you rent the equipment you can charge the customer for this price.
If you decide to buy the equipment (higher investment), you cannot charge the customer for the full price of it, but less. In this situation you remain with the test device in your backyard, and use it for other projects.