Hardware design is carried out through a formalized development cycle that includes the following main activities:
- Definition of hardware requirements starting from system requirements, with allocation of functionalities to be implemented in hardware
- Hardware architecture design, including block diagram and selection of electronic components
- Detailed design of individual circuit sections related to topologies, including component sizing and, where necessary, simulations and/or experiments
- Unit verification on prototype of individual circuit sections, under all operating conditions, including fault conditions
- Hardware-software integration and system verification
- Requirements traceability throughout the development cycle
- Configuration management and versioning of all design items