From Specifications to Concept

This book is organized in a way that illustrates the full path of development of a real product, which, in its early stage, implies scientific research and the development of a prototype, starting from some requirements. Specifications are typically given by a customer or derived according to the target application. Discussions and agreement on specifications can represent an iterative process which develops in different ways for each case. Even though some specifications can be negotiated and refined, some other parameters, like technology, costs, and time-to-market, are particularly stringent in consumer markets projects. This chapter introduces how to ‘translate’ product specifications into the definition of a concept with its blocks specifications and proposes a possible flow and methodology for the development of a magnetic field sensor. The proposed case is based on the development of a Z-axis Lorentz force-based MEMS magnetometer but the methodology is meant to be applicable to the development of other types of sensors.