Launch Update #1

Hi everyone – thanks again for supporting us by being a part of our pre-order!  We’re super excited about these new products and can’t wait to start shipping them.

Current status at a glance:

Logic 4

• Estimated ship date: July 1
• Constraint:  Aluminum case
• PCBA:  currently in assembly

Logic 8

• Estimated ship date: August 1
• Constraint: Electrical component lead times
• PCBA:  awaiting arrival of production PCB panels, parts

Logic Pro 8 & Logic Pro 16

• Estimated ship date: August 1
• Constraint: Electrical component lead times
• PCBA:  awaiting arrival of production PCB panels, parts

Specific Parts

• Aluminum cases (all products): expected July 1 or sooner
• Custom neoprene carry cases: expected ~June 15
• Wire harnesses: ready & more in production
• Test clips: ready & more in production
• USB cables: ready
• PCBs: Logic 4 on hand, all others on order, all expected on or before July 1.
• Electrical components: Logic 4 on hand, all others on order, all expected on or before August 1.  Will attempt to expedite and use alternate sources as possible.

Software

• First beta was released May 31^st.
• Current efforts focused on bug fixes and refinements (to be followed by 2^nd beta release)
• June 15 – August 1: speed improvements and new product support refinement/bug fixing
• Stability improvements / fixes for firmware and HDL

We’re a little late, but things are going very well

I do personally apologize that our lead time for three of the four products has slipped to August 1.  I had really hoped that we would be shipping exactly when we had originally estimated. Getting production prototypes turned around and fully evaluated took considerably longer than we had budgeted for.  The good news is that everything is working and we don’t anticipate any issues with the board design at this time.  Everything is currently on order.

May 31^st Software Beta

Mark and team successfully pushed out the very first beta of our new software on time, I’m happy to report.  It’s a little rough around the edges so we’re continuing to work on that.  We won’t be working on any new features (vote for your favorite at ideas.saleae.com) until after the launch – we’re focused on making sure the software is a real pleasure to work with, and ‘just works.’  In addition, these new products dump an enormous amount of data at the software, so we’ll be working on making sure the software is as fast as possible.

Pre-production Prototypes

We were originally planning on building production panels without any additional prototypes, but we decided it would be best to run prototypes of the very final design before ordering the production panels.  As it would turn out the prototypes are flawless – and so the production panels would have been too.  We did order the Logic 8 panels because they were not as expensive as the Logic Pro panels – so we will have those fairly shortly.

Component Lead-time & Bonded Inventory Program

We are building the PCBs in the US, and are going to be managing the electrical component supply chain ourselves.  We’re using Avnet’s bonded inventory program, which I’m excited about – basically it’s a way to have Avnet make sure you always have key parts available to purchase – without Saleae needing to actually purchase and hold those parts ourselves.  Basically it’s two services: they manage getting long lead time items on the shelf so they will be there when you need them, and they carry the cost of holding that inventory so we don’t have to incur that working capital expense.

However since we’ve just started this program of course we have to wait the lead-times this first time.  I’ll be working with them this week to explore any ways we can bring some of those lead-times in to have a shot at beating our August 1 date.

Aluminum Cases

The aluminum cases are all on order from our new supplier.  In addition to machining the cases, they are also doing the metal finishing – and they have been doing an absolutely outstanding job with the Logic and Logic 16 cases these past few months, so I’m really happy to be working with them.

Wire harnesses

We make all our own wire harnesses in house now, and we’ve been building the new version by the 100s to get ready for shipping the new products.

Automated Test

We’ve had an automated test system in development for some time – it’s C# based and it talks with the various test equipment and runs analysis in Matlab.  It’s a pretty good but a little clunky.  I’m hoping to make something a bit more streamlined for production before launch.

Product Serial Numbers

All the product PCBAs are getting barcoded with unique serial numbers now, so the ideas is the operator just scans the bar code, and the appropriate semi-automated tests starts running.  It keeps a log of all results and data captures.  When you first plug in your device, calibration information will be downloaded from the cloud for your specific device.   It should even know what color your device is.

Software Next Steps

We want to make sure people have an excellent experience using their new Logics for the first time, and so that is our software focus from now until shipping.

After that, it’s all about real-time view!

Future Updates – every 2 weeks

I will be sending out an email to all pre-order customers every two weeks to keep you appraised of the status of your order and our estimated ship date.

Questions or Concerns?

Please send me (Joe) a note at support.saleae.com.

Thanks everyone!

Joe