NEED

An oil field service company  required a low-cost, highly accurate A/D converter card with special security features.  Since our  customer leased their Windows-based well logging system on a monthly basis, the code had to run securely, with no possibility of theft of running code or resulting data collected by the unattended system. 

Also, if their customer continued their lease past the end of the month, then typing in a software password would activate the hardware for another 30 days, increasing the lease automatically.

SOLUTION

MTSI developed a combined security system and  A/D converter card.  It supports 16 single ended or 16 differential analog-to-digital converter channels.  

Additional EPROM sockets and a battery backed RAM memory were also provided on the card.  Key parts of the software were placed in the EPROM to stop unlicensed users from using duplicated disks.   The database of well logs was stored in the battery powered RAM in case of power failure, and it is periodically written to disk. In addition, the RAM contains the current run time for the system and passwords for verifying lease agreements.

RESULTS

MTSI produced the product under a cost shared agreement, where MTSI retained manufacturing rights to the technology in exchange for a reduced engineering fee.  The product has successfully passed all field tests and is now in production.

to Ford for testing on the 60th day of the project.