When the customer or the FAE wants to create a support case in Salesforce for a hardware design review, it is important that he or she has reviewed the following expectations for thorough and efficient reviews of the Wireless SoCs and modules. 

• Provide a short description of the product's use case.
• Schematic review submission checklist
  • The schematic should be provided in a searchable PDF format as it allows the reviewers to search for a particular net or component in a multi-page schematic.
  • The entire schematic of the design is preferred, however, if that is not possible due to confidentiality, then provide details in the case description about power supply used, host MCU part number, and other radio part numbers, if any, for a thorough review. For example, if there is a WiFi part in the design, but not visible in the schematic provided, then the feedback we provide will be incomplete as co-located radios on a single PCB requires additional software and hardware changes to improve coexistence between the radios.
  • Provide part numbers of all components connected to the EFR32 in case they are not mentioned in the schematic itself as the component characteristics can differ with size and can affect the expected performance, for example, RF performance due to de-tuning of the matching network. Additionally, provide the datasheets of the crystals - HFXO and LFXO (where applicable) as there can be multiple variants of a crystal and it can be confusing to find the correct datasheet if the complete part number is not provided.
  • In addition to datasheet recommendations, review the following documentation and follow the schematic guidelines as much as possible to achieve optimal performance.

    • Application note	EFR32xG1x	EFR32xG2x
      Hardware Design Considerations	AN0002.1	AN0002.2
      Oscillator design considerations	AN0016.1	AN0016.2
      EFR32 2.4 GHz Matching Guide	AN930	AN930.2
      EFR32 Sub-GHz Matching Guide	AN923	-
      EFR32 Minimal BOM	AN933.1	AN933.2
      Power Configurations and DC-DC	AN0948	AN0948.2
      Debugging and Programming Interfaces for Custom Designs	AN958

    • Silicon Labs' reference board schematic for the part. The component values in the reference designs were chosen to meet datasheet specifications.
• Layout review submission checklist
  • The layout should be provided in Gerber file format for all layers including solder mask, paste, and drill files. Typically, Gerber files are provided to the PCB manufacturer so it's important that the final design files are reviewed rather than the CAD file itself in order to identify any anomalies that can cause manufacturing or performance issues.
  • In addition to datasheet recommendations, review the following documentation and follow the layout guidelines as much as possible to achieve optimal performance, especially for RF.
    • AN928.1 for EFR32xG1x
    • AN928.2 for EFR32xG2x
    • Silicon Labs' reference board layout for the part
• If the design has been reviewed before by the wireless hardware team in a different portal case, create the new case with the previous case (in which the  same design was reviewed) listed as parent case. It is important to link similar cases together for traceability.