Rapid Prototyping allows for shorter design cycles and gets hardware in the hands of testers much faster, allowing for real-world feedback sooner. Finding design issues early on reduces development cost and risk.  In this age of miniaturization, the first proof of concept and prototype units do not fit in the final form factor, they are larger, to allow for ease of assembly and test.

   One of the key metrics to determine whether or not a rapid prototyping approach is best for your hardware design is the solidity of the requirements. If the hardware requirements are well known and defined or built upon a previous product generation, then a waterfall approach makes sense. If they are expected to change or are partially defined, then an agile approach makes sense. We're comfortable working with either approach.

   The keys to rapid prototyping development are modularity, quick-turn PCB designs, and test iterations to debug and verify designs. We design, debug, and test modules. We then integrate them into the overall design and retest. Evaluation kits and simulation tools are extremely useful in this regard, and allow the software and firmware developers to get a hands on, head start with their jobs. Software can proceed in parallel with the hardware development while the custom circuit board is being created.

   There is a point at which the hardware development becomes a waterfall; when the schematic design is complete and the layout begins. From this stage on, until there is a manufactured product, hardware changes become increasingly costly and time consuming, because they often result in work being thrown away and redone with each change. Focusing on a solid hardware architecture, the use of programmable devices such as microcontrollers,  PLDs and FPGAs, and leaving the option for changes through the Bill of Materials, helps to mitigate those costs and delays.

It is not only is it possible, but advantageous to apply aspects of agile design principles to hardware design.