The Amp Hour

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Quantum Computing with Andrea Morello Jun 28, 2020

Show notes

Today’s episode is sponsored by Mouser Electronics. Learn more about Fog Computing and the other high level topics they are featuring on Mouser’s site using the link TheAmpHour.com/fog-computing

Welcome, Dr Andrea Morello!

An Interview with Brock LaMeres Jun 22, 2020

Show notes

Today’s episode is sponsored by Keysight, who recently started Keysight University. We hear from Daniel Bogdanoff and Jit Lim about USB, including the specs on the newly announced USB 4.0. To check out the USB 4.0 Pitfalls course and many more classes about test and measurement, check out Keysight University.

Welcome, Dr Brock LaMeres!

Brock came from industry. He was working at HP and took classes at night to work on his Masters and PhD. The classes in his program had few traditional students. The profs were working engineers.
After graduating, he stuck around to teach classes and loved it. He wanted to make it part of career.
Using (modern) CAD tools in school
Application was tied to the tools
Chris went to a conference of EE Dept Heads (ECEDHA) and was put off by their unwillingness to try new tools.
Teaching with captive tools in virtual machines?
To get the context of the material, you have to show the application.
Brock likes to show the historical aspect of engineering, or the "Rapid historical evolution of technology". As an example: the battles between Tesla and Edison (War of the currents)
Another example is how Intel ("INTegrated ELectronics" made up the name, if you didn't know) hasn't really been around that long, historically (<50 years).
Brock teaches every level at MSU:
- Beginners: EE 101
- Middle of curriculum: Logic circuits and design
- Advanced: Embedded systems
- Grad level: Digital design, including real world problems like signal reflections (Editor's snarky note: so analog too!)
MSU has been dealing with COVID-19, like any other higher ed institution. But Brock was already teaching classes online.
He has written books and paired it with youtube videos, so it wasn't a huge transition for a lecture class.
However, there was a range of experience across the campus, especially the profs who weren't super digital savvy.
Brock was interested in distance learning 10 years ago, especially addressing problems with the labs.
He got a grant from the NSF to research how students could access equipment on campus and perform the lab somewhere else. This was before the availability of the low cost instruments of today.
Chris asked how they measuring engagement / frustration
It's a wide range: Students that need full engagement is not 100%. In fact, there's a percentage that don't want interaction at all. "They just want to crank"
Breaking the class into different groups based on learning patterns means more time to engage the students who are struggling.
Engineering is more about internalizing
The thing that is missing is self-regulation: "If you're stuck on something for 30 minutes...then stop"
They do a large number of low stakes homework assignments to track progress. It helps let them know when students get left behind and he's not a fan of exams.
Vocational education vs traditional education.
Senior design class is a must to be ABET accredited. Students learn that the circuit design is not the problem. It's the "everything else"
Brock started working with NASA, continuing on his work designing FPGAs with HP. NASA wants reconfigurable hardware to accelerate computation, but also want to reprogram on the fly. Reconfigurable hardware can also flush out faults in space.
They came up with a digital platform: Rad PC
Processor voting on the output. "Voting" = 3 circuits produce outputs: if one crashes, the two that are the same will validate the broken one. This results in triple modular redundancy.
They have gone up to space a bunch of ways!
- Put on sounding rockets
- Put on the ISS (!!!)
- Two cube sats
  - Rad Sat U
  - Rad Sat G
Internally, the hardware has a bunch of monitors all over the place, including error correcting code (ECC).
MROM
Rad hard parts are expensive and hard to get, so they're trying to use commercial FPGAs.
Chris asked about the overhead "cost" of having monitoring internally on FPGAs.
Looking at MTTF
The mission itself is driving a lot of the requirements
Other ventures like Planet Labs (past guest), SpaceX (past guests) also are using commercial hardware with smaller mission horizons.
Any missions requires an analysis of how to burn up.
They're currently working on a project to go to the moon! Part of the Artemis Program.
The computer will use the landers and rovers radios for talking back. Brock's computer will connect to the Lander and the Lander will take care of all the data (over some satellite uplink).
Their Cube Sats are amateur band using SATNOGS for base stations.
New book/course that's coming out, which is an Intro to Embedded Systems course reboot at MSU.
Took a different approach, a different way of learning
Wanted every student to come to class with the micro attached to their laptops, so a $10 dev board/platform was the goal.
Brock is passionate about reducing costs for students, especially because of the public school charter.
Previous target was Freescale processor, but the dev boards will still $100.
The lecture for this class leads right into the lab, hosted in a room with more infrastructure.
Wrote the book/recorded videos.
A new book about Embedded Systems is coming out this week!
Breaking down material into smaller chunks
Some students are faster than others students
Chris asked if the students coming out of the class, but Brock says it's tricky to figure out "are they better".
Regular employers for MSU students? Bozeman has a strong optics community, as well as large scale employers like Boeing in Seattle.
Brock was named a Boeing Professor, which means he got a grant to work on the program.
Check out more about Brock:
- His Montana.edu page
- The new course Youtube channel

New ad music by Eric Skiff

Drab Olive Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

Tweet about determination vs intelligence
Praising a child for their effort instead of their innate intelligence
Scott Galloway talks about 3rd tier universities being in trouble
He also has a relatively new podcast
The nRF52840 has a security vulnerability
Taking obsolete parts into production
How to create PCB modboards
Castellated edges
Adafruit found a USB C connector that is power only!
@foone was posting some amazing connectors on twitter
Drab olive
Reverse drawing
747 video
Former guest Alan Wolke talks about how a VNA works
Video of RF connector
DSA - Dynamic Signal Analyzers
We will be taking questions for our 500th episode, which is coming up!
- Record your question for us using your setup at home or via an online voice recorder
- Make sure you include:
  - Your name
  - Where you're calling from
  - Your question (of course)
- Email it to feedback@theamphour.com and let us know whether you would be interested in joining us live on the show.

An Interview with Eric Klein Jun 08, 2020

Show notes

Welcome Eric Klein of Lemnos Labs!

Eric is interested in technologies that have moved outside simply the "benefit of the iPhone" (which past guest Chris Anderson talks about)
This includes things like batteries and ESCs, prevalent in robotics. LIDAR has also dropped in price in orders of magnitude.
Venture capital (VC) really started in Silicon Valley with the chip industry
There are two opposing forces in VC:
- Excited about the future, so they want to invest in things like rockets and robotics
- Venture capital needs returns and doesn't like risks
In hardware companies it's extra tough, since the 1st 15 employees might need to have 10 disciplines
"I need a hardware company to carry a 4x multiple"
- Dealing with low volumes is tough for any hardware business, but extra tough when asked for that multiple and possibly selling into a consumer marketplace.
Eric's background is consumer hardware, working at Apple in his early days.
Lemnos started at 30% consumer, but is now down to 5%. How does it shift from 30 to 5% over time?
Eric asks himself, "What new solutions will be opened up in 1-5 years?"
3 or 4 years ago they looked at the lowered cost of components and how this impacted applied robotics
Venn diagrams
"Shooting in front of the duck"
Transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) to electric infrastructure
This includes direct things like renewables (solar, wind), but also energy banking and storage.
One company Lemnos backs is called Electriphi, which schedules power charging for things like electric bus fleets.
2nd order effects
Another company Lemnos is invested in that is doing robotics is Path Robotics. There are over 200K welding positions and the average age of welders are 50+. Eric visited a performance muffler place in Cleveland, where they were interested in using assisting robots.
AI is actually reinforcement learning, not true AI.
What else is on the list of Venn diagrams?
Eric is also interested in aircraft and transport. There is increasing in "thinking", "sensing", and "communications", so that leads to more focused autonomy for aircraft.
Elroy Air is another portfolio company that helps villages in Alaska to get supplies.
Eric is a personal investor (not through Lemnos) in Zipline. They started in Africa, no roads to get medical supplies to a village.
Marble is an autonomous sidewalk delivery robot, but it has run into regulation problems. Now Marble is helping create rules in places they deploy to with localized governments.
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." ~ William Gibson
College campus might be a decent place to deploy autonomous sidewalk vehicles. Starship did university deliveries.
There is also potential market space for moving WIP between builds for manufacturing.
Former guest Greg Charvat works at Humatics on indoor robots doing position finding without GPS>
How does Eric consider pitches for funding?
"The thing you didn't study is storytelling"
Eric was an intern in 1990 at Apple and lauded Steve Jobs' ability to tell the story of technology.
Hardware company requires 3 or 4 components
- Hardware
- Software
- Business
- Storytelling
Eric will want to see a team of 2-3. The reason he usually says no to an investment is because the team wasn't there.
Chris asked where to seek out the sales-focused person?
- At uni, you head over to the business building
- Career development
- Chris recommends meeting new people via a site called LunchClub.ai (the link here is Chris' personal link and will get non-monetary "credit" for using it, but feel free to just go to the site and sign up on your own)
Kipp Bradford
Eric reminds people about the importance of networking
Dishcraft is another portfolio company looking to take robotics to the restaurant dishwashing industry.
Migrant labor peaked in the US in 2010
Pay rates are similar as Sous Chef (Chris was surprised by this)
Linda (the founder) looked at the problem and asked about automation
Restaurants think about plate counts
They can wash dishes as a service, akin to a diaper service or a linen service
"You can put anything in front of an aas"
The seed round is for proving market fit and reducing technical risk
Approached by entrepreneur about how they might solve a problem for the business model
Eric's podcast for Lemnos is called "Into the Forge" and has 3 seasons available. He wants to capture stories of the variety of backgrounds of entrepreneurs. "Going to MIT is not necessary"
How else does Eric recommend to meet people and network?
- Going to conferences like Supercon
- Hardware Happy Hour
- Feed of all the virtual hardware stuff
- Using meetups as a way to troubleshoot
Reach out to Eric directly:
- eric@lemnos.vc
- @sircoolio on Twitter

Image courtesy of ARM video of Eric speaking

The Two Person Rule Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

Dave has been playing with a "Mint in box" Vintage Intel dev board
Huffing my way to freedom
Bake in the stackup on the gerbers, and they'll always see it in the cam program
Chris recalls Ted Yapo doing a test coupon for his sampling oscilloscope project.
Dave talks about using the extra space on a panel to make test coupons in his panelization video.
It was an "Instant sackable offense" at Dave's past company for not ESD testing before coming into the lab, because they were working on boards that cost 6 figures.
Chris has been thinking about team size (mostly because he's normally a team of 1 or 2)
Dave mentioned they always had a 2 person rule for board power ups, to make sure they didn't miss any steps.
Matt Parker's book "Humble Pi"
The Hyatt Regency tragedy reminded Chris of statics class. Tom Scott made a video about this as well.
Team size also has Dave and Chris talking about Management. Dave didn't mention much, but there was also a thread on the EEVblog forum about software management.
Discussing troubleshooting and being happy when you find the source of a problem.
AC switching on
RCS radio
Polaroid teardown
Vintage Soviet control rooms
Mimic panel
Power topologies
An app note from past guest Eric Bogatin about the differences between a TDR and VNA.

Thanks to Wikimedia for the truck picture we expertly photoshopped...

PITA Package May 17, 2020

Show notes

There was a large electrical fire where Chris lives in Chicago.
Chris is launching a new course for Contextual Electronics making a board with Bluetooth and cellular.
This lead to Quectel sending him a development board for the EG91
DB9 is still alive! It was paired with a RS-232 chip on the dev board Chris got
Dave is doing a 5 part series about programming the 3 cent micro
The first one is about making the programmer
Dave wants to call out the "$0.01 linear regulator", the SSP6206
The cheapest regulator on Digikey is the NCP115, but it has a PITA package to solder (1mm x 1mm!)
Carl Bugeja calls out a haptic driver (meant for the buzzer on your cell phone) that can be used as a small motor driver.
Chris has been dealing with smaller pitch parts using his new microscope. This model was recommended in a recent Voltlog video about microscopes.
XC6206 is another low cost linear regulator.
CE forum post about microscope recommendations
HEPA fume extractor video
Alvaro explains his part setup at home
Review of a $100 handheld scope
Dave has also done a cheap handheld scope review
Flux removers
Working with magnet wire
Ripping caps off of a board
"Are we the baddies?"
KiKit panelization tool in KiCad
Limor from Adafruit panelizing boards in EAGLE
Knocking parts off of a board with a chisel (eWaste Ben)

Thanks to Mark Ittleman for the image of the pita on a conveyor

More Electronics Consultant Impedance Matching May 11, 2020

Show notes

Another episode with people talking about consulting for electronics! Welcome to our guests, listed clockwise from the top left in the episode photo.

Alex Klimaj from ARK Electronics in Utah in the US.
Jeremiah Gillis from Embedded Bytes, Inc in Wyoming in the US.
Kieran O'Leary from Mixed Signal Systems, Ltd in Scotland in the UK. Kieran has been on the show on his own in the past.
We all know each other from the Electronics Consultant Forum. If you're interested in joining you can apply here.

Notes from the show:

Episode 409 was also about Electronic Consulting. That episode inspired the consultant forum as a place to discuss issues related to the field.
Working with remote clients, before and during the lockdown.
All have considered making hardware for sale outside of client work.
- Alex has made the LiPow
- Kieran does courses and has made some demo boards for SI issues
- Jeremiah will be making some mod hardware for his Mazda RX7
Chris liked the idea of building a reference design after Ryan Cousins from KRTKL was on the show talking about how the Snickerdoodle is a lead generation tool.
Having a niche is also important.
The Long Tail (written by past guest Chris Anderson)
Past guest / co-host Greg Charvat has written niche books that lead to opportunities at startups as a CTO.
Schedules at home lab are tough, but not that different than before for the attendees. Kieran is used to working in the middle of the night (it was 1 am during the call for him)
Alex recorded a video of mountain biking using a Skydio drone
Keeping up on the latest trends via podcasts. We didn't mention it directly but this included the machine learning episode on embedded.fm.
Classes are always a good way to learn too, but might be more limited.
Looking at job postings also calls out what skills are in demand. Chris referenced the HN who's hiring posts.
Chris wishes there was an Audm for Engineers, that reads you technical articles and/or summaries. If you're interested email chris@theamphour.com with the subject line "Audm for engineers"
How are you rigorous?
- Standard processes in place
- Jeremiah is learning from the medical industry, since there are more regulations. This includes things like unit testing that links back to a requirement.
Tracking time for quality, including how well they are doing for estimates.
Asana with Everhour
Book: How to measure anything
The important thing is to check whether it's done or not. "Are we happy? Yes or no"
A great tip: Every block in the schematic gets a number for PCB reviews
Using a balance sheet as a budget check. Adding custom categories to your Chart of Accounts (with your accountant's blessing) means you can categorize with more fine control.
Some of the accounting/tracking tools we use:
- Xero
- Quickbooks
- Zoho
Spend your time billing hours
War stories
- Once there was a layoff, one the employees was nice enough to update Kieran on the situation
- Jeremiah war story about client
"I declare Force Majeure!"
So you want to be a consultant. Also referenced in Jack Ganssle's series on being a consultant.
Things to learn in the next 5 years:
- Business strategy (Trillion dollar coach - Bill Campbell_
- DC power storage and EVs
- Measuring progress (Measure What Matters - John Doerr)
Consulting forum application
Follow our guests online!
- Kieran O'Leary on Twitter, LinkedIn and his personal site
- Jeremiah Gillis on LinkedIn, his company site
- Alex Klimaj on Twitter, LinkedIn and his company site

The Almighty Dollarydoo May 03, 2020

Show notes

Yes, we know those are US dollars This episode is sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz. Check out their reviews of their new product line at AskAnEngineer.us, including a video review from friend of the show Shahriar from The Signal Path.

Dave is back to the old lab
Chris had a single nail painted after his recent injury.
Arcade Bust
JAMMA board
Video about confidence and traceability at Agilent
Marc Andreeson wrote about how "it's time to build"
MIT response to that post
Past venture capitalists on The Amp Hour
- (Adjacent to a lot of VC) Scott Miller
- Avidan Ross
- Chrissy Meyer
Yahoo was a shareholder of Alibaba when it went public
Modular electronics
Chris's partner asking why his job was necessary...
Water proof, oil proof cases
Syzygy connector standard
SamTec
Piotr Esden-Tempski streaming making a PMOD
Dave's LED light video
Color temperature
CRI
CFL is green
Doug Ford LED stuff
Electroboom video on LEDs
Cable capacitance
Photon counter video
Teaching electronics current
Dave's tweet about a new type of RF chamber

Thanks to geralt on Pixabay for the photo of the high margin way to make money...

An Interview with Ben Heck(endorn) Apr 28, 2020

Show notes

Today’s episode is sponsored by Saleae, makers of the Logic 8, Logic 8 Pro and Logic 16 Pro. They’re looking for your feedback in a survey and you can win a Logic 8 for your bench (or a 2nd one)! Go to Saleae.com/amphour to take the survey and enter to win.

Welcome, Ben Heckendorn AKA Ben Heck!

Latency gaming
Niche of niches
Pinball machine market
Maker Faire
Revision 3 Editing. Ben Heck show.

(Editor's note: These are Dave's notes from recording)

An Interview with Jack Ganssle (2nd) Apr 20, 2020

Show notes

This episode is sponsored by Screaming Circuits. If you need a hand with your rework or getting your design spun up to full production, they can help.

Welcome back, Jack Ganssle! Jack was one of our first guests on The Amp Hour on episode 54.

There have been 435 episodes of The Amp Hour and 185 editions of The Embedded Muse since our last episode. Jack has been publishing TEM since the late 90s! Consistency matters.
Jack gets great feedback from readers, and you should be one of them! Subscribe to TEM to get a newsletter every other week!
He is currently doing a Salary Survey, if you'd like to participate.
One of Jack's early scopes was a Tek 545
Jack also started making videos since we last talked, including equipment reviews.
The "cry of despair" is that the code is crap
Renesas Synergy gives a code guarantee
What is still the challenge with all of these things?
So many communication standards!
Paying someone allows you to give someone to yell at
RTOS roundup
- VXworks has had reports of problems and popularity seems to be dropping off. Instead, Wind River is doing more embedded Linux.
- Jack likes Micrium as an RTOS
- Amazon bought FreeRTOS
- Microsoft bought ExpressLogic
How have things spread and changed in the world of micros since the last show? Like we discussed then, 8 bit isn't dead (and still isn't).
SiLabs won't characterize their parts
RISC V
196 from Intel was not well supported.
Cross platform stuff
He got his first taste of Linux/Unix stuff starting Maryland's first ISPs in '91.
Training business during COVID has completely cut off (obviously)
Jack does training all over the world, including Australia! He even joined Dave for a video while he was there. His course is called "Better firmware, faster"
The focus is on quality. The average team spends 50% of work on debug.
Jack prefers designed firmware systems. "Know where we're going before we start building". The best engineer he ever had would stare at the ceiling for weeks, designing the system in his head.
Books about Agile methods
- "Agile! by Bertrand Meyer
- "Extreme Programming Explained", by Kent Beck
- "Balancing Agility and Discipline" - Barry Boehm
War stories
Chris's bosss used to say "little R, big D" for engineering organization.
Jack gave a great bodge wire example: you wouldn't leave bodge wires all over the board for production, you would fix it in the next rev! Same goes for software.
It only works when all the engineers have bought into the process.
Space shuttle was 1 bug per 400K LOC
How to get better results:
- Code review
- Michael Fagan review process
- Working to a firmware standard, like MISRA
- Use metrics to track the team.
How do solos get better (in addition to above)? Put it on the shelf before testing it
Card decks for programming in the 70s
Segger code coverage tool
Tools won't tell you edge conditions
Audit (QA) joke
Fuzz testing
The tragedy of the crashes of 737 Max airplanes and what we can learn from it. "They believed the sensor data"
Angle of attack sensor
Wonky temperature displays
Pay attention to your "goesintas and goesoutas"
Ada has a concept of "Design by contract"
Canticle for Liebowitz
Reach out to Jack at jack@ganssle.com

Photo taken from EEVblog #818

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