The Amp Hour

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**The Amp Hour**

The Amp Hour is a weekly conversation about electronics and the people who design them.

Latest Episodes:

Leading Edge Analog with Joren Vaes Oct 18, 2025

Show notes

Welcome Joren Vaes, design engineer at SOFICS

Simulation is critical when designing analog devices based on a PDK from the fab
Parasitics are significant, especially with new nodes having upwards of 16 metal layers
Chris complained about a class where the professor made them draw planar structures with graph paper with colored pencils
Large fabs on leading edge nodes have 1800 page textbook of rules
Because the constraints get tighter, that book gets longer for each node
2 nm mass production on finfet currently with TSMC
22 was the last classic cmos
Finfet, looks like a devil
'gate all around' / nanosheet
CFET (complementary field effect transistor) is next
Joren really gets Maxwells Equations...as you have to at super high speeds
SOFICS are making phy's / IP blocks
Amplifiers that are DC to 50 GHz
Making a datasheet for the resulting IP block
Joren got his PhD working on millimeter wave applications
It's all just physics
Using coils to impedance match between layers
Reflecting off of different materials at angles is Snells law (not lorentz equation) and that extends to different materials at different wavelengths
Cables are very lossy at 100 GHz...dBs per cm
Parasitics impact every part of the design process
Wireline community - name for the high speed interfaces, including research in the space
Most transistor threshhold voltages that Joren works with are ... 750 mV!
Voltage dependent drc rules
Electromigration - holes in wires from electrons
ESD is a big part of the business, and a large source of parasitics
New product development for IP blocks
Working with customers and Foundry at the 2 nm node
Design companies need to be paying 100s of thousands to software providers
After, it goes to spice and schedmatic
Joren decides whether to jump in on layout
LVS - layout vs schematic
Parasitic extraction (spice netlist)
PDKs define how you can do the layout stage
Lower cost tools exist but more expensive tools have tooling that tells you when you're violating DRC
3 main vendors
- Cadence
- Synopsis
- Siemens (Calibre)
Foundries soemtimes only support one tool
Doing test wafers allows testing of structures. They often get MPW at a discount from the fab (since they're often testing new processes as well)
How do they test with packaging options?
- 'low speed' can be die bonded or pcb mounted
- high speed does on wafer probing (with veeeery expensive probes)
Check out Sofics.com for more info on the company. They also have a blog with a great name.
Follow or connect with Joren on LinkedIn

Psst...Hey buddy, wanna buy an Octopus? Oct 09, 2025

Show notes

Contextual Electronics is "still a thing".
Sydney hosted the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The IAC is the "big space event of the year," held annually in a different city.
Chris noted that US space funding seems low, leading some friends to move from NASA to private industry.
Dave recorded two walkaround videos: a 30-minute bird’s eye view using a GoPro on a pole and a physical hour-long walkaround.
Large companies had private stands, while smaller, two-man companies had sub-booths within their country’s larger rented stand (e.g., South Africa, Germany, Poland).
Niche companies included those selling "space connectors," described as regular connectors sold at potentially 10 times the price to space customers.
Australia had a large presence, with stands for the country and individual states (Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania) hosting local niche space gear firms.
Dave toured a new, completely mobile Mission Control facility built into a semi-trailer van. This unit is designed as a generic platform with screens, server racks, and redundant power, allowing any space company to install their own servers and operate anywhere in Australia.
An Australian company specialized in "Space lube" (lubricants for satellites and actuators), necessary because water-based lubricants would boil off or freeze up and cause gear to seize.
Chris has a new "quasi obsession" with the old technology of DIN rail. He is using 3D printers to mount development boards onto DIN rail to organize his desk.
DIN rail is common in Australia and Europe for electrical switchboards and automation equipment (PLCs, power supplies).
Dave sent a photo of "Fish Pointer's" organized desk, which Chris identified as using "Gridfinity," an ad hoc, modular standard popular in the 3D printing community, often associated with Zack Friedman of Voidstar Labs.
Dave runs a Creality K1 3D printer that is networked, allowing him to control and print remotely.
Chris purchased a filament dryer for only $42 to combat the issue of filament going brittle due to moisture.
Dave recounted his attempt to sort 330 tins of salvaged parts (feet, spacers, grommets) from vintage test gear.
The space industry is currently "so hot" due to private funding, unlike the "dead" industry 10 to 15 years ago.
It is now easy to book a payload slot on a launch vehicle like SpaceX. Dave said that Firefly was actually "begging" people to put payloads on its Moonlander to help fund the mission, though that's source unknown. It was supported by CPLS as part of NASA.
The Commodore Corporation recently changed hands, and a consortium of enthusiasts released a new Commodore 64 Ultimate, featuring a transparent keyboard PCB signed by original designers, including Jerry Ellsworth. The appeal is nostalgia, as modern chips far outperform the 6510 CPU it uses.
Chris bought a split, ergonomic Corne V4 keyboard (RP2040 chip) from AliExpress for $68. The key feature is working with Vial, a pleasant web serial-based app for reconfiguring key mappings. Dave stated he hates split keyboards and rechargeable keyboards that only last a week.
Dave is installing 75 kWh of beefy outdoor battery packs (800-900 kg total) received "free" due to a government subsidy.
He poured a new, completely reinforced concrete slab rated for over 1,500 kg to support the batteries on a flat surface, using pre-welded mesh instead of tying rebar.
The new system includes an 8 kW inverter. Dave intends to install a changeover switch to run the house off the batteries if the power grid fails. Dave noted he mainly wants the "warm fuzzy" feeling of running his entire house on solar and batteries.

Applied Embedded Electronics with Jerry Twomey Oct 03, 2025

Show notes

Welcome Jerry Twomey (Effective Electrons) author of the book, Applied Embedded Electronics: Design Essentials for Robust Systems. Chris first heard Jerry on Embedded.fm last year.

Jerry's Background and Book Motivation: Jerry shares his quick history, moving from the Boston area to San Jose (Silicon Valley) and eventually to San Diego, where he has worked across diverse sectors including consumer electronics, aerospace, defense projects, DARPA research, and medical electronics. His book focuses on how to develop robust systems, providing guidance that is timeless rather than applications manuals that quickly become outdated.
The Analog Problem: Although modern systems may be digital end-to-end, Jerry emphasizes that the predominant causes of failure and design difficulties are often analog in nature. Academic study often teaches ideal signals but neglects real-world issues like inductance, noise, and cross-coupling.
Consulting Experience & Troubleshooting: Jerry discusses being called in to fix systems that failed strenuous regulatory testing for medical devices, where reliability is first and foremost (similar to an aerospace way of thinking). Failures often stemmed from basic issues like a lack of ESD protection, absence of error correction in data streams, insufficient detection of errors, and common mode noise rejection problems.
High-Speed Data and Signal Integrity: At high data rates, communication becomes a "communications channel problem," not truly a digital one. When bits are underneath a tenth of a nanosecond, the communication turns into multiple standing wave transitions. The two primary limits on performance are rise and fall times and distance traveled.
Real-World Applications: Jerry has worked extensively on medical devices, including early-generation Dexcom glucose monitoring systems (two on-body monitors and a hospital insulin pump/monitor), and a wearable EEG monitor. He also worked on a system that required packing five video cameras into an endoscope distal head, measuring 11 mm in diameter and 13 mm long.
Architecting Systems and Identifying Bottlenecks: When starting a new project, Jerry suggests defining needs and interfaces and looking at the system as a black box. Engineering time should focus on the bottleneck—the hardest part of the system. For medical implantables, this might be minimizing power consumption down to virtually nothing, which could take up 90% of the effort.
Power System Design: Jerry advises purchasing commercial AC-to-DC converters due to competitive pricing. He notes that switching supplies (buck converters) commonly introduce noise that can lead to EMI failures or corrupt sensitive analog front ends. A classic case of "digital thinking in an analog scenario" is when a sensitive analog front end is powered by a noisy switching converter.
Working with Embedded Teams: Jerry prefers guiding embedded teams toward "self-discovery," using bench time and empirical measurement (such as comparing grounds on a scope) to demonstrate non-ideal connections and grounding issues. He advises against the "seagull manager" approach.
Grounding Best Practices: For integrated circuits (chips), designs must be fully differential because securing a good hard ground reference is impossible. On singular circuit boards, a common uncut ground plane (dedicated ground plane, often multiple layers stitched together with vias) is the recommended approach. Cutting the ground plane is discouraged as it can create a slot antenna, increasing the signal radiating from the board by about 7 dB. Jerry has published rules on grounding.
Engineering Intuition vs. LLMs: Jerry notes that intuition is gathered through painful learning experiences and guidance from experienced designers. He expresses concern over the reliance on LLMs (Language Learning Models), which, while improving, can confidently provide incorrect answers, especially regarding complex topics like signal grounding.
Limits to Moore’s Law: CMOS scaling is approaching physical limits, likely unable to go below 10 or 11 nanometers. Modern performance gains are achieved through more parallel processing, not significantly faster clock rates, which have plateaued around 5 GHz due to parasitics and timing limitations. Jerry’s article discusses this topic.
RISC Architectures: The industry benefits from migrating to RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architectures (like ARM) because they eliminate useless architecture and transistors associated with complex instruction sets (like x86).

Find Jerry on Effective Electrons and on LinkedIn

Building wafer.space with Tim Ansell Sep 25, 2025

Show notes

Welcome back Tim Ansell!

Tim's past appearances and previous work
- Discussing Tomu on 375
- Discussing Fomu on 456.3
- Discussing the open source PDK on 501
- Tim’s previous work at Google involved releasing a manufacturable open-source PDK (Process Development Kit), which contains the fundamental information needed to create integrated circuits.
- Key open-source tools discussed include OpenROAD (a backend compiler for IC design) and Open Lane (an end-to-end suite turning chip descriptions (RTL) into manufacturing data (GDS)). Andreas had been on the show talking about his work on OpenROAD. Not discussed on the show but after Efabless went away, Open Lane has been replaced with LibreLane.
- Efabless, a VC-backed startup, shut down in early 2025 due to investor disagreements. Efabless previously provided pooled manufacturing access (similar to OSH Park for PCBs) using the SKY130 process from Skywater in Minnesota.
- A Skywater run costs $200k–$300k, which Efabless divided by 40 to reach roughly a $10k price point per slot.
Tiny Tapeout
- Matt Venn's Tiny Tapeout program further subdivides the manufacturing costs, making it the cheapest way to create custom silicon, typically costing around $300 per design.
- Tiny Tapeout lowers the barrier to entry, allowing people to "just try it and see if you like it," similar to writing a "hello world" program.
- The program has already processed almost 3,000 projects, demonstrating high community demand when costs are low.
- Despite limitations, advanced projects are possible: a developer taped out a Linux capable SOC using open-source tools and the Tiny Tapeout space.
Introducing Wafer Space
- Tim started Wafer Space, based in Singapore, to provide community access to open-source manufacturing after Efabless ceased operations.
- Wafer Space focuses on the GF180MCU PDK (Global Foundries 180 nm process), which is a much cheaper technology manufactured in Singapore.
- The core offering is a low-volume production run: $7,000 USD gets you 1,000 chips back. This volume is enough for prototyping and shipping a small product (e.g., 500 units).
- The design envelope area is 3.8 x 5 mm (20 mm squared) using the 180 nm process.
- Interested parties should sign up via the Crowd Supply page. The deadline for purchase is the November 28th and submissions are due by December 3rd, with delivery by March 15th.
Manufacturing & Packaging
- By default, customers receive bare silicon die
- Tim is working with PCB manufacturers (like JLC PCB, PCB Way, Seed Studio) to offer Chip on Board (COB) wire bonding assembly onto custom PCBs (think black epoxy blob on a PCB)
- COB packaging is significantly cheaper (sub-$2) than standard packaging houses (which often charge around $7 per chip).
- This approach also provides faster iteration speed, as PCB manufacturers offer quick turnaround times (sometimes 3 days) compared to typical packaging houses (3 months)
Getting Started & Resources
- If you are new to chip design, starting with Tiny Tapeout's click and drag tools is highly recommended. Matt Venn previously talked/sang about Siliwiz
- More advanced tools include Verilog and VHDL (coding style) or KLayout and Magic (drawing shapes, similar to PCB design).
- To follow the project or seek help, join the Wafer Space Discord
- New services offering open-source silicon manufacturing include IHP (Europe/130 nm) and Chip Foundry (US/Skywater), increasing ecosystem resiliency.
Website: Wafer.space
Sign up on the CrowdSupply campaign

Test Point Accupuncture Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

Dave bought a lemon laptop
Chris officially has solar that is installed, working, and is effectively an appliance at this point...
Duke Energy and North Carolina nuclear mix
The impact of batteries on the grid
The Duck Curve is something Chris and Ari discussed on ep650
Open circuit voltage on panels
Dave did a repair on a tennis ball machine
Chris designed a board with test points too small
Accupuncture jbc
High cost vs low cost rework tweezers
Nanofix YouTube Channel
Tested
Ugly multimeter review

Electric Propulsion with Todd Bailey Aug 22, 2025

Show notes

Welcome back Todd Bailey of Starlight Engines, now Muon Space! (11 years later)

Todd was on Episode 194 of The Amp Hour, when he was consulting in the art and design space and building instruments like Where the Party At (WTPA). He was designing 'robot doors' for Calvin Klein's house, discussed last time.
Through Andy Reitano, Todd learned about a role at Lockheed Martin (a US defence company) working on sonar for submarines.
"What a good job is"
- Fun
- Lucrative
- Skills / teach you
Todd, Andy, and other Lockheed Martin friends worked on the VEC9 discussed in ep194
Clearance was required to work on sonar
Military electronics had some differences from his past work, but Todd was interestingly complementary of requirements driven design / waterfall
Chris and Todd were hanging out in a bar before he moved over to working on space and Todd mentioned he wanted to be Zefram Cochrane and do interesting things that matter (in space).
Star Trek First Contact (gah, I said generations)
Past guest Shawn Meehan talked to Todd and that's how he started working at the "stealth space startup" at the time
Astra
HBO (not Netflix) special called Wild Wild Space
Other past guests of the show who were at Astra include Charles Aylward and Jeri Ellsworth
Silicon Valley Startup
"When the heavens went on sale" (book)
Commercial space by SpaceX
Rocket Lab was second
"Fail on stage"
Booster state of that rocket motor control
Electric turbo pump
Delphin engine
Cryogenic / feedback was hard
Alameda indoor test facility
Meant to fit in shipping container (8x8.5x40 ft)
System design and market requirements (launches don't want small rockets)
Working remote
No place like home Jim Williams essay
Leaving Astra
Staying in the trenches
Rocket Lab
3rd stage "Kick stage, now known as "Photon"
Things you can work on in space
- Radios
- Sensors
- Power
Electric propulsion (EP)
Apollo fusion - Alex Zannos (Contemporary) and Mike Cassidy (CEO)
After working on fusion didn't have legs, they switched to working on Hall effect thrusters
"Low earth orbit is 50% of the way to anywhere in the solar system"
Rocket equation
Stage fires then falls off
Kick stage is 3rd stage
Accelerating an ion beam
Delta V book
Rocket efficiency
"Seconds of ISP" How much mass do you use to go distance
Asteroid mining
Who buys EP?
SpaceX built their own Argon thruster
Torque rods / reaction wheels
Apollo successfully pivoted
Acquired by Astra space / finished the apollo constellation engine
In 2022, Todd and his cofounder Mark Hopkins started Starlight Engines after some initial proof points and then fundraising
Had opinions about EP
Goebels and Katz textbooks about EP
Busek electric propulsion is a family business that has tried all kinds of EP. Run by Vlad Ruby & son Pete.
Starlight is based on solid Zinc propellant
Traditionally it's Xenon
"The honda civic of hall effect sensor systems"
The atomic mass of Zinc is light
"Lickable EP"
Discharge converter runs the ion beam
Custom magnetics
300W - 800W
28V spacecraft bus
"Plume divergence"
Need to go from solid to gas
Cathode is a thermionic emitter "Like a tube amp", it emits to boil off electrons
Zinc gets caught in electron cloud, knocks an electron off to make ions, ejected from a positively charged plate nearby.
Novel propellent is a differentiator
Starlight had a scrappy factor, like they built their own vacuum chamber (for 15K!)
The device is not known to be operational in space yet (they sell it but don't operate it, so it'd be tough to know)
"Give the first one away"
Have sold 4 propulsion systems
Muon space needed a propulsion system and instead decided to buy the company. They weren't put off by "two guys in a garage and contractors".
Muon builds things like fire detection satellites
For more info about their past work and see pictures of the plumes, check out Starlightengines.com
To see the new things they'll be working on, check out Muon space

Beware of the Overachievers Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

Dave is starting a new project for a lab timer called the uTimer
Timelapse
Geerling videos about clocks
Mitxela clock
Transflective displays
Dave is looking at LCDs like this one
Dropping Rs vs Ls
Font chip
.5mm pin pitch on the connectors
Chris is making a new breakout board that is effectively a sensors shield for a Bluetooth chip. It's the first time he's using the service and it was a pleasant completely hands-off experience.
Mike Harrison USB C barrel jack
JLC DFM plugin for KiCad
Python script to pull EasyEDA parts into KiCad
Chris is designing around this $3 board with an nRF52840A
de minimus tariff exemptions are gone in the us
North Korea is putting forward software engineering candidates that are actually teams of workers
Mini PC production at BeeLink
Stephen Hawes on The Amp Hour
Stephen documented the process of getting the Opulo v4 through certification
Chris has solar install issues
Dave is dealing with removing downpipes
Dave is getting battery extension 50 kWh

CircuitHub, 12 Years Later with Andrew Seddon Aug 01, 2025

Show notes

Welcome Back, Andrew Seddon! Founder and CEO of CircuitHub.

Andrew was first on episode 131 of The Amp Hour
CircuitHub has a partnership with Worthington Assembly
Worthington and CircuitHub host the Pick Place Podcast
Mimicing silicon manufacturing
Common parts library
Setting the factory up to have only 50k SKUs in house for speed of loading / attrition
Driving people to 2000 parts was the original intent, but didn't hit the mark
Level of production needs to be high
Many parts need to work in conjunction
- Reflow
- PnP
- Throughhole
- Selective soldering
- Inspection
Need to solve for the whole setup. Making smt 10x better doesn't make overall 10x better
Starlink manufcaturing localy
PCB fabs in the US, 50 left, getting rolled up under Private Equity (as are things like machine shops)
AI with VCs
How it impacts the electronics industries
KiCad
More AI stuff
Automation on checking
Still humans involved
PDKs for chip companies
File checking / JLC
Types of customers
- 10 largest companies on the planets
- It's individuals who order and try it out, that often becomes a repeat business thing
- Customers / types of boards / size of orders
- More startups who also want production
Future serving lower cost areas
Proto service 2-4 layer black soldermask (unlisted)
See the CircuitHub capabilities
Going high volume
People making weekly or monthly units and spreading it out
Spinning up custom in-house high volume
Flattenting the price curve
Tariffs
New customers approaching them because of it
Can consumer be done in the US?

Hardware Security with Matt Brown Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

Welcome Matt Brown of Brown Fine Security!

Matt has been reverse engineering a "smart" smoker controller that talks back to AWS IOT
Jeff Geerling talking about his dishwasher
Storing private keys on the device??
Threat models
Key rotation
What is the best case scenario for an IoT device?
Secure boot / trust zone
Keys encrypt flash storage
Chris has designed in the ATECC608 before
Replacing Certificate Authority (CA) cert in grill firmware
Matt has a Linux hardware / reverse engineering background
Flash is always external
Ghidra / idapro / binwalk
Security cameras are 99% linux based (battery based cameras might be embedded)
Best practices
Encrypted firmware
hidden uart / jtag
Keys
Are linux devices "worth more" to a security researcher?
CVSS risk scoring system
Attack vector
Vulnerabilities are better if it can be a remote executed
Linux devices have more compute
Bluetoothe LE
Ability to enumerate
Scale reverse engineering
Chris has discussed the silliness of a bluetooth toothbrush on the show before
Tools / Software of the trade
- xgeku firmware reader
- picoemp
- PCBite
- Saleae
- SDR USRP B200
- Universal radio hacker
Stick-to-it-ness
Matt just came back from hardwear.io, one of his new favorite conferences
Find Matt at the embedded systems village at DEF CON
Follow Matt via his YouTube channel
Matt has a new IoT Security newsletter starting up