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:

Aussie Bound! Aug 19, 2016

Show notes

Chris is headed to Australia! April 2017
Dave has gotten himself a new office space! He's hoping the separation of spaces (from the lab) will help inspire new lab projects.
Facebook has a hardware lab now.
Dave was at Maker Faire Sydney! Lots of great projects.
Gavin talked about how Adam Savage mentions "Drawers are where tools go to die"
Chris gave some advice for new EEs.
It's tough when seeing what other people do on the internet. Shitty Watercolor (from reddit) drew a cartoon to this effect.
Dave was at an auction for a set of E4407B - 26 GHz Analyzers.
Amateur radio isn't quite "hip" but it is making a comeback.
Want to build your own VNA? Check out this badass build (and OSHW files!).
Stonehenge from Spinal Tap.

An Interview with Louis Rossmann Aug 12, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Louis Rossmann!

Check Louis out on

Mergers and Acquiescence Aug 05, 2016

Show notes

Dave's knee is gross. You can see all the videos and updates about it on his secondary channel.
A research lab claims to have made PV cells that mimic photosynthesis.
Hyperloop busted by thunderf00t?
A reader asked about non-fiction books. Chris was more excited to talk about the fiction book he's reading, Seveneves.
What would happen if the sun vanished?
Former guest Chuck Peddle
Avnet is the top bid for Premier Farnell
ADI is buying LT.
We love LTSpice and had the chance to chat with the head of it, Mike Engelhardt.
ARM was bought by SoftBank. In an article about why SB is paying 32B, they talk about the possibility that ARM starts mfg their own chips.
Bunnie/Snowden

Missing links? You can always see our list of links on our subreddit, /r/TheAmpHour or see the same links posted to our twitter, @TheAmpHour. You can support the show via our Patreon Page.

Thanks to Ruin Raider for the picture of the collision.

An Interview with Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith Jul 29, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Stefan Dzisiewski-Smith! (@stefandz)

Chris and Stefan met at Resonate.io, through mutual friend and former guest Mike Harrison.
He studied EE at Imperial College, both undergrad and grad degree.
An early project was writing assembly on a PIC16F87.
After that, he was convinced to apply to the Royal College of Art for a multidisciplinary Industrial Design Engineering.
It required a portfolio, much of which was created right before applying.
The first job out of school was working at a high voltage power supply company. The floor started on fire at one point after an arcing supply.
Xray tubes are hard to simulate so they would test real ones in lead lined boxes.
One large project after joining Jason Bruges studio was the Matthew Knight arena (Eugene Oregon). This project uses Shutterglass.
After leaving the studio, Stefan joined the company that became Buffalo Grid. The initial project concept was a bicycle generator to charge phones in Uganda. It later switched to being solar. The business model was to give away equipment, do profit share
Internally, there was an MPPT board from NXP and a BeagleBone Black. These days it's a more integrated solution and a MPPT unit from "Roc Solid Solar".
Stefan now works at Bare Conductive, which makes capacitive sensing using carbon paint. It was started by 4 RCA grads, including his former roommate Matt.
Listeners may have seen the Touch Board an Arduino compatible project with SD card, audio output and a capacitive sensor. It was a key part of their first Kickstarter, which rasied nearly 122K pounds.
There will be a new product in September meant for the RPi Zero. Chris mentioned these are hard to get, to which Stefan mentioned the site "Where is my Pi 0?" Chris heard rumor there are some available at his local MicroCenter.
Unicorn Poo?.
The chip behind it is the MPR121. It was originally created by Freescale but then sold to Resurgent Semi. Stefan wrote a new low level library for Arduino
Stefan brought up current events, how Analog is buying Linear Tech.
These days Stefan is working on an Induction cooker.
You can find more about Stefan and his past work on bycgwtsf.com and you can follow him on Twitter

Many thanks for Stefan sharing his wide variety of knowledge and experience!

An Interview with Samy Kamkar Jul 22, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Samy Kamkar!

Samy was a big fan of 2600 magazine when getting started. Chris learned that HOPE was started/sponsored by them.
He started Fonality, a VOIP phone service, with some friends
Projects
- Evercookie
- LED projects
- Samy Is My Hero
- Drones/SkyJack
- USB driveby
- RollJam
- OpenSesame (using the IMme hack from Mike Ossmann)
- ProxMark
- MagSpoof
That last project will potentially be featured on the current season of Mr Robot. So cool!

Call In Show #5 Jul 15, 2016

Show notes

Our 5th call in show. Likely our last for a while given the drop off in the number of callers. We’ll do it again if asked!

Alexander (by far our best caller)
- He's an EE student struggling with math, was wondering how to get through it.
- Dave was part of a local college's promo video.
- There is an Intersil chip that involves RGB LEDs that requires using matricies.
- Alexander was the person who sent Dave's mailbag a warming device.
David2 is back doing some design work for Dave again.
Anon SW Eng via email
- They asked about connecting the green and black grounds on a power supply by default. You can, but it's usually better not to unless there's a reason.
- The isolated output of these supplies allows for "stacking" voltages.
- Not having a grasp on your grounding tree means you could end up with ground loops.
Chris found out he has knob and tube wiring throughout his house, which means none of the 3 prong switches (except for the ones Chris wired) have an earth ground. Romex is the plastic wrapped wire that often runs throughout houses.
Xander
- Wanted recommendations for getting an EE degree while keeping working.
- Ultimately it comes down to what kind of work Xander wants to work in.
- If you're getting a degree online (or in person, for that matter), make sure they are ABET accredited. These are often the only kind of engineering degrees accepted by employers.
Artem
- Asked about the whether there is a shift away from formal education.
- We used as an "add on" to Xanders question.
- Places like Google are putting less emphasis on degrees and more on experience/portfolios.
Todd
- Asked if we had heard about magnetostrictive delay line memory.
- He has a version from an old Friden 132 calculator from the mid 60s (what a beast!)
- Chris asked Dave about RPN notation.
A user took die photos of a chip on board a uCurrent when they blew theirs up. Chris was trying to remember the name of the site (formerly with a Russian TLD) took pictures of tons of ICs. It was Zeptobars! (who we have surely mentioned before)
Chris has been posting lots of videos on the PHY youtube channel, including a great talk from Mike Harrison about art and one from James Lewis on Capacitors.

Catalyzing Change Agents Jul 08, 2016

Show notes

Martin Lorton is thinking about selling off his stack of gear. Chris is excited for the opportunity serendipidy might bring.
Dave got an email about how to find a new job. One way is to just email, using a tool like Email Hunter. However you should be very cognizant of the person's time you are emailing.
Louis Rossman made a cryptic video about the future of his channel. It might turn out ok. Chris hadn't heard of him until Louis did a popular AMA.
The Juno probe has gotten to Jupiter and was successful!
The Megaprocessor is awesome. 43.2K transistors. Should people learn processors? Maybe. But there probably isn't time for the general EE audience.
Rudolf Kalman has passed away. If you don't know, Kalman Filters are present in many sensor applications these days.
EAGLE was bought by Autodesk (for an estimated $20M, no official numbers). Autodesk has a large suite of tools now:
- Fusion
- Inventor
- Tinkercad
- Circuits.io
Adafruit did an interview with Dave and Chris's former co-worker (worked with both of them individually!). Matt didn't answer all the questions.
Chris thinks a CAD tool is like Religion. You're not changing without a "Catalyzing Change Agent"
Circuit Maker continues to lack features, but Altium finally reduced the price on Circuit Studio, which puts it into competitive territory.
Surprisingly, Chris still recommends learning KiCad (using something like Getting to Blinky)
Our episodes will start uploading to The Amp Hour youtube channel. This will allow deeplinking of the audio.
Dave has been releasing videos of his chat with Karsten about space electronics.
We will be having a call in show next week! Email feedback@theamphour.com if you'd like to join in on Skype.
Chris will be in Chicago from the 15th to the 17th! Get in contact if you'd like to hang out (chris@theamphour.com)
Limor did an interview with the CEO of Digikey.
The Daredevil Camera is a fantastic use of paralleled signal processing!
Dave had forgotten he already made a video about orders of magnitude back in video 286!

Thanks to CGPGrey for the image of the bottles

An Interview With Dave Young Jul 01, 2016

Show notes

Chris and Dave brew beer a few weeks ago in Denver

Chris and Dave started co-ops together at Audiopack, now Ultra Electronics.
One of the co-op tasks was intelligibility testing.
Dave told Chris about the job he eventually got at Keithley Instruments. The work culture there was one of the best parts.
Learning how to do error budgets and power budgets was an important task for young engineers.
Dave now does consulting under Young Circuit Designs out in Denver.
He learned that being up front with CMs about what startups and/or consulting projects needed saved LOTS of time.
It's a big advantage to work with local suppliers. Dave now has Advanced Circuit (Denver) and Tracer Assembly (Golden)
Want to be a consultant? Have cash in the bank. Also...work whichever 16 hours you'd like!
Dave does embedded + analog + whatever else needs to be done. Small teams means you're in charge of everything!
One project seeks to take the low cost of "hoverboards" (balancing wheeled devices that were starting on fire) and use them to build low cost motorized wheelchairs. They got a Google Grant to do so.
Dave's other major venture is Bluestamp Engineering (BSE). They introduce and mentor high school kids who are interested in engineering over the course of 6 weeks.
The students have to apply and determine which project they want to do before arriving. There is a 3:1 student to staff ratio as well, so each student gets lots of attention .
Dave's current favorite project is based on a Hackster entry that uses the Particle photon and google cardboard to create a lightsaber simulator.
The tuition for BSE is $3500-$4000 (depending on location), but turns out to be $35/hour (cheaper than most/all tutoring). There are also scholarships for students, though everyone is required to pay something to have "skin in the game".
The students are high school age. Man update their profiles when applying to college because the experience looks good. Some students also come back as instructors!
BSE currently operates in (click links to see the students' pages):
- New York
- Palo Alto
- Denver
- SF
If you're interested in talking to some of the BSE students, let Dave know!
Reach Dave on Twitter (@DaveYoungEE) or on his companies' websites: Bluestamp Engineering and Young Circuit Designs.

Many thanks to my old friend Dave for joining me on short notice. Though I've heard many of his stories, I am glad he got to share a lot of them with all of you. There are lots more good ones, perhaps we'll hear them sometime in the future!

Alexa joins the fray Jun 24, 2016

Show notes

Wired stuff still wins for reliability...especially if it's fiber! Wifi continues to be unreliable for most things.
Chris has an Amazon Echo in the AirBnB where he's staying. He's been talking to Alexa.
Dave recently did a Sigilent Teardown.
While in the Bay Area, Chris finally got to try out the CastAR.
The HTC Vive is a true VR platform Chris got to try. It was designed by former guest Alan Yates and the controllers partially by regular guest Jeff Keyzer.
UBM sold all of the assets around EETimes, EDN and more to Arrow.
Newark/Element 14/Farnell was sold to a Swiss holding company.
Intel's web/TV series "America's Greatest Makers" has a winner...a toothbrush.
The makers of the ESP8266 have released a new model that has integrated flash.
Chris started working at the same place that Bob Widlar started at (in Cleveland!). If you've never seen it, you can download the poster here.
Tools that arean't used that often, but imporant to have on the bench.:
- Network analyzer
- IMTTI eye prober
- USB to RS485
Chip of the Week: TPS54A20

Winner of the Boldport subscription: @TallNorsk

An Interview with Dmitry Nedospasov Jun 17, 2016

Show notes

Welcome Dmitry Nedospasov (@nedos),

Dmitry is from Russia, grew up in US, and moved to Germany for university (undergrad and PhD) at TU Berlin.
He is a a hardware security researcher, like past guests Mike Ossmann and Colin O'Flynn
Dmitry gave a great talk about these topics at 30c3 last year (also where the image above is from)
There are different types of getting into chip level attacks
- Semi Invasive
  - If you shine IR light light at the back of a thinned wafer you can see photonic emissions.
  - This requires high end equipment but there are some DIY versions.
  - Or you can use a saser pulse to flip bits and potentially probe the crypto key
  - To thin the wafers, you use a CMP, chemical mechanical planarization. This is similar to the one done in a fab but on a much smaller scale. One brand is an ASAP CMP
- Fully invasive
  - Focused ion beam to modify the silicon.
  - Microprobing - making a probe pad with a laser
  - Chris Tarnovsky does a lot of these type of attacks.
Dmitry recommends the book Murdoch's TV pirates. This was about the hacking of Pay TV.
Another area of attack are printer cartridges. The ones from vendors giving away printers are encrypted so you have to continue to buy the ink from them.
Intellectual property law says that you can replicate the signals (nothing is protecting those) but you cannot steal the firmware. So as long as you emulate, you should be fine (that won't stop companies from suing you though).
Playstation modding/hacking was another big thing back in the day.
Dave was asking about RFID credit cards because he just did a video about RFID jammers. Many of the terminals use the EMV standard.
There have been pictures of "less than sophisticated" attacks on metros lately.
Levels of security
- Low
  - Bank card
  - SIM
- Medium
  - E-Passport
- High
  - Pay TV
Dmitry was invited to a conference about industrial control systems (ICS) in Vienna. This may have been a mistake based on the fact that Dmitry works with IC's (note the apostrophe), but there are still lots of issues. The stuxnet hack comes to mind (though that was very sophisticated and software based).
Industries that are hurting for security
- IoT security
- Medical
- Cars
Dmitry has spent the week doing training a Recon. The conference is nearly 50% hardware talks and has tons of on site training.
This particular class Dmitry is giving is teaching workflow for day to day hardware reverse engineering.
- Building stuff with FPGAs, such as a custom protocol analyzer (using a Papilio board)
- Also probing projects that were created on Olimex boards.
- Using external test equipment like a Saleae logic analyzer.
Dmitry also will be at ToorCon in San Diego.
He also gives on site trainings (outside of conferences) and will possibly do one in Berlin later this year. Check out his website toothless.co for more info on the trainings.
Contact Dmitry if you're in Europe and interested in hardware security. He has too much work and is looking to hire people. Contact him on Twitter, his handle is @nedos

Many thanks to Dmitry for telling us more about hardware security! It was a great look into how people can get into probing silicon for all its secrets!

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