Highlights this week: 😅 Sweat Sensors, 👨💻 HDI PCB design, ⚡️ and Semi Industry Study.
🔗 Last week’s most-clicked link: Detailing the Apollo flight computers
Startup News 🚀💰:
- Illuminant Surgical, a startup building surgical navigation tools and systems with AR, just came out of stealth after having been accepted into YC’s latest batch.
- Shopic, a startup that offers an AI-enabled clip-on device that attaches to regular shopping carts, raised a $35M Series B led by Qualcomm Ventures.
- Hyundai and Boston Dynamics launch AI Institute, investing $400M into a research-first organization that will focus on challenges in the development of robots, spanning fields like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and engineering.
Interesting Links 🔗:
- Simulate IoT projects in your browser. Cool open-source project featuring simulations for Arduino, ESP, Raspberry Pi, etc. Interesting to see how this builds out into broader groups of micros, eval boards, and other IC’s.
- Advanced Computer Architecture. Free download of the official book (early print version) made available by the author himself, along with accompanying youtube video series. Interesting intro to the temperature and power section: “As of 2020, leakage power is roughly 20-40% of the total power dissipation in high-end processors. Therelationships between power and temperature are complex: an increase in dynamic power increases the total power, which increases the temperature, whichincreases the leakage power, which increases the total power, which increasesthe temperature (and so on)”.
- A team of researchers from Caltech's Cherng Department of Medical Engineering has unveiled a new wearable sensor that can detect in human sweat even minute levels of many common nutrients and biological compounds that can serve as indicators of human health. Here’s the official paper which includes a nice block diagram of the electronics system.
- Along with the recent CHIPS act passing, Cadence, TSMC, and others are building out System On Chip (SOC) Design and Tapeout Classes for colleges and universities throughout the world. Beginning with the 180nm TSMC process node, professors and students will now be able to acquaint themselves with the legendary 6502 microprocessor that literally changed the world of computers starting with the Apple-1.
- Interesting study on the semiconductor industry by McKinsey. Looking at R&D spend across the semiconductor value chain (design → back-end test and pcb assembly), operating margin across businesses in and out of the industry, and managing the chip shortage.
- The US banned export of tech used in 3nm chip production on security grounds (ie keep away from China?). The rule will ban the export of two ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor materials (Gallium Oxide and diamond), as well as some types of ECAD software and pressure gain combustion technology.
- HDI PCB design guide by Wurth Electronics. Stacked vs staggered microvias, via-filling process, etc.
One Interesting Picture 📸: cost v complexity in hdi pcbs
