This Week’s Highlights
- Apple’s suppliers for Vision Pro 🍏
- Hydrofoils in electric boats 🛥️
- Manufacturing Deep-Tech Market Map 🗺️
Interesting Links 🏭
- A breakdown of the suppliers in Apple’s Vision Pro supply chain for the display, acoustics, optics, sensors, casings, and final assembly. The thread also includes an estimated BOM cost breakdown, where the total cost of components is around ~$1511 USD/headset*.
- Rough calculation, likely BOM estimate is much different*
- Like many technologies that developed as war-time innovations, mass production of PCBs started in WWII for use as radar proximity fuses, which would explode an artillery shell when it closed on a target. The circuit was designed to include a miniaturized radar transceiver and was encapsulated in wax to survive up to 20,000 G’s of force!
- The Deep Tech Napkin is a framework developed by First Momentum Ventures for evaluating deep tech startups using five key factors: team, technology, market, business model, and impact. The full report has unique statistics about deep tech:
- Unit sales (one-time, non-recurring) are still the most common form of revenue vs IP licensing (50% of start-ups use unit sales!).
- Only 30% have repeatable and “meaningful” revenue by Series A.
- Start-ups in robotics & manufacturing generate revenue earlier compared to peers (50% have repeatable sales at Series A).
- Yifeng Yuan, a transceiver IC design evaluation engineer at Analog Devices (and HardwareFYI reader!), put together a guide on how to interview engineers in the semiconductor industry. It’s a great read for understanding how engineers evaluate chips and characterize boards in a lab environment, and expectations for engineering fundamentals while interviewing.
- Donald Telian discusses the importance of PCB stackups for signal integrity in high-speed digital system design. One interesting point Telian provides is a decision matrix showing the multidisciplinary nature of choosing a stackup; there are nine different job functions involved. If these are all assigned to different people, it falls on the individual responsible for signal integrity to justify the final decision.
- AllSpice recently launched AllSpice Actions, a tool that automates manual checks, validations, and releases of electronics designs. It automates nearly all manual steps involved in design changes, from verifying library parts, checking for design errors, and packaging releases.
- We teamed up with Aditya R. and Schematic Ventures to create this Deep-Tech Market Map . Discrete manufacturing involves startups that interact with a segment of physical hardware development (i.e. design, PLM/PDM, part manufacturing) whereas process manufacturing focuses more on the process itself!
A mega-thread explaining hydrofoils, the core tech ‘holding afloat’ maritime startups like Navier, Regent, and Candela. A hydrofoil is a lifting surface (foil, like a wing on an aircraft) that operates in water and is designed to lift the hull of a boat out of the water as it gains speed, reducing drag and allowing for faster speeds and greater fuel efficiency upwards of 20-40%. Stability is a huge challenge in hydrofoil design (speed, surge, sway, etc), as the transition from displacement sailing to foil flight constantly requires a new speed to reach stability. Hydrofoil boats aren’t new concepts—they actually date back to 1906!
Startup News 🚀
- Micronics, a startup developing a $2999 desktop selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printer, was acquired by Formlabs for an undisclosed amount amidst their ongoing Kickstarter campaign! The Wisconsin-based company focused on making SLS technology accessible to consumers, and now joins Formlabs to further democratize industrial 3D printing. Formlabs launched an SLS printer in 2017 priced at $19k, and aims to leverage Micronics' IP to develop a similar printer at a fraction of the cost.
- This video by Micronics provides a fascinating look at product development in consumer start-ups, showcasing the journey from initial prototypes to finalizing their product architecture for mass production and how they test multiple units.
- Chef Robotics recently launched from stealth to announce the development of their AI-powered robots for food assembly. Since 2019, Chef Robotics has deployed robots across six North American cities, completing 20 million servings in production environments. Instead of strict, inflexible systems, their outlined goal is five levels of full robotic food assemblies with flexible robotics across a range of applications.
- Kudos raised $3 million in a seed extension round with investors including Precursor Ventures, Xfund, and Oversubscribed Ventures. Kudos, known for its 100% cotton disposable diapers, aims to challenge single-use plastics and reduce landfill waste (diapers are one of the largest consumer items found in landfills!). With over 20 million diapers sold in the past year, the company plans to mass-produce fully compostable diapers in the near future.
- Turion Space secured a $1.9 million contract from the U.S. Space Force’s technology arm to develop an autonomous spacecraft docking and maneuvering system for deorbiting inactive satellites and space debris. The company launched from YCombinator in Spring 2021 and has raised nearly $20 million in venture capital from firms like Soma Capital, Unpopular Ventures, and FoundersX Ventures.
- Deorbiting involves guiding a satellite out of orbit to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up, using methods like robotic arms, tethers, or thrusters.
- Archer Aviation signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Southwest Airlines to develop an air taxi service using Archer’s eVTOL tilt-rotor Midnight aircraft. The service aims to operate from 14 California airports where Southwest currently operates, potentially reducing intercity trip times by 6-9x compared to cars. While non-binding, the MOU shows serious intent for future collaboration. Archer has already received a $1 billion order from United Airlines in 2021 and plans to launch its service by the end of 2025.
