480: Surprises Early In The Game

Embedded.fm · 27 Jun 2024 · 1h 01m · Episode 480

What this episode covers

Jerry Twomey, principal engineer at Effective Electrons and author of the new O'Reilly book 'Applied Embedded Electronics,' discusses the critical gap between ideal textbook electronics and real-world non-ideal behaviors. He explains how the industry's shift toward System-on-Chip (SoC) designs has led many engineers to treat hardware as a black box, often resulting in failures related to EMI, ESD, and signal integrity that are not caught in simulation. Twomey shares specific lessons from his 40-year career, including the unique challenges of designing for satellite environments like vacuum and radiation, and advocates for getting hardware prototypes early to uncover these surprises.

Mentioned

Companies
Effective Electrons, O'Reilly, Nordic, IBM, Fairchild, LSI Logic, Atmel, Planet Labs, SpaceX
Products
Applied Embedded Electronics, Making Embedded Systems, Voyager
Chips
nRF5340
Also
Electronic Design, UCSD

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Amp Hour · 50m

    Applied Embedded Electronics with Jerry Twomey

    Jerry Twomey, author of 'Applied Embedded Electronics' and founder of Effective Electrons, discusses his consulting work helping companies like Dexcom and IBM build reliable embedded systems. He emphasizes that robust design requires treating digital signals as analog communication channels, focusing on signal integrity, grounding, and EMI mitigation rather than just ideal logic levels. Twomey shares anecdotes from medical device development, high-speed data links, and chip design to illustrate why academic theory often fails in real-world hardware engineering.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 20m

    Photon Rich, Cash Poor

    Dave Jones and Chris Gammell discuss a Keysight U1272A multimeter that suffers from severe susceptibility to conducted and radiated EM fields, a flaw inherent to its design that bypassed standard compliance testing. They also examine the Allwinner R8 processor and the new Chip Pro module, noting how the latter's System-on-Module design with integrated DDR3 makes previously inaccessible consumer chips viable for small-batch production. Finally, they critique the Wi-Fi kettle's usability failures and Solar Roadways' non-functional public installation, attributing these to marketing-driven product decisions rather than engineering value.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 27m

    An Interview with Kieran O'Leary

    Chris Gammell, founder of Mixed Signal Systems, discusses his career transition from application engineering at semiconductor giants like Xilinx and Wolfson Microelectronics to running his own consultancy. He details the high-pressure environment of supporting tier-one customers with new silicon, the technical challenges of designing evaluation boards under compressed timelines, and the critical importance of understanding return current paths to avoid signal integrity and EMC failures in mixed-signal designs.

  • OnTrack · 48m

    Why 90% of Electronics Fail EMC Tests and How to Fix It

    Karen Burnham, chief engineer and founder of EMC United, explains why 60-90% of electronics fail EMC tests on the first attempt, citing counterintuitive antenna effects and misleading data sheet advice like ground plane splits. She details how requirements management is often mishandled, leading to over-specification, and discusses the limitations of current EMC simulation tools in predicting system-level behavior. Burnham advocates for early design reviews and low-cost pre-compliance tools like the TinySA to avoid costly respins, while noting that AI's role in EMC is currently limited by a lack of proprietary, correlated datasets.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 09m

    Really long needle nose pliers

    Dave Jones and Chris Gammell discuss the Voyager 1 probe's recent recovery from a memory chip failure, highlighting the sustaining engineering efforts required to maintain 46-year-old space hardware. They analyze the decline of US-based electronics trade shows, noting the cancellation of events like Embedded Systems Conference and the consolidation of others like Embedded World, driven by reduced corporate travel budgets. The conversation also covers the discontinuation of the Zilog Z80 processor, the practicality of niche hardware like the 'jumperless' breadboard, and the challenges of running complex software like Sigrok on low-power microcontrollers.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Embedded.fm. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.