Hardware Podcasts

Raiding the Minibar

Oxide and Friends · 1 Apr 2025 · 1h 52m · Episode 11

What this episode covers

Ian Sobering, Doug Wibben, and Nathanael Huffman of Oxide Computer Company discuss the design and bring-up of 'Minibar,' a test rig for their Gimlet compute sleds. The team explains how Minibar consolidates backplane connectivity, management networking, and programming interfaces to streamline manufacturing. They detail the mechanical evolution from a simple dongle to a full cubby-sized tester and a compact 'Minibar Lite' for lab use. The episode highlights significant bring-up challenges, including a ground bounce issue causing boot loops and assembly errors with rotated sense resistors that required board rework.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Oxide Computer Company, Benchmark Electronics, Samtec, IBC, DigiKey
Products
Minibar, Gimlet, Cosmo, Medusa, K.2
Chips
Tofino, ICE40, ADM1272
Tools
Altium, OrCAD, SolidWorks

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