#597 – Wow, Dave REALLY likes Top Gun

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released July 24th, 2022. Episode 597. Wow, Dave really likes Top Gun.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. I am hip with the kiddies. I am down with the latest tech. I have augmented reality glasses.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you're living in the future, man. You are a future man.

Dave Jones: But as I said on Twitter, I put the glasses on and Twitter still sucks. So yeah, maybe I'm using them wrong. Anyway, yes, I've got the Tilt 5. I have glasses. I get Jerry Oswes. I was a backer and I finally got my backer kit. And she included some extra set as well for teardown, like an older set. I think it's like a more proto-y kind of one that I can do a teardown. So I expect to see a teardown video, but I've got it right in front of me here.

Chris Gammell: So I'm trying to remember the timeline. So we had Jerry back on.

Dave Jones: That was four years ago. That was May 2018.

Chris Gammell: Seriously? Yes, seriously. Oh, is that when you backed? That was they shut down the original Kickstarter and they started a new one.

Dave Jones: Well, no. Well, she was at Valve and then she left Valve and formed Cast AR, right? I think this is the timeline. And then Cast AR spectacularly failed. And that's why we had her on the show to talk about why and how that failed. And that has to do with, I don't know, all sorts of politics.

Chris Gammell: Oh, and that's when they had given back all the money. Cast AR had raised the money.

Dave Jones: Yes. Oh, that's right. Did Cast AR do a, yeah, Cast AR did a Kickstarter, did they? And yeah, but they gave the money back, which was unheard of, right? And that was like, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, because they like raised a bunch of venture capital as well.

Dave Jones: Venture capital. So she deliberately, I think, kept the money, the Kickstarter money aside, just in case for that eventuality, that it failed because of venture capital politics or something. I can't remember. We'll have to listen to the episode again.

Chris Gammell: That's bonkers. Four years ago.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that was four years ago. Well, that was, it was before that because we had her on after, I'm not sure how long after Cast AR failed we had her on, but she had just formed Tilt 5.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, no, this, the episode I'm talking about is Jerry Ellsworth, number 394, Jerry Ellsworth and demise of Cast AR. We will link in, of course.

Dave Jones: Yes, and the demise of Cast AR.

Chris Gammell: That was May of 2018. So that was after. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was after it failed. But was that before, but she had already started Tilt 5 then?

Chris Gammell: No, then it took a while to build, to buy the assets, I believe. I think she bought the assets like a year or two later.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Valve gave her the IP to start Cast AR. And then, yeah, she might have had to buy them back or something. No, no, no. No?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, yeah, Valve gave her the IP that was Cast AR. And then when that shut down, then she bought the IP.

Dave Jones: She bought the IP. Okay.

Chris Gammell: From the vets of Cast AR for Tilt 5. Got it. So when did you order, when did you put in the backing support?

Dave Jones: I have no idea. I can't remember the time. I'm sorry. I can't remember the time. Look, I can do, maybe I can do a quick.

Chris Gammell: You know, folks, this is the first sign of an aging brain.

Dave Jones: Well, it's been like, I'm sure it's like three years or something. It's at least a couple of years. I can search my Gmail is probably the best way to do it. And so I'll search Tilt 5. Tilt 5 project update in 2019. September 2019 is when I, you just backed. So September 2019. Okay. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I mean, there's a pandemic in there.

Dave Jones: So that's almost three years. That's almost three years. Because it's almost the end of July now. August. So, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And I'm on the Tilt 5 site and it says, now fulfilling orders to Kickstarter backers reserved today and receive the Tilt 5 system in winter. So it sounds like they have new stocked, actually.

Dave Jones: Oh, they have. Right. I was going to say, I was going to ask about the component shortage and stuff like that. But yeah. And I got like lots of, like I've got like at least 38 project updates in my email box. And they're the ones I kept, I guess. But yeah. Like, so constant updates all through, you know, all throughout this thing. But yeah.

Chris Gammell: So are there like games out of the box and everything like that? I mean, this is like that.

Dave Jones: Well, I had a few issues. You'll see the reaction video. I'm going to edit it after this. I did. It didn't work out of the box, unfortunately.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Well, it is a development kit still, right?

Dave Jones: It is a development kit. Well, I actually talked to Jerry on Twitter DM in, as I was having issues here. So she was, she's Johnny on the spot, right?

Chris Gammell: Long distance troubleshooting, huh? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Long distance troubleshooting with the CEO herself, right? With the founder of the CEO herself. And she absolutely nailed it from the get-go. She said, yeah, they're on the edge of what they can do, data rate for the USB-C connection. So they're on the limit. So I was actually plugging it into the top of my desktop USB 3 port via the USB-C to USB-A adapter. And the combination of that, and she said over the ribbon cable to the motherboard and everything else, you get a slightly lower data rates and it just doesn't work. You know, it often doesn't work.

Chris Gammell: So you got to go like in the back, the back of the computer works directly.

Dave Jones: So I flipped my PC around, I plugged it directly into a USB-C port and it worked. Bam. So yeah, that was non-obvious. Because, you know, I knew it would take higher data rate the higher you went, but it was only like at 720p or something. It wasn't like the maximum res it could do. So yeah, but yeah, they're actually on the limit of the USB-C data rate. So that's, you know, it's just, yeah, sheer processing speed. Because they've got to keep the frame rate up.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Because all of this is, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Because they had meant for the computer or the phone, I believe. The phone.

Dave Jones: She's working. She says an Android version will be soon.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And that will plug into the USB-C port of your phone. So if you've got a grunty on that phone, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: It was like a, they wanted to off, they were putting less processing on it than I think some other systems were.

Dave Jones: Right. Maybe that's not right. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, we'll get Jerry on and she can talk all about it. She can go for hours and hours talking about the technical development.

Chris Gammell: I mean, and let's be honest, you know, anyone who ships these days, you know, listeners, Jerry, everyone out there who's shipping product, my hat is off to you. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Totally. Just the act of shipping. The act of shipping is such a...

Chris Gammell: Shipping anytime is very impressive, right? Yes. There's a ton to get over.

Dave Jones: The shortages. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, my God. Oh, what a mess.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Exactly. But they have been working on this a long time, like, because they got, I think, seven and a half million dollars venture capital funding or something of that order. I don't know if it was more than... That was one of them. I don't know if they got extra on top of that, but that gave them the luxury to actually spend time to do it properly rather than rush it to Kickstarter market because all the, you know... Yeah, yeah. And all the Kickstarter back is including me, you know, where we're going, yeah, you know, just take your time. It's fine, you know. Yeah. You know, and yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure there's one or two people that are a little more eager than we are.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, there's always grumpy bastards. I backed this two years ago and you haven't shipped it. That's right. That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I expected a product.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm sure there is.

Chris Gammell: It's interesting, like, how little we hear about, like, at least in my orbit, maybe other people are hearing more, but, like, Kickstarter campaigns, you know, like, five, six, seven years ago, it's just like, man, every week there was just a new thing, this new huge project. And I think for the best that it's curtailed, you know, like, it's just kind of a level, it's leveled off. There's still stuff that comes up. And, like, you know, I get the crowd supply emails. Those are probably the ones that are most targeted at me. A little less consumer-y, a little more electronic-y. But, yeah, there's just not as many people doing that these days, it feels like, huh?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, interestingly, somebody asked me on Twitter the other day, what's the biggest lesson that I should have, like, having a packing and shipping company, like, if I'm going to sell a product, if I'm going to pack and ship a product. And it wasn't, you know, I didn't, like, oh, no, I think they said online store or something. You know, I want to have an online store and I want to sell product and stuff like that. And the two things I actually said were, A, don't underestimate the ability of the customer to screw up their delivery, their own delivery address.

Speaker ?: Right?

Dave Jones: That's one. And two was don't underestimate the inability of the customer to use the niche product that they actually ordered. Which included me with this Cast AR, right? I just, like, didn't get it at first, right? I did, like, well, it didn't work and that data rate thing was not me, you know, so. It did end up being pebcac in the end. Well, you know, I thought it was me at one stage because I didn't follow all the instructions, but, you know, I can't.

Chris Gammell: I do find, I am very impatient when I open things. You know, I think we've all been conditioned by, like, the stuff that is really good or really simple and things like that. And these days, I mean, come on, I put together, like, a bicycle. And, like, about three quarters of the way through, I'm like, you know, I should probably, I'm going to ride this down hills in the street. I should probably be paying a little more attention. And, yeah, you know, it's a good thing I did.

Dave Jones: I should probably read the instructions for this IKEA table I'm trying to. Yeah, right, right.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to try and put a bunch of weight on this or something. And it's like, hey. Oh, boy. Yep. You know, just wisdom. It's accumulated wisdom.

Dave Jones: Yep. Anyway, are you going to ask me about the augmented reality experience?

Chris Gammell: I kind of figured I'd get it from the video. But, Dave, what is the augmented reality experience?

Dave Jones: Well, it's exactly what I expected. Like, I expected, like, technically. Like, I'm not wowed by these things. Like, I hate virtual reality.

Chris Gammell: You don't play video games anyways. So there's also that.

Dave Jones: Well, I kind of. Well, I used to. But, no, I hate 3D with a passion, right? I hate 3D movies and all the 3D glasses bullshit. Sure, sure. And I hate virtual reality. Granted, I haven't tried, you know, the new metaverse BS, right, and the latest goggles and stuff like that. But I generally hate virtual reality.

Chris Gammell: It looks really campy. All the metaverse stuff looks very, very campy.

Dave Jones: Oh, I just. No, no. But the good thing about Cast.

Chris Gammell: I wanted Oasis. I wanted Oasis.

Dave Jones: I want the. If I'm. If I'm. Yes. If you're going to do VR. Give me the full Oasis.

Chris Gammell: I'm getting like, you know, Farmville in 3D instead of like the Oasis.

Dave Jones: Yeah, instead of the Oasis. Yeah. Exactly. But anyway. No, I think it's very cool. Because you can still see your hands in front of you. You can still see the table. You can still see the room. You can still see your friends sitting next to you. You know. You're immersed more in the experience. And it's kind of disappointing when I. Not. No. Tech is awesome. Right. But it's kind of like. I. Right. When I actually put my hand in front of it. It feels like I'm going to be able to pick up that. That 3D ball in front of me. And I go. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And then I get close to it. And my hand goes. And actually blocks out the ball. Instead of goes. Oh, damn it. It's not real. It's not real. You know. But when I get close to it. Like it feels. Like. Very 3D. It's. It really is. It's immersive. It's very immersive. It's very impressive. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know. All these things. Like. So I don't. I had to give up playing video games a long time ago. Because I got really sucked into them. I kind of think about like. All of these things. Like. Jerry's stuff. It's awesome. Like. You know. The VR stuff is awesome too. And it's like. It's really about. Is it going to be still on. You know. Is it. Is it in your hands. Six months from now. A year from now. Whatever. Exactly. It's just like. That is the taste. It's hard to do. And that's. That's so much like. Content. And like. Developing. You know. As much as it pains me to say it. It's not about the hardware. It's about the ecosystem. And the software. And like. The marketing. And all the other crap. That's in there. And you know. I hope they solve that. You know.

Dave Jones: Well. I. I. I hope. This augmented reality. I actually predict. This will be quite big. Jerry's. Product. Here. This. Tilt 5. Thing. Because it really is quite impressive. You know. I haven't taken it home. And shown the kids. I guess the ultimate kids. You know. Does a 10 year old kid. Think this is cool. Kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: Sure.

Dave Jones: Whereas. I. I think they'll think. This is cooler. Than the virtual reality. That. That would be my guess. So. Yeah. Because like. You're actually immersed. In the thing. And you're sitting around. With your friends. And you're playing. Rather than just put the goggles on. And go in your own. You know. Universe. No. No. Thank you.

Chris Gammell: Well. As much as I am. The consummate tastemaker. I have no idea. What the public likes. And. So.

Dave Jones: Exactly.

Chris Gammell: I think it's. Yeah. It's going to come down to. You know. The market. And.

Dave Jones: Well. There are only two texts. There's virtual reality. And there's augmented. So. I'm. You know.

Chris Gammell: There's also distorted reality. I live in that one.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Exactly. It's called Twitter. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And. But no. I think. I. I like. I think I like augmented reality. Better. Because I. I still stay in. In. Reality. But. Hey. It's augmented. Right. But it appears like. You know. The things are in front of me. When they're not really there. And that's. That's. Is that like that. Pokemon. Thing. I've never actually played a Pokemon goal. Whatever. You know. You go chasing around bloody. Pokemon. Things. In the middle of the city. Or something. It's the same.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean. It's the same. Same kind of idea. It's like. You're looking through. Like a clear glass. And it's imposed on top of it. So yeah. It's the same kind of idea.

Dave Jones: Oh. So can you get. Glasses. Can you. That actually. Project. No. No. No. It's. It's on your phone. But. It's on your phone. Basically. Oh. It's on your camera. So you look into your camera. Right. And then you superimpose it. Oh. I found one.

Chris Gammell: Still a thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah. See. I mean. That's extremely popular.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I don't think it is anymore Dave. Really? I don't know.

Dave Jones: I don't know people who still play it. Oh. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well. I'm more of a bleeding edge person myself. And.

Dave Jones: I know someone who's my age. He was actually the best man at my wedding. Actually. He. He still plays it. He still plays it. His dad. He made his dad go out and play it. So. Yeah. I. You know. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. That's awesome. So. Anyway. Yeah. That's the augmented thing. I think I prefer that. But I don't know. I've yet to try the stupid metaverse. But I'm pretty confident I won't like it. So. I'm not. I'm going in with a heavy bias. I'm sure. If I do try it. But. Yeah. I just hate all that 3D. You know. Like 3D movies. I've always hated.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: The shark always looks fake. You know.

Chris Gammell: The shark always looks fake.

Dave Jones: See. I was very. You wouldn't have been around. You did not go to the cinemas. And watch Jaws 3. 3D. Right.

Chris Gammell: Jaws 3D. No.

Dave Jones: Jaws 3D. Jeez. When was that released? Holy. Crap. Oh.

Chris Gammell: I. I thought you might have been segwaying. I wrote a piece. No. Just today. No. And I. I made some art. Here. I'll link it to you. So you can see the art. Okay. I was very. As much more proud of the art than the writing. Of course.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: But. It was a piece about. Wireshark. And so I. I stole. The Jaws.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Oh. You stole it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I never really watched Jaws. Because I was afraid.

Dave Jones: 1983. Yeah. That was released. I can remember going to the cinema. Watching that in 3D. And thinking. Oh. This is shit. This is just. And every 3D movie I've watched since then. Is just shit. It's just. Oh. God. You know. I've seen like. The. Dark. Dark night. In 3D. I think that was in 3D. Wasn't it? At the. Oh yeah.

Chris Gammell: There was a wire where they were putting everything. There was.

Dave Jones: Everything was 3D. And 3D TVs. With all the rage. And then they died. And then they died. Trying. You know. Who buys a 3D TV these days? Totally. Right. Totally. Yeah. Right. Absolutely no one. Who's releasing 3D content anymore? No one. Right. Right. No. No. We're actually going back to old school. Please tell me. Please tell me. You've seen Top Gun Maverick.

Chris Gammell: I have not yet. No. I'm not going to movie theaters Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh dude. Go see Top Gun Maverick. At the theater.

Chris Gammell: I know how much of a fan you were. I'm sure. My. My in-laws loved it. Everyone I know. Everyone I know. Told me it's great. I'm going to go see it. Probably on a plane. I'll probably watch it on a airplane.

Dave Jones: No. Go see it at the cinema. Real music. Real sound.

Chris Gammell: I don't go to theaters. I just not. It's not my thing. Sorry.

Dave Jones: Why?

Chris Gammell: COVID stole a big thing.

Dave Jones: Oh bullshit. Come on. Go to the bloody. No. Go to the theater. Oh for God's sake. You've had it. Go to the theater. Enjoy yourself. Family rule. Get back in the real world. Oh God. No. No. No. No. God. You're missing out. Oh. Once in a lifetime opportunity to see an old school movie.

Chris Gammell: Dave Jones. Yep. Is a Tom Cruise fan. Bloody hell. Undying. Undying. No. No.

Dave Jones: He makes good shit. Right. It's. You know. It could have sucked. I did not want a Top Gun sequel. I did not want. I thought no. I don't know. It's just. Why? Why? But he smashed it out of the park. It feels like it's old school. Right. It's shot. You know. With as much practical effects as you possibly can. You feel like you're actually immersed in it. And it's proper filmmaking. Proper story telling. No politics shoved down your throat. It's bloody awesome. Go watch it.

Speaker ?: Ah.

Dave Jones: Man.

Chris Gammell: Use Dave's. Referral code here.

Dave Jones: Unbelievable. Anyway. Went to see it twice. It's so good. Might go see it again. Just a spite.

Chris Gammell: Great. Do it. All right. Just do it, man.

Dave Jones: All right.

Chris Gammell: Go see it once for a minute.

Dave Jones: Still on, I think. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, you know, like people are ditching this, you know, like people ditch the 3D bullshit, right? That. Yeah. For years. How many years did 3D rain at the movies? Right. Everything was 3D. Now it's like, no, none. Zero. Zip.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep. Totally.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. It's died. So we'll, yeah. Virtual reality. I don't know. I think you're right. Right. It has to be the full Oasis or nothing. I think it's just, yeah. I think. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't know what you do in the meantime.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No. Same here. No. It's just, yeah. I think people will buy it because it's cool. Oh, you play it a few times and then, you know, just sits in the cupboard. Right. I think that's, yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: And so people that don't know, we're talking about Ready Player One. Sorry. That Oasis is the VR system in that book.

Dave Jones: Which you did not like the movie. You panned the movie. I remember you pan in it, dude. It was good.

Chris Gammell: That Spielberg guy. I don't think he has much of a future.

Dave Jones: His career is totally over, right? Yeah. Totally over. Never going to get another gig in the business after that. Yeah. Ready Player One.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of things that are totally over, this has been an interesting thread on Hacker News and otherwise. There was a, there was a, the register.com, which is okay. UK publication. It's just okay. I think electrical engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystem.

Dave Jones: Yeah. What was this? I saw this mentioned on Twitter, but I didn't delve in. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So basically. What is the skinny? Okay. So I think the high level overview is there's an article with the title that I just gave. And the real thing is many people, myself included, projected exactly whatever they wanted. Right. Of course. Yeah. Right. Right. And so it was basically like, yeah. Software versus hardware. And you know, like. Don't even have to read the article. It was me too. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Totally project your own opinions on the. Right. Which is what everyone does when they read the news. No one reads the article. You just need to read the headline and that's it.

Chris Gammell: Just need something to grouch about. And that's.

Dave Jones: You need something to confirm your bias. That's what you need. Yeah. That's what.

Chris Gammell: I didn't even see that this article actually refers to Mike's electric stuff. That's great.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? That's awesome.

Speaker ?: Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Maker culture is alive and well. He refers to Mike's electric stuff. Totally missed that the first time through. Nice. But basically they're saying. E is on the decline flat to down and you know. Okay. Fine. The thing that got me is a thing that I screenshotted and posted to Twitter and harvested that sweet, sweet karma. And it was someone who said, I have a PhD in electronic electrical engineering. I switched to software and I now change the color of buttons. And it's like, oh my God. Yeah. And it's like, but, but there is some very real truth to, you know, many hardware engineers, probably many people listening here, people that trained in, in electronics or in love electronics, they went into software just because of the disparity in pay and, you know, the other opportunities. And it's like, yeah, I mean, I mean, that's kind of me these days too. Like I'm doing more software than hardware. And, you know, I think that's just a very common thing. That was the 90, that was the basis of like anyone who graduated from like, you know, 1995 to 2005. It's like, oh yeah, I'm going to go to IT instead.

Dave Jones: Because there's applications on, see somebody, somebody has to build the hardware, right? Someone has to still build the hardware, right? You've got to build the shit. So you've got, right. So you've still got to have that base percentage and that'll stay flat forever, right? Because you still need people to build the stuff that you run your stupid software on, right? But the software is like infinite. You know, you can do like infinite amount of everything. You can always do more. You can always find other margin. You can always do more. And the interesting thing about this article, this is from the IEEE VLSI Symposium on Technology. It's a graph which overlays college enrollment computer software versus EEs and basically goes right back to 1964. And you can see that in 1994 is when it crossed. That, geez, that was what was released in 1994? The World Wide Web, right? So that was the explosion of the internet, everything else. That's when there was a rapid decline in the enrollments of EEs and rapid increase in the enrollment of computer science.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but even within this graph, many of those EEs were just, you know, there weren't computer science programs prior to, you know, pretty much the 90s. Like 80s, yes, there were. Yeah, the 80s had some. But not in like the same level they are today and same kind of things.

Dave Jones: No, no, you can see the rapid increase in computer science actually started around 1979, 1980. There's a huge, in fact, the most rapid rate of change on this graph is around 1979, 1980 is when computer science exploded. But then it dropped back down after 1984.

Chris Gammell: The y-axis is popularity zero to 100%. So, yeah, we may be working with, you know, maybe some weird data, but.

Dave Jones: Well, no, but that's, and then 1984, what happened in 1984, around, was it 1984? George Orwell. Was the video game crash, right? The video game crash. And everyone's not getting into computer science anymore. And then 1994, and that lasts for a decade. And then 1994 comes around and boom, it goes skywards again. But then it drops around, you know, 2002, something like that. What happened around 2001?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, the dot-com bubble.

Dave Jones: 2002, when it started to drop again, dot-com bubble, right? So, yeah, it went down again. Totally. But not by a huge amount. And then it decreased and it started to increase in about 2008.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, that's always lagging too, like enrollments and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they.

Chris Gammell: I mean, so part of the thing here is like, okay, who's going to build the hardware? And I think the answer is, you know, they're going to, it's going to balance itself out, right? I don't, I'm not particularly worried about like the fact that there's fewer and fewer things. Like, yeah, there's going to be chip designers that are designing, you know, functionality that may be, you know, so like, you know, the example that we keep using on this show, at least, is like, Jim Williams designed a thermocouple, you know, app note that was like paired all these different things together. And it's just not necessary anymore. Like it's in 20 different ships, you can get a thermocouple of things.

Dave Jones: No, but it's very necessary. In fact, most of engineering can be done from app notes these days, right? Somebody's still got to write all this stuff. Somebody still has to do the base level designs. No, no, no.

Chris Gammell: I'm talking about, I'm talking about the Jim Williams app note where he's piecing a bunch of things together to get super precise, like thermocouple measurements. And what I'm saying is, whereas maybe that was then feeding into, you know, 100, 500, 1,000 engineers that also had to go and design bespoke thermocouple systems. Now, the real thing is all of that knowledge has got wrapped up into silicon and packaged up and sold to an engineer. And then that engineer reads just the app note, how to apply it, how to put it onto a board. And then they have that functionality on a board. And then about a year or two later, after they make that board, they're sitting weeping at their desk because they can't get the chips, right? That's the natural way of things, Dave. That's just how it goes.

Dave Jones: It's the natural order.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. But in the serious manner of it, I think there really is like that IP conglomeration into silicon. And so I think because silicon designers are going to keep kind of hoovering up this IP ideas and putting it into silicon and it'll be profitable to, you know, sell it to future engineers. I think that that's going to be fine. And I'm not worried about that piece. I think maybe, you know, if we're lamenting like the lack of skills and the ability to go and make one of those circuits like a Jim Williams, just to keep using that same example, then that's legit, right? But there weren't that many of them in the first place.

Dave Jones: Yeah. You hinted at this here. It's like there's a chip for everything these days, right? It's like everything almost turns into a single chip solution these days, whether it's an FPGA or whether or not it's a, you know, a custom thing. Like gone are the days when you design big rack things with huge, you know, rack cards of 7-4 series bloody logic, right? To actually, you know, to do some functionality. It's all in a microcontroller. It's all in an FPGA. It's all in a custom ASIC that you buy from one of the major manufacturers that does the task that you want, right? The actual systems engineering, the system design, circuit design is like, yeah, gone are the days when you have, you know, 100 chips on a board. Name a modern design that's got, you know, 100 chips on a board. It has to be, you know, fairly niche-y specialized. It's not being made right now. Right? Well, yeah, because you can't get any of them. So, yeah. But it's, yeah, it's, you know, it's totally changing. But that also enables smaller product, right? That enables smaller, better consumer products, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think that's right. And I think there are still pockets, you know, so I still have friends at Keithley Instruments and they're still making fancy-ass measurement equipment. And they're still there. And there's, you know, they might be lamenting the fact that there aren't as many young engineers to backfill. But there are some and they're going to have to mentor those ones up into the company. I think maybe, you know, a bigger risk than a degree program would be the fact that there's higher mobility. And so if you can't hold on to people once you've trained and mentored them, right? Because once you mentor someone and then they go off to get a job at, you know, Google doing software or something like that instead because it's a better opportunity.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: They're not coming back. There is no, you know, that's a one-way ticket, I think, because I don't.

Dave Jones: That's interesting. Who out there? Leave it in the comments, please. If you've, you know, if you're a hardware guy, right? And then you stray to the software dark side because it paid five times as much. Have you come back? Who out there has come back from that?

Chris Gammell: I would say, yeah, I would be interested to hear that as well. The ones, the anecdotal ones that I hear about, you know, so like I meet people at DEF CON who are doing badges or I'm meeting people that are like maybe taking contextual electronics almost universally. They're like, yeah, I used to do electronics. I got into software. I really like, I miss electronics. I want to get back into it. Like that is a, you know, that's probably all of the money.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but the money is usually not there, right? That's the problem.

Chris Gammell: I'm not saying professionally. I'm not saying professionally. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Okay. I'm saying they get back into it.

Chris Gammell: They get back into it as a hobby. They get back into it as like maybe I can make this work or maybe I have enough domain knowledge to, you know, build a startup around a piece of hardware. But like they're probably not going back to be, I don't know. I think about, I mean, I'll just tell you from my own experience, you know, like going from a software company back into a hardware company. I mean, technically I haven't done it. I haven't done it. No. Except unless you count my own hardware company, because one of the things that was brought up in the comments, which I think is legit, is getting used to more mobility. And like monetary mobility is one thing, but I think physical mobility, like hardware companies are locked to locations. And that doesn't seem to match a lot of millennial lifestyles, myself included. I should put myself in that category. Like I live in Durham, North Carolina. There are a couple of hardware companies around here, but not many. That means I'm only able to work for the companies in that area. Whereas, you know, as a software engineer, the world is your oyster, especially, you know, maybe during the past two years, it's even, it's hyper, it's even crazier. But like you can work anywhere as a software engineer in theory. Yeah, right. And that is just not the case for hardware.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, it's different. No, totally. So, I don't know. Has anyone come back from the dark side?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, I mean, the money difference, I think, is also, it's shocking, but it's a shocking money difference, but it's not shocking that the money is different.

Dave Jones: It's not surprising at all. It's not surprising. And I don't see that changing. I really don't. So, I don't see this problem solving itself. Like, you know, basically, if, you know, if suddenly hardware engineering became, you know, if it flipped around and software engineering paid a pittance and hardware engineering paid a lot, people would flip back. I'm sure. Because people always follow the money. And you can't actually blame them. Right? No. I mean, you know, someone comes along and goes, you know, I'm going to pay you three times as much. It's a market system.

Chris Gammell: That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's very, it's very unlikely that the, you know, the high end software arenas of the world will get so flooded that, you know, they've been talking about that for years and like, oh, salaries are going to come down because there's more engineers entering this field, whatever. You know, they haven't, they haven't filled those jobs yet. So maybe they'll come down at some point, but I never think that hardware is going to catch up. I just don't. No. I don't. I don't. Maybe, maybe parody for like super, super, you know, like high end analog. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm sure there are niche examples of, of it happening, but.

Chris Gammell: Someone brought up like Apple iPhone engineers who are working on hard work and get paid close to what a software engineer. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. That kind of thing. But that's one company. And that is not, that's not a, one company is not a trend line make.

Dave Jones: No, exactly. You won't get that at Joe Bloggs industrial controls company, you know.

Chris Gammell: Totally right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So. They're not in the Midwest for the, for the weather. That's for sure.

Dave Jones: Even though that, that can be thoroughly interesting work, right? That can like, you know, you can be working on fantastic stuff and you know, yeah, but it's. Yep. I don't know. I mean, it's. I don't see it flipping.

Chris Gammell: I think, you know, that, that is an interesting thing to, you know, it's worth reading through these comments. I think it's, it was interesting comments. It was somewhat voyeuristic on my part reading through these as well. But like, I think one of the things that is in that, like just chasing it for the money, right? Not saying that that's everyone there, but you know, if you are just there for the money and then you end up changing the buttons on changing the colors of buttons. Like I got to say like blinking LED still.

Dave Jones: That is in hilarious example.

Chris Gammell: That's the one that, that's the one that's got 3000 likes on Twitter, right? It was, you know, it's just like.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's great. Cause it's so like, you know, mind numbingly boring.

Chris Gammell: Pointed and silly.

Dave Jones: And yet, yet, yet, yet you can actually picture somebody being paid a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to change buttons, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Cause it actually has implications. And so this is my argument is that basically EEs are far away from the money, right? Like you are, say you are working at Joe blogs engineering in, you know, the middle of Wisconsin on industrial controls. Like what is the closest you're going to have at impacting the, like being able to prove you've impacted the bottom line? Like, yeah. Right. Zero. Zero. Yeah. It's going to be really tough. It's going to be, if you do it, you're a very good salesman of your own skills. Yes. However, the PhD with an EE who ends up changing button colors, well, changing that button color, if it increases sales by 5%, that is a huge impact to a company. And, you know, you can basically say, well, I'm, I'm the color expert and I made this happen and I deserve a small fraction of that 5%. And by the way, that's a hundred, a hundred million dollars a year in sales. And so I should get, you know, a $200,000 bonus or whatever the equivalent would be. And it's just like, oh shit. Like, you know, like, yeah.

Dave Jones: I thought that the market, if it was going to happen, if the market, if the software market was going to be flooded with people that already would have happened. And, and, and if the market gets flooded, then potentially that drives down prices. You know, they've got 10 million programmers coming out of India and, and stuff, right. And they're all pretty good. Right. And, you know, it can flood the market and drag down prices. But I, if that was going to happen, I think it would have already. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think it would have too. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the, the, the hunger in the marketplace for more software is that has not slowed down and that has only increased, I think. And so it's like, oh, okay. Well, yeah. Can you guys crank up the number of people that enter the industry? Cause we could actually use even more than we thought we could use last year.

Dave Jones: Right. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Turns out there's a lot of buttons to be, to be made different colors.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Button colorizers.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Interesting data point on all this. Right. So I could, I could make an argument as well. And I'll stop talking about this. Cause this is again, just beating dead horses here. I think some of this, you know, so like other things that may have been impacting. Why EE say like why salaries may have been a little bit flatter than a software engineering type of thing, or why there's fewer opportunities. And one thing that I think is very legitimate is outsourcing. Right. That was a, that was a significant trend in the nineties and you know, right or wrong, it happened. And it's, it's a thing. Well, one of the responses on Twitter, uh, to, you know, me posting this thing, it was Naomi Wu who's in Shenzhen. And she said, they can't get enough qualified EEs in Shenzhen. And I was like, whoa, that's like the opposite then. So like.

Dave Jones: That's what Altium found out the hard way. They'd move their company to China thinking that they could get all these high quality, low, low cost software engineers. Failed miserably. You, you can either get good software engineers or.

Chris Gammell: Voluminous.

Dave Jones: Cheap ones. But, but you can't get good cheap ones. Right. You just can't. And if you do, they're not loyal at all. Right. So they'll stay.

Chris Gammell: This was actually, she was saying hardware engineers. So that was. I know.

Dave Jones: But, but in the software space, like, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like China, India, places like that. Yes. You can get, you know, yeah, there's millions of them. Right. But. You know, are they any good? Like, are they just, you know, an average software graduate and yeah, they can sort of cut some code, but they're not brilliant.

Chris Gammell: I'm very separated from the, the, you know, the Shenzhen market. I'd love to have something like Naomi or other people, you know, people know others that are, you know, in Shenzhen and able to communicate over to us. We'd love to have them on, have some chats that I think it's fascinating stuff. And so, oh, so the other part of that though, is she, she said it's not to the point where they're paying enough that they could, you know, that, you know, maybe a new grad from the U S might move there and, and work for the amount of money. But she said it is to the point where they're outsourcing entire like.

Dave Jones: Wow.

Chris Gammell: Design work to like Eastern Europe or other, other places. Because basically there's such a need and, you know, they, they're probably going to pay a little premium just over what the local rates are, but it's still worth it to get the work done and then moving up, you know, keep things moving. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Absolutely fascinating. Yeah. This brings me, I've, I've got kind of a similar related thing in the content creation business in the YouTube business. I did a video on this in, in, in YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's all these new AI generated, presumably, well, mostly, you know, largely AI generated content channels. And they're 10 times bigger than mine. They, they just take all of the content. They take all the stock footage out there of, you know, Elon Musk, new thing, new James Webb space telescope thing. They mash them all together. They, you know, with some random script, they mash all these, oh yeah, James Webb space telescope found aliens, you know, and they mash these things together and, and, and they produce these videos and millions of people watch them. Millions of people. And they have, have this, have this computer generated AI voice on top, which is very realistic. And, and it looks like when you actually watch this video, you click on it, you know, it's got a fantastic thumbnail and title and everything else spectacular, you know? So, so you click and you watch it and you go, wow, this is really high quality production. Right. And, and, but it takes you a while to figure out, hang on, this is kind of like bullshit. What did this is all just mashed together. I'm being duped here. This is all, yeah. Cause it's high quality because it's stock footage all just jammed together, you know, with a random, you know, well, I send me a couple of you.

Chris Gammell: You can, you could send me. So I guess you have the, yeah. Well, I, I'll watch it later. I won't watch it.

Dave Jones: Well, I have done a video on it and what the hell is this channel future unit? Well, I'll go here. I'll, I'll send you the future unity.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's going to get harder and harder. I mean, this is, I feel like this is kind of popular media type of stuff, but like, yeah, it's going to get harder and harder to, cause there's going to be a feedback system. Right. And it's going to be harder to know when it gets to the BS level. Right.

Dave Jones: And this is obviously, it actually takes you some time. And by, and by that time you've already generated them income by watching.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Exactly. The bloody thing. And they get millions of views.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's worth it for them. As I said, they've got 10, this channel I just sent you future unity. It's got 10 times the number of views I do. And it's just, I'm sure it's just somebody in one, some, some kid in India who's sitting there generating one or two of these videos per day, just mashing, oh yeah, Elon Musk discovered aliens, you know, and just mashes it together.

Chris Gammell: It seems like a lot of these videos are, it finally happened.

Dave Jones: And yeah, it finally happened. It, yes, it finally happened, you know, and yes, every day something finally happens. There's new nuclear fusion, nuclear diamond battery.

Chris Gammell: Staffing the Facebook pages of umpteen uncles around the globe.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's just, yeah.

Chris Gammell: But I'm into tech. Look what Elon did today.

Dave Jones: So I've actually got to take my hat off to the people behind this, right? They're making serious coin on this and they're producing like, well, like, as I said, technically on the, yeah, no, it's, it's garbage, but it's taking real footage.

Chris Gammell: This is a social experiment at best and it is a public disservice at worst. It is a crime against eyes and ears.

Dave Jones: Seriously. You have to tap, you have to tip your hat to them that they're able to do this. Right. And they get it to work. It's just like.

Chris Gammell: I mean, Dave, humans are stupid, us included.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: It's just.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yep. Anyway, so this is new. So like people are generating, yeah, AI generation content. You can get AI bots that, you know, generate videos for you and they're pretty darn impressive. So that's, that's the future. It's just going to be flooded unless there's a way to sort of, you know, weed out this sort of content, I guess.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Just for the squeaky Australian instead. That's how you know. Right. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah. You need to listen to me. No AI would sound like Dave. 40 minutes of me waffling. We all know that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dave CAD couldn't be generated by a computer.

Dave Jones: Not at all. And, and who else can make a 40 minute video that I just released on whether or not solar inverters draw power at nighttime? 40 minutes worth.

Chris Gammell: Bingo. That's, that's hot garbage. Nobody, nobody would, no AI would make that.

Dave Jones: Exactly. And there's a total huge market of, you know, 20,000 views for it, you know.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to watch it, Dave.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Got me again. Yep. AI. Bloody hell.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's unbelievable.

Dave Jones: And yeah, I've been duped into, you know, and I've been duped into watching like live shows. Like, you know, this used to be all the rage, like a year or two back, you know, I'd get an announcement on Twitter, not Twitter. I get announcement on my YouTube channel and pop up on trending or something like that. Live SpaceX rocket launch. And I go, Oh, I missed one. Oh, it's live now. Like I didn't know about this one. So I click on it, watch it live. And then it takes me a few minutes to realize, hang on, this is just replayed footage from six months ago.

Chris Gammell: A live version of, yeah, someone playing a recording.

Dave Jones: But they actually play it as a live video, but even though it's like pre-recorded garbage and they feel, you know, and they were, they were actually getting more live viewers than freaking NASA was at one point. Right. Or, and, uh, SpaceX as well. They were getting more viewers because I don't know, it just trended in the algorithm and people were watching this fake live show.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: It's like, Oh God. Unbelievable. Yep. It's a world coming to you. Bloody virtual reality bullshit.

Chris Gammell: What is the world coming to you? Thank you for that wonderful, wonderful segue, David. I would like to bring up the chips act because we've been harping on about this. So we, there was a period about two or three shows with Dave and I together in a row where we're like, Oh my God, big chip company announced a new fab, big chip company announced a new fab all in the U S. And you know, what's funny thing about that? Uh, what is the world coming to you? Well, when there isn't money coming from the drip feed coming from uncle Sam, they're all like, JK, we're not doing that.

Dave Jones: So what's, what's happening? Has it, has it actually died in the ass?

Chris Gammell: Well, it's just U S politics crap. It just hasn't gone through yet. Fine. Whatever. Right. But the thing that pisses me off about this is like, so there, there is a news article that I'll link in about how basically chip industry split over chips act benefit to Intel. Here's the thing. Intel doesn't need any money folks. And also we don't need more Intel's in the world.

Dave Jones: Like I know that like, well, I don't know how much cash in the bank do they have? Who knows? I don't, I'm not, like, do you actually know their financial position? Are they cash positive?

Chris Gammell: I don't buy Intel parts, Dave. I'm saying I'm trying to buy linear regulators, switching regulators and Intel is never going to make those. And I, I just, I don't think that we, you know, we already have a lot of Intel fabs in the world. We need some crappy low end stuff in the U S that's what I'm talking about. And so this is my political message. Get me some linear regulators.

Dave Jones: Right. So you need chips for your farting gadgets. You don't need chips for your new iPhones. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah, I think so. I don't know. I think it's like, I think a lot of the, you know, when, when there are big, uh, you know, when governments are involved in this sort of thing, I think they're worried about like bleeding edge type of stuff. And like, okay, I get it from that perspective. We want to make sure that, you know, our national interests have. The fanciest new AI technology versus other national interests. I get that fine, whatever. But also what about switching regulators? Do I need to keep saying switching regulators? Cause nobody's building them.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But there's still plants in the U S that make those, right?

Chris Gammell: No, that's it. I mean like, really? Yeah. TI, TI unmothballed one of the plants they were going to mothball fine, but not really. I mean, like that's not enough. And nobody's like, in terms of like the ones that are actually announcing and building new ones.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But that's what makes the headlines. I know.

Chris Gammell: You're right. You're right about that. Yes. I will agree with that. I will agree with that.

Dave Jones: Yes. What makes Buck Rogers go, go up? Funding makes Buck Rogers go up from the, you know, the line from a movie you probably haven't seen. I have not seen that one. I'm curious. Okay. I'll get your link. Hang on.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Dave Jones: Mercury. The right stuff. You haven't seen the right stuff.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you know, I, I, no, I should, I should have. I've been told many times I should have. Right stuff. It's only like three and a half hours long. Two movies that came out the year I was born. So we've talked about the show this time. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know what makes this thing go up? Bucks, mate. You know, no, yeah. The line is no bucks, no Buck Rogers. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, and, and Intel is the Buck Rogers, right? That's what gets the bucks. So you have to lead with these stories. You can't go, Oh yeah. Nobody, Joe, Joe average in the U S hasn't heard about Texas instruments. Right. They don't give a shit about analog devices.

Chris Gammell: You could talk about TSMC. That's fine. They're, they're a foundry for all, you know, like they make, they make TI parts. They make ADI parts. They make, they make microchip parts. They make them for everybody. And like, that's fine. They were talking about coming here. Why not talk about, give them some money. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But yeah, because you have to decouple from China, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You have to decouple at all levels and you have to do it all levels. You're totally right. But what, what gets the bucks? As you said, like they're having trouble pushing this through even with Intel. Right. Everyone knows Intel. Everyone has an Intel thingy. Right. And yet they still can't try and they're still having trouble pushing it through. Funding.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. It's like, yeah, the funding stuff is, that's something else.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Try and do it with the smaller little, you know, players. You make the freaking linear regulators. You got zero chance. Okay. So it's got to start somewhere.

Chris Gammell: So now here is a callback to that early article about like losing talent. Like, okay, so say we're going to have more nationalized chip solutions, which is a way to say that sort of thing. I don't think there's enough EEs. So say we were just doing. No, if you had to do it tomorrow. Everything's got to be made in country. Right. Yeah. That's right. So I don't know how that works, but I don't think any of that article is actually about this sort of thing and being able to like pull all of the engineering work back with it. Right. It was more about like the software engineers are, you know, or the software jobs are hoovering up the engineering, the electrical engineering talent. But I'm not sure there's any jobs that are coming back to the U.S. that would actually require it in a, you know, a more nationalized version of electronics made in the U.S. of A.

Dave Jones: Right. Why is it all about the U.S.? What about Australia?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. What about it? I mean, like.

Dave Jones: Where's our bloody fabs?

Chris Gammell: That's another great question.

Dave Jones: Let's bring them back. Oh, we didn't have any.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You didn't have any. Well, we've got one.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Little tiny silicon on Sapphire lab, I think. Oh, yeah. You mentioned that. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Well, maybe you'll have to ask Jerry when she comes on again, just how to make your own chips as well. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Did you see Sam, former guest of the show, Sam's loof, he posted on Twitter about you can now buy. Okay. He reckons, and he'd know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right. He reckons that you can buy all the equipment you need for a five nanometer fab on Alibaba for half a million bucks.

Chris Gammell: Five nanometer?

Dave Jones: That's what he said. Five nanometers. I don't, I'm having a hard time believing the five nanometer. Most fans are even at five nanometers. Yeah. Well, you can probably do it at the individual. No, you can probably do it at like, you know, you can make, you know, a few transistors and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. Kids these days in there. Yeah. Kids these days in there. Kids these days that get people all riled up, you know, seems like. But it's interesting.

Dave Jones: He said, like there's five machines, like you put links to like five machines that you can buy right on the shopping cart. Put them in there. Right. So, so if he got funding, you know, if I said, well, when's the crowdfunding coming? Let's get him some. Yeah. Get him some cash. And he can literally put them in his shopping cart. They would turn up. Right. If they're shipping, it'd be a killer. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And he could set up a five. Technically, he reckons it's capable of five nanometers.

Chris Gammell: Right. I think he's, I think he's just challenging us. I think he's like, yeah, give me some cash. I'm going to make, I'm going to make some chips.

Dave Jones: No, but it's fascinating. Right. It's actually possible. Like, like you can't make them a huge scale, but, but technically you can make them.

Chris Gammell: You can churn them out. A bunch of Alibaba things. Okay. So we've got an opto. So he's got a scanning electron microscope. Definitely need that for inspection. Okay. He's got a CBD, low pressure chemical, chemical vapor deposition. Got to do that for your oxide layers. Of course.

Dave Jones: How does your photo imaging happen? How does your mask stuff happen? I'm not, I'm not actually make the mask. This is, this is the things you can't make them at mass scale, but I assume it's got a little, uh, you know, gun where the, you know, you can scan things and you can draw your own little style. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So Sam's been working on a at home, like, uh, like photolitho, but was doing it with, I think it was, I think it was a rastered version. It was like, it was like a beam vent from a UV source or something like that. Yes.

Dave Jones: And then he rastered, he rastered, he XY rastered it rather than like actually make a mask and do it. Right. Is that, is that right? Yeah. I think so. And that's, and that's, I'm sure that's what he's talking about here. Right. Big, big, because you can't make a five nanometer mask and then, you know, do like a thousand chips at once. Right. That's just not going to happen. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: None of the stuff that he's talking about is at any kind of volume for sure. Like even just the size of these chambers, but still, let me go through the other ones.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Physical vapor deposition, vacuum coating. So that's basically if you wanted to put tungsten on another thing, that's kind of like, if people want an introduction to that, Mr. Ben Krasnow of Applied Science, he's done that where he basically accelerates. He basically has an electron gun that ablates into a tungsten thing. And then basically it like, it's basically like doing a small explosion of tungsten. And then it kind of like floats back down and coats the thing that you're trying to, to coat with the metal.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Because CBD, chemical vapor deposition, if I'm remembering it properly, is you have a plasma of like oxide floating and then you basically like snows oxide, silicon oxide out of it.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: And then what's the last thing you had? Atomic layer deposition vacuum PVD. Maybe this is just another version of it, but atomic layer is probably for the actual gate. So you can get like a thinner gate sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Okay. Anyway, he reckons, yep. You can do a five nanometer chip.

Chris Gammell: I think you're spot on though, Dave. He did not show any dry etching, any wet etching. No. No. No. It's nothing like that. Or any imaging. So.

Dave Jones: So he's not going to be making them at mass scale. But in theory, he could make a small chip with a couple of transistors on it at five nanometer scale. Probably. I mean, keep an eye on that guy. That would be amazing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All he needs is the money. All he needs is the money and he's off. He's off to the races. Right. Yep. Oh my God. Yeah. It's very cool. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. Love it. All right.

Chris Gammell: I want to have him back on sometime soon.

Dave Jones: Yep. All right. We've got five minutes left. What's the dregs of the show?

Chris Gammell: Supercon is coming back. So I'm going to try and go to that. That is Hackaday Supercon in Pasadena, California.

Dave Jones: That's real. None of this virtual rubbish.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. Remoticon was the remote one. And they're actually doing in person again. It should be November 345, which is a Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Dave Jones: So you'll happily go to these conferences and pick up COVID, but you won't go to the cinema to watch Top Gun and have the experience of your lifetime. What is going on? Something is wrong here, dude.

Chris Gammell: That's a big swing, Dave. I got to say.

Dave Jones: Come on. Come on.

Chris Gammell: You're right. Going to watch Tom Cruise buy some planes instead of going to connect with my friends and new friends over the course of three days in a hacker utopia. Yes. Those are equivalent things. Totally. Even though I could totally just probably watch Top Gun on the way to the thing. I don't get it. Experience. So my friend is all about like, you'd have to go watch Dune at the theater. I get it. Like big sound, whatever. And you know, I'm going to tell you the same thing that I told him. I can just move the phone close to my face and boom. Oh, phone. Oh, God. It is like having an IMAX screen, Dave. It fills up my entire vision. I move the entire phone close to my face.

Dave Jones: Oh, God. I weep for the future. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. Suck on it.

Dave Jones: Oh, no, no, no, no.

Chris Gammell: All of the AV like purists out there just like cringed as well.

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: That's the thing. I just don't care. I don't care about the experience thing. Like I don't. No, you're missing out on life, dude. I'm literally not missing out on life. I just told you I'm going to go to a conference and meet humans and hang out with humans, Dave. That is life. Not not watching Tom Cruise fly airplanes. Pro tip. Pro tip. You can do both. I know I can do both. I'm not going to do both.

Dave Jones: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Unbelievable. Indeed.

Dave Jones: What else have we got?

Chris Gammell: If you're going to be there, please let me know. I would love to meet up. Also.

Dave Jones: Oh, I thought you were talking to me. No, I'm not.

Chris Gammell: Not you. I know you're not going to be there. I'm not going to be there. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about someone who could watch Top Gun like four or five times on the flight over. You would have more than enough time to do that sort of thing. And no, I don't want to fly to LA.

Dave Jones: No, because it's a shit experience.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know. But I'm just saying you'd have a lot of time to watch Top Gun, Top Gun Maverick.

Dave Jones: Right. So I can have the double shit experience. Break into electric boo-boo. No, the double shit experience of being stuck in a tube for like 16 hours or whatever. Yeah, totally. And then get the sucky experience of the seat and the crappy little screen and audio on the back. Wow. Yeah, I'm so- You'd get to hang out with me at the end, Dave. Oh, that's all worth it. That's the life experience right there. Yep. Yep. Yep. Totally. You would have a good time. I'm just saying. Yep.

Chris Gammell: All right. But if people are going, please let me know. I'd love to meet up there. What else is on the list? Matt from A to Z, ASIC. Oh, I forgot the name of his thing. I feel terrible about that. It's ASIC. Zero to ASIC course.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Yes, cool. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So he has a podcast around that as well. If you don't follow his YouTube channel, very highly recommend it. Nice. Matt went to the Free Silicon Conference and recorded some stuff there. Recommend that. Yep. Yep. All of these conferences, it's really interesting, actually. And there's another thing on here about RISC-V as well from Spectrum. There's just people just building processors every single day, by themselves even, to the point where it's like there's so much IP out there and the tool chains are so... And I guess I should step that back a little bit. People have been doing this at universities for a long time. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The scale and the deployability after the fact. Right. And it's a fun time. This RISC-V stuff, it's very fun. If people aren't already paying attention to it, please do. I think it's worth keeping... Let that tweak your ear anytime you hear about RISC-V. Mm-hmm. This Spectrum article is a little apocryphal about it being about guns... Oh, guns for Raspberry Pi. I thought it was about being in guns. I totally read that wrong. But basically, you know, there's larger and larger RISC-V based processors as well. And I will remind our listening audience, the mistake Dave and I made for probably the first up until recently is that RISC-V is an instruction set architecture. It's not a processor. So if you design a processor from scratch, it would be compliant with the instruction set architecture, which means you'd have a decent chance of having a compiler being able to write code for your target, but it would still be your own design. It's not an open source processor, although there are open source processors that also talk RISC-V.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: I think the real share... Here's a graph for people that would be interesting is like the number of chips internal at large semiconductor manufacturers, like well-known ones, how many of those are RISC-V based?

Dave Jones: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Like Espressif is leaning into it very heavily. So like the new ESP32C5 is a RISC-V based Wi-Fi and Bluetooth processor. And it's got... It's also interesting because it's also got dual frequency. So it's one of the first like accessible chips that I've seen that has like 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi networks that it actually can serve up. But it's all RISC-V.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but that's got nothing to do with the RISC-V.

Chris Gammell: Totally nothing to do with it. That was just another thing that was interesting about it. But all RISC-V. And like so Espressif still makes stuff with Extensa cores, which is the original ESP32. And their tooling, you know, works for both RISC-V and Extensa. But they're leaning into it. Other ones that I know about is like Microchip has some parts that have it. Who else? We had Sammy on the show from... I can't remember.

Dave Jones: Didn't know about Microchip.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, Microchip has the polar fire ice thing. No, not FNX. FNX is who I was thinking of with Sammy. That's not who it was. It was Brian from an FPGA, the EOS 3 or something like that. That, I think, has a RISC-V on it, maybe. No, never mind. That's the open tool chain thing. It's confusing. But I think that is going to be the tracker over time is how many of the big companies do it. So if we start to see like, if TI puts a RISC-V, that I think will be a banner level moment, right? And I think it's likely that they'll do it for smaller stuff, right? They'll do it experimentally. They'll see it as a potential cost savings, you know, from licensing IP from ARM, that sort of thing. I think once we see more and more of the large chip companies that already make micros, so like a microchip doing it, they're not getting rid of their other... I don't think they're going to get rid of the other product lines, but I think that that will be a marker of some, you know, a shift, a potential shift. So I would say like if Silicon Labs does it at some point, that would be interesting. So yeah, we'll see. I mean, we'll see how it all works out. Cool.

Dave Jones: All right. We'll see if it comes to consolidate across all the different manufacturers or not. It'll be interesting. Can we come back in five years' time? Well, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, they could be everywhere. They could be nowhere, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, who knows? Yeah, yeah. Actually, Silicon Labs is a sponsor, I believe. Maybe? They're members? I think that's the other thing too. They're all dipping their toes in because they're like, well, what is... You know, like this is important. Yeah, maybe.

Dave Jones: I'm sure they're all thinking about it.

Chris Gammell: I think it's a good way to recruit new talent. You know, you think about like, again, that same article we were talking about, like you're trying to recruit talent in a somewhat shrinking market. Well, if all of the researchers are interested in RISC-V, you know, you probably help sponsor that conference to try and meet those researchers, but maybe also those researchers bring RISC-V into these companies. You know, like, it's interesting how it all kind of shifts over time. We'll see where it all goes.

Dave Jones: We'll find out.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. We'll find out what happens in the next week, in the next riveting episode.

Chris Gammell: Next time. Yeah. Stay tuned.

Dave Jones: I'm sure it's all changed. Same time, same bat channel.

Chris Gammell: For the next episode of The Amp Hour, talking about the same stuff as last week, mostly.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: The same stuff as the last decade. That's right. Come on. Really? I mean, how much has changed over the last decade? Well, I guess a lot. I guess a lot. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I guess a lot.

Dave Jones: It'd be interesting to go back through all our old shows and, like, stuff we were talking about and see how stuff has actually progressed. I have.

Chris Gammell: It's a lot of the same stuff. I mean, some of that's on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. We haven't gained many more stories, you know?

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: It's all the same shit.

Dave Jones: Different smell. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Different. Yeah. Yeah. We smell more mothball-y now. All right.

Dave Jones: Well, I'll smell you again next time.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, if you smell that wrong smell, don't forget to flip around your sodom iron. You're probably grabbing the wrong end.

Dave Jones: All right. And we'll expect your Top Gun reviewed next time.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's right. We'll be right back.

Speaker ?: We'll be right back.