#31 – Freescale, Hackerspaces, Printable Electronics - Publish Popular Parts Please!

Chris Gammell: Welcome to the Amp Hour.

Dave Jones: I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell from Chris Gammell's Analog Life. Hey, Chris. Hey, Dave. What's going on?

Dave Jones: Everything's happening here. I'm blowing up scopes and all sorts of things. It's wonderful. It's all good.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yes, I like that video a lot.

Dave Jones: $12,000 up in smoke, no problem. Well, not literally up in smoke. It's dramatized. It failed.

Chris Gammell: Right, right. They didn't ship your cash and then you lit it on fire, right?

Dave Jones: No, exactly. Not quite that extreme.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, well. Yes. It's good. I think my microphone's peaking here.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah?

Dave Jones: Yeah, you're having mic problems as well because your bench, your basement is taken apart.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's right. I am sitting at my workbench. I'll say that. But my new workbench, it's awesome. I like it so far, but it's just not done yet.

Dave Jones: And what's... I saw the photo of the lighting you had installed, those like spotlight kind of things. What's the deal with that? Where's your LED lighting?

Chris Gammell: Well, that's track lighting. So like later I could move... I could just replace the lights that are in there with LED lighting.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Because it's just... It just runs 120 across in parallel. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, you just plug in lights across it. So it's kind of nice like that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Fair call. It's good because I can point it at stuff too. So if I have like a project I really need a lot of light on, I can concentrate it.

Dave Jones: Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. I need more lighting for my lab. It's pretty piss cool.

Chris Gammell: I was thinking about... I wanted to ask you about it because when I was wiring it up yesterday, I was thinking, you know, can... In Australia, we've talked about before how you're not allowed to work on mains and stuff, but... That's right. Like what's the restrictions on lighting and installing your own stuff there?

Dave Jones: Well, you can't. Anything that connects to the mains, you are not allowed to touch. I'm... Technically, you're not even allowed to replace your own power plug on your appliance or something else. If it, you know, if it fails and you chop it off and you install a new power plug, you're not even allowed to do that. Technically, I believe. Yeah, it's crazy.

Chris Gammell: That seems a bit extreme.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. It's pretty extreme. But of course, no one gives a shit. But, you know, technically, legally, you're not allowed to do it.

Chris Gammell: So is that just them covering their ass saying, like, if you shocked yourself, it's like, oh, well, you shouldn't have been doing that, so we're not paying for your medical coverage or whatever.

Dave Jones: Well, exactly. And then the appliance can be onsold. You know, you might sell it secondhand on eBay or something like that. And if you've wired it wrong, it can go off and kill someone else, you know, it isn't just you. And et cetera, et cetera.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So it's more of a lawyer thing than it is an electrician type thing, huh?

Dave Jones: Oh, of course. Well, the electricians push for it because it protects their industry. So, you know, it's crazy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, I can't blame them for that, I guess. But, man, it sucks because I think about, I mean, personally, for the amount of time it took me to install, it took me about a day, an entire day to install this stupid lighting just because I was running conduit and stuff. And, you know, it's just, it was a hassle. So I wouldn't have wanted to pay someone, though, because it was maybe, you know, $150 for everything in materials and the rest was just my time. But I can imagine it would be a lot more for an electrician to come in and do it.

Dave Jones: Oh, definitely. They charge you a call-out fee and then they charge you, you know, $150 an hour or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Well, no wonder your lab's poorly lit then, huh?

Dave Jones: No wonder they're protecting their industry, huh?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, no, I was saying that there's no wonder your lab is poorly lit because you don't want to drop money on having someone come out and fix it up, right?

Dave Jones: No, I'm just, I just, it's just too hard, you know, because it's, I've got limited ways that I can put lighting in there, you know, and then the wife complains, oh, it looks ugly and, you know, you can't just put in another fluoro strip there. Isn't it in your garage, though?

Chris Gammell: I don't get it.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, it is. So it's, you know, the looks aren't that important, of course. But then I've got two different types of lighting I need. One for lighting up the bench in general. Then I need ones for the camera angle that I'm using, you know, and it has to light up the lab evenly and it, you know, it's just quite hard. I mean, I bought a bunch of the star LEDs to do it. Oh, cool. But, you know, I've had them sitting there for six months. I haven't, you know, haven't got around to it because it needs a diffuser and everything. You know, you can't just have it, you know, just blaring in my eyes when I'm, you know, shooting the blog, even though that's ideally that's what I want. I want the light directly on me from the front from both, you know, from different angles.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Ah, no.

Chris Gammell: See, that's the other thing I was thinking about this track lighting is if I start doing videos, I'll have a good place to do it. But obviously I haven't made any videos yet, so. But I will be doing one on the bench, so there is that. Awesome. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you're actually going to be on camera.

Chris Gammell: I will be on camera. Yeah. It'll be a first. Yeah. That'll be novel. It will be. Watch out. I'm gunning for you.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, I'm quaking in my boots. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: All one video, not about electronics, but about electrical installation. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Can we start off with a what the?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I don't have any sound effects.

Dave Jones: I know we typically end on a what the. Yeah, we don't have any sound effects today because Chris has demolished his rig, so it's all in chaos down there.

Chris Gammell: WTF, mate. There we go. That's what it usually is, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, go on. You tell us about it because you're the one who found it and put it in here.

Chris Gammell: Oh, the sound effect?

Dave Jones: No, the WTF.

Chris Gammell: Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Dave Jones: The TV one.

Chris Gammell: Oh, gotcha, yeah. Because it was a segue from, you know, creating videos. Oh, sorry. That's sorry. That was a good segue, too. I'm sorry, Dave. No, I'm wrong. So, yeah, it's a video of Bjork, the Icelandic musician, pulling apart her TV. She's doing a teardown. Yeah, it's really weird. Oh, kind of. Sort of, yeah. It's more like taking it apart, what's inside. You know, kind of like a – and it seems like it's earlier in her career. I haven't seen it in a while. I put this on here a couple weeks ago, and someone actually had sent it to me. I forget who it was. I'm sorry if you sent it to me. Let me know, and I'll put you on the show notes. But I can't remember who it was. But, yeah, it is weird, man.

Dave Jones: I know. It's freaky. I watched it. Well, most of it. And it's just – what is she on, you know? What is she talking about? What is she trying to get at? Talking about, in the end, talking about don't trust poets or something? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's bizarre. It was really weird.

Dave Jones: It's like how your TV is hypnotizing you or something, and she's trying to explain how, you know, TV used to hypnotize her until she read this book about how TVs work, and now she's – I don't know. It's weird.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It really is a what the kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, she's kind of a weird lady. She's a – but whoever said this – we'll post the video. It's wonky. It starts out, though. Like, the reason it's relevant here is because it starts out like a teardown video. Yeah, it does. Oh, okay. She's going to look inside her TV, and then it turns into something really weird. So, what the F?

Dave Jones: Interestingly, she does – she says exactly the same thing that my wife says. She calls the circuit board like, oh, look, it's a little city, you know? It's a little miniature city. And look, this looks like a little building, you know? The big capacitors are like buildings, and she's talking about the cable harness going up to the CRT as the elevator going up. That's awesome. And look, they're little highways and everything. My wife does exactly the same thing. You know, if I'm going out to – are you going out to build little cities? Yes, dear.

Chris Gammell: Well, you know, Tron did the same thing, too. They just did it in a very expensive and not so successful way. Right, yes.

Dave Jones: Have you seen the new Tron movie?

Chris Gammell: I have not seen it. I love the soundtrack, but I haven't seen it.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: I just listened over and over again.

Dave Jones: I went to see it because I hadn't watched Tron in like 20 years or something. So, I went to see it with my brother-in-law, and we decided just before we went, we'd watch the original Tron, you know, because we hadn't seen it for so long. And I'm glad we did because there's so many references to the first movie. Oh, yeah. If you don't really remember it in depth, then you'll miss, you know, every reference and stuff like that. And there's a million references to Star Wars and Jedi and all that sort of stuff as well. And I don't know. Everyone panned it, but I kind of liked it. It was all right, I thought. So, in terms of, you know, capitalizing on the first movie and giving, you know, like you would see the scene and you go, oh, yeah, that was in the first movie. And, you know, they're in the exact same location, opening the same door and, you know, really sort of that. And I love that sort of detail. So, yeah, I don't know. I just thought it was all right.

Chris Gammell: I've never seen the first one, so I'll have to watch that before I go. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Well, you're in for a real treat.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, it's always funny looking at, like, old videos like that. Like, I love, like, in the, you ever seen Hackers, the movie? Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Angelina Jolie. That's the only thing that's noted for.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right? Hell yeah. Well, no, also the, also the part where they, like, show, like, how do you visualize, you know, like, computer movies and stuff like that? We've talked about engineering movies. Like, there's a new movie coming out about electrical engineering. But, you know, for as much as we enjoy it, for the general public, it is boring. You know, how do you even visualize, like, math, right? So you think about, like, a beautiful mind. That was a math movie, right?

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And how do you visualize these things so that people understand, you know, the processes that are going through or even just making it intriguing or interesting? And it's pretty tough to do. No, I agree. And hackers, I loved how they, like, showed, like, it was so corny. Like, they would go inside a computer and then they'd trace along the route. It's like, all right, I get what you're trying to do here, but come on, guys.

Dave Jones: Well, then you're going to love Tron then. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Because Tron, he literally goes inside, you know, a computer and he, yeah. And he battles the master control program. It's, oh, it's brilliant.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: From an incredibly corny point of view. And nerdy. Nerdy, nerdy, nerdy. Oh, yeah. It's, yeah, it's way out there. But it's one of those movies that is absolutely ridiculous, but it's just become, you know, a pop culture sort of icon, you know? Yeah. It's one of those, you know, it's like war games, you know? Or Breaking 2, Electric Boogaloo. Oh, Breakdance 2. Yes. Electric Boogaloo. Oh, dear. One of my favorites. Right. I made the wife sit down and watch Breakdance. The first one. I didn't want to subject her to the second one. And she loved it. She thought it was great.

Chris Gammell: I do, too. I have them both on DVD.

Dave Jones: Right. And I made her sit down and watch Revenge of the Nerds as well.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's a good one, too.

Dave Jones: And she thought it was brilliant. She loved it.

Chris Gammell: All right. She passes the test. You can keep her.

Dave Jones: It, Revenge of the Nerds passed the wife test. It really did. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you can keep the wife. Not that she can keep the movie.

Speaker ?: Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: Okay. She can keep the movie.

Dave Jones: Oh, brilliant. What else is there? Sneakers. Have you seen Sneakers?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I love that movie. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Sneakers is great.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. I always remember the deaf guy with the listening to the...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. He can just tell what everything is, what the data is just by listening to it, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Awesome.

Dave Jones: Totally out there, but, oh, that's a great algorithm. Mm. You know, not quite in those words. Right. You know, he can sort of just decode the Braille like he had like a Braille screen or something. Yeah. You can just watch the data. It's just like in the Matrix, you know? Oh, yeah. And sort of instantly decode it all.

Chris Gammell: Ah. Good stuff. If only, like, for, like, the movies, things would be much more interesting.

Dave Jones: Right. Are there any good other hacker electronic sort of tech movies out there?

Chris Gammell: I'm sure there's tons. I don't know. There was, you know, there was actually a Bill Schweber article. The guy that writes analog articles for E.E. Times, he actually did an article about that a while back.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And there was a couple on there that were interesting. They were more, like, engineering related. But the ones that I put on there, the ones that I thought didn't call it out real well, that no one had called out yet, at least, when I looked at it, were Iron Man. I mean, I know that it's not exactly an engineering movie. Oh, yeah, I know. And I know it's kind of ridiculous, but, I mean, Tony Stark is, like, the only cool guy that does electrical engineering, right? Exactly.

Dave Jones: Well, actually, I can remember when that first came out. I was on the Oz Electronics Forum and the Psy Electronics Design. I was still back into Usenet back then. It was, how many years ago was that now? Three or four years ago or something?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, yeah. And people started to really talk about that movie on there because it was, as you say, it was, you know, an engineer sort of doing cool shit. Right. And, of course, it had the new technology, you know, all the stuff with the 3D modeling and, you know. Yeah, exactly. Things like that. It was, yeah. It was awesome. So, yeah, it was highly talked about.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And, I mean. At the time. I mean, it seems like, I mean, I think about this conversation we're having, right? And it seems kind of trivial in the scope of electronics and stuff. But at the same time, like, you really need these things. Do you think about kids coming up and, like, having any kind of clue what's going on with electronics? You know, like, sometimes they get exposure early, but a lot of kids just don't even know anything about it, you know. Like, so having even popular culture examples are very important, I think. So, I'm hoping that Disney movie we talked about a while back will, you know, do something. But it would seem like more of a documentary kind of, like, based on a true story thing. Even just, like, the cool stuff, like the Tony Starks and the – Yeah, exactly. Another one I thought of was – have you seen How to Train Your Dragon?

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: Okay. It's a Pixar DreamWorks, one of the two.

Dave Jones: But the kid's like an engineer. Oh, it's an animated film. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: God. I love it. It was great. But, you know, the kid's like an engineer. He's an inventor. You know, just kind of like the inventor mindset. That's kind of the thing that kind of gets kids going, makes them want to be inventors. You know, I remember wanting to be an inventor when I was a kid. Now I sort of am. So, it's awesome.

Dave Jones: And the thing I love watching these movies, I actually watched Iron Man a couple of weeks ago. It was on TV. And I said, you know, we sat down and watched it. And they always include an oscilloscope in there, right? Oh, yeah. There's always like an old Tektronix oscilloscope on the bench. And they're tweaking the dials and everything. Yep. And, you know, what's the name of the chick, the Penny Potts or whatever? Pepper Potts. Penny Potts? Pepper. Pepper Potts. Thank you. And, yeah, she was talking to him and, you know, come over here and he switches off his gear and he like switches off the scope as if that switches off all of his gear. You know, that was like the prime control panel for his whole system. Ooh, so modern. Oh, and it's just hilarious, you know. Yeah. And, yeah, they always include a token. Any good movie will have a token scope in it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. I love it. Or a David Bowie film or a David Bowie video too, of course.

Dave Jones: Right. Of course. Yes. Ah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, if you've got any good movies, let us know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, definitely. I'm sure there's a lot more out there. So, leave it in the comments if you're listening and you think, oh, yeah, they've got to know about this one. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: What have we got on the list? Because that wasn't on the list. I don't know where that came from. How did we get on to movies?

Chris Gammell: Mmm, Bjork.

Dave Jones: Bjork, right. Yeah. And that's sort of segue. It's like surfing wiki. Yeah. You know, five clinks and links later, you're into La La Land. You know?

Chris Gammell: It's crazy. I heard an interesting way to learn new things is to set your Wikipedia page or your homepage to the Wikipedia random.

Dave Jones: Ah.

Chris Gammell: Very cool. That sounds like the biggest time suck in the world.

Dave Jones: It would be. Yeah. But if you've got nothing, if you're in your Dilbert cubicle at work and you've got nothing better to do. That's true. There's nothing better than surfing Wikipedia.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Learn. Learn. That's great.

Dave Jones: Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's gold.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. So how about this Intel Fab? Did you see that article?

Dave Jones: They're going to what? 14 nanometers?

Chris Gammell: 1.4. That is unbelievable. I mean, it's obvious that they're going to keep going smaller, right? But they're... Oh, it's getting ridiculous. Come on.

Dave Jones: What are they going to produce at 14 nanometers? Are they actually going to get the yield at 14 nanometers?

Chris Gammell: Eventually they will. I mean, seriously. I mean, there's money in it, so they'll do it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I know. Anyway, it's $5 billion. They're building it in Chandler. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Arizona, if you don't know where that is. And because not all of our listeners are in the U.S. No. I'm glad they're not. Or even if they are in the U.S., they may not know where Chandler is. I don't know where that is. But then again, if you're listening to the Amp Hour, you'll probably know where Chandler, Arizona is, because it's the home of Microchip.

Chris Gammell: I did not know where that is, so just for the record.

Dave Jones: Oh, dude. Come on.

Chris Gammell: Oh, sorry.

Dave Jones: Famously the home of Microchip Corporation. Nope. Oh, God. Shows how many pick chips you use.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. Yep. Sorry. Yeah. So, actually, because I have fab experience in my past, I was getting calls about this when they've been recruiting for that like crazy, trying to get people over there. Okay. I'd send a couple job wrecks over to friends that are doing chip stuff still, but, man, that's... I don't get why they always put chip fabs in hot places. I guess not always, because there's stuff up in Portland, but, like...

Dave Jones: Well, that's crazy, because they need a shitload of water, don't they?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, you'd think that would be the main...

Dave Jones: I mean, that's one of the prime requirements for a chip fab, is a crapload of water.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Like, you need to build it next to a lake or something.

Chris Gammell: Hey, you know, people could come to Cleveland. We've got tons of water. It's fresh. It's delicious most of the time. It's only sometimes on fire. Come on, people. Okay. You know how that happened, right? Excellent. Have you ever heard of that, Dave, or no?

Dave Jones: No, please do tell. Okay. Water on fire.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I thought you should know this. So, basically, that's what Cleveland's famous for. There's actually a beer named after the Burning River IPA, but... Right. Basically, that's how the EPA started, is in the 70s. You know, there's so much pollution everywhere. Yeah. Or early 70s or late 60s. And, yeah, the river started on fire twice. Yep. So, yeah, that's how the EPA started in the U.S.

Dave Jones: Because what they poured, they poured the chemicals into the river?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think it was a lot of the iron manufacturing and stuff. Right.

Dave Jones: That happened up in Queensland, up in Punderburg, which is famous for their rum. You may know their rum. Anyway, if you're into rum, you'll know Bundy rum. Punderburg rum. Yeah. And, yeah, the town... I think, because I was up there and they told the story of how their river that went through the town caught on fire, the whole river. Because all the... They had an overflow from the plant that was making the rum or something. And it all went into the river and it all caught a light. And it was a light for, you know, days or a week or something like that. Wow. It's just crazy. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It was actually rum that was on fire?

Dave Jones: Oh, or some, you know, part of it that makes up rum. I don't know. Or some process that, you know... I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Hmm.

Dave Jones: But something accidentally poured into the river and it caught on fire somehow or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Huh.

Dave Jones: If memory serves me correctly, don't quote me on this.

Chris Gammell: See, I think rum's a little different than, like, industrial waste.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. But, no, everyone was crying because, oh, no, all the rum's going up in smoke, you know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And, oh, yes. Yeah, so that's what Cleveland's famous for. But we do have a lot of water here, so, you know, chip fabs, if you're thinking about it, give us a thought. I mean, really, anywhere, the Great Lakes, I mean, there's a lot of water up here, so.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, so why do they build them in dry, hot places in the middle of the desert like that? I don't know, because Austin was like that. Which I'm assuming Chandler is. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's Arizona, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was in Austin at a chip fab and there was, you know, there was a couple of freescale's down there, IBM's down there. They're not all manufacturing down there, but some of them are. AMD's down there, got a manufacturing plant. And so, you know, Texas doesn't have a lot of water. So, I don't know. No, you wouldn't imagine. I think it's just more kind of entrenched talent. You know, it's hard to get people to move somewhere. If I, you know, if tomorrow I did start a fab in Cleveland, it wouldn't be easy to get people here.

Dave Jones: No, that's right. You would have to offer them really big incentives and that eats into your margin, I guess. That eats into your operating costs.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. And at that point, it's like, well, why not go to the optimal? Why not just go to Asia? You know, like, that's what a lot of people say. Why not just, hell, if you're going there, why not just take all your production to TSMC? You know, like, I'm sure that's the kind of thought process it goes through. But sometimes when you make that decision, you have to, like, dive in and really make that investment and draw people there.

Dave Jones: And interestingly, in the article, of course, no surprise, really, that some new state sponsorship had something to do with it, some new law. They just so happened to pass last week. Huh, weird. That gave them, you know, yeah, what a coincidence. Yeah. That gives incentives to companies to build stuff like that in that state. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I'm sure that had everything to do with it.

Chris Gammell: That's just the new norm, though. I mean, like, it happens other places, too, you know, like, even in China and Australia, I'm sure, too.

Dave Jones: It does. Yeah, it does. It happens here. Yeah, states put up incentives for companies to come.

Chris Gammell: The really, the interesting thing about that is when it gets to a really micro level, like, even here locally, like, we have enough towns around here where they start offering incentives. And so you have, like, companies jumping from town to town, and they start fighting with each other. So it can turn nasty, you know? Like, you know, it's interesting from a business perspective if you have a business and you could kind of go to where the best deal is. But on the other hand, it sucks for, like, you know, say you're a mayor and you're trying to keep people in a city, that's a tough thing to do these days because a suburb can turn around and give a really sweet tax advantage and boom. Oh, for sure. There goes half your, you know, then your roads get worse and everything else, too. So.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: I know. It's a tough gig. Yeah. You know, trying to attract all these large companies and, yeah. And then at the opposite end of the scale, you've got the, you know, the likes of Walmart who don't need incentives. They just come in and bury everyone else. Yeah. And spread like a cancer. Yeah. So, you know, it's either one or the other, isn't it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, speaking about enticing people, I saw an article, I think it was from Suzanne Dufri from EDN, and it was about how New York City's trying to get Stanford to come to the city and start a tech center there. Let me see if you can find it.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if you saw that.

Dave Jones: Actually in the middle of the city. Actually in, actually in Manhattan itself. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like in, yeah, downtown. They're calling it Silicon Alley instead of Silicon Valley. Silicon Alley. Valley.

Dave Jones: We have a Silicon Alley here in Sydney. Do you?

Chris Gammell: Or we used to. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But it was just a bunch of shops. It was just a bunch of, you know, all of the famous shops back in the 70s and 80s. So, they were all in one street, and that was Silicon Alley.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's sweet. I love when they do that for like, when you go shopping then, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah. They were all literally right next door to each other. Yeah. You know, there'd be Dick Smith, J. Carr, David Reed, and Tandy all in line. It was great. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't think, I don't know if it's working, but like they're trying to draw in like Stanford and all these different companies and stuff like that. And it's the same kind of argument. You know, like how do you, how do you try and come to a company and say to them, well, don't go to China or India where you can have, you know, a ton of your operating costs. Come to New York City where you can't even have, you know, like your rug installed without a union contractor. And it's like, I don't know. I mean, like it's a cool idea. You know, it's good to have that kind of localized or, yeah, localized commerce. But you're not going to be putting a fab in there, obviously. And you're definitely not going to be operating at a lower cost. So it's kind of the, it's kind of the, when you start thinking about the business side of things, you know, it starts to really suck.

Dave Jones: Well, look, I mean, the whole, you know, you mentioned like one-tenth the operating, you know, one-tenth the cost to go to China, you know. Yeah. In the end, it's nothing like that, you know. Oh, no, of course. It's not exactly. It's a real myth, you know. So people think that it's, you know, so, you know, it's an order of magnitude cheaper to set up in China. And it's clearly not. Otherwise, Intel wouldn't be doing it.

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, that's a good point.

Dave Jones: You know, they go through, they do the sums and they go, it's probably very close. Hey, we'll stay here in, you know, US. Yes. You know, there's not much in it once you, you know, because the cost is in actually building the plan. It's not so much, you know, the ongoing. I mean, these plans just cost, you know, they actually cost $5 billion to make.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's a lot.

Dave Jones: So, you know, the operating costs after that are sort of almost, you know, sort of a drop in the bucket, really. Yeah. So, yeah, it's... Well, yeah. China's not as cheap as you think.

Chris Gammell: No, I agree. And, I mean, you highlighted that with Agilent coming back to the US, too. And, I mean, I think even just, like, monetary pressures, too, you know, like, China's cost of living is increasing. The US is stagnant, at least. I don't know about Australia. And so, it starts to become a... And that's before you start looking at all the stuff that, like, that actually matters, you know, like the... How do you communicate across timelines? How do you communicate across language barriers? There's all that stuff that I think a lot of people don't put into their spreadsheets and then they make these decisions and they're like, oops.

Dave Jones: Oops. Yeah. Yeah, we can't. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: No, it's a big deal because actually dealing with remote sites is hard, you know, especially when you've, as you say, you've got the language and you've got the time barrier. It's...

Chris Gammell: And cultural barrier, too. I mean, that can't be discounted either, you know, like, if you have... Oh, it's huge. If you have company policies that say you can't go out drinking with your work buddies, but you go to Japan and it's expected because that's a very strong business tradition there, you know? Like, you go out and you relax with your coworkers and that's where real business gets done. And that's a cool thing, I think. I mean, like, but...

Dave Jones: Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: You know, if that's a company policy in the US that you can't do that and then you go over there, it's like, well, then you've got to start making exceptions and having interesting different policies, too.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. Yeah. I saw... Now, you mentioned Agilent. Yes. And that segues beautifully into the new Agilent scope and more precisely the Megazune 4 ASIC Oh, yeah. used in this thing, you know, which is really, you know, they've been developing this thing for years and it's bleeding edge and it basically allows ridiculous scope performance in a one single chip. Yeah. You know, everything's in there. You can see it in my latest Agilent 3000 teardown. I explain... Show a block diagram, explain what's in there and... Well, anyway, it's a very, very cool chip. And I found out yesterday that probably not surprisingly, as all things, you know, all good things tend to do, very clever things like this, it pretty much comes down to one person. And that guy is Matt Holcomb who actually developed this ASIC chip.

Chris Gammell: So now you're going to have to explain yourself and say not surprisingly. Why is that not surprisingly?

Dave Jones: Because I found over the decades that, you know, pretty much, it pretty much comes down, usually comes down to one smart guy. If you try and design something by committee, then it just, you know, it just doesn't work. You know, it's just a piece of shit, generally. Generally speaking.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: So, you know, all of the really smart, cool things really come down to the passion and the execution of one or maybe two people. You know, it's very few people in the end. So you might imagine, you know, this new flagship ASIC that Agilent had developed. Oh, they'll have a team of 20 engineers working on it. No, it was this one guy, apparently. I'm sure he had a bit of help here and there. But, yeah, generally, it's the brainchild of one person. Yeah. You're not. Yeah. You disagree, obviously.

Chris Gammell: I don't disagree. But I think saying that it's a brainchild is a different thing than saying it's because it seems like what you're saying is like it's designed by one guy. But really, it's architected by one guy. Right. I mean, that's what you're really saying.

Dave Jones: Well, I was told that he was the one who did it. So he did all the layout, all the testing. He's pretty much, well, you know, I don't know about the testing part of it, but it's his design. He laid it out. So I believe. So I'm led to believe anyway. But as I said, you know, there may have been, you know, the odd person helping him. But, yeah, it was, you know, I think he was more than just the overall architect. I think he actually got down there and actually did it. I don't know. I haven't spoken to the guy. Oh, okay. That's the story I heard.

Chris Gammell: So, well, I guess the thing I would think is the difference between, like, I guess it depends on the scope of the chip, too. So, like, if you're doing, like, an analog design where you're actually laying out, like, by hand, like, the chip.

Dave Jones: No, I'm sure this is all, you know, VHDL and then.

Chris Gammell: No, probably Verilog, but yeah.

Dave Jones: And, oh, probably Verilog, yeah. Something like that. And then, yeah, you know, I'm sure there are people who, you know, do the testing and, you know, the test benches and all that sort of stuff as well. But, yeah, anyway, that's what I'm led to believe. And it wasn't terribly surprising that one person could design such an ASIC over, you know, several years.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty badass. I mean, I'll say that. I mean, like, I can imagine, like, I can imagine a boss coming to you and being like, you know, we just need you to design an entire chip. I know it happens, right? I mean, I know it happens. Oh, yeah, of course. But, like, but also saying, oh, well, it's also going to be the basis of our entire scope line. So, that's kind of crazy.

Dave Jones: Right, no pressure at all.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Oh, by the way, don't mess it up because we'll go out of business.

Dave Jones: Well, no, it may have started out, you know, they just put one person on it. Yeah. Just, you know, it didn't intend, you know, just like as a research thing, maybe. Well, no, it's based on existing technology, okay? Like, he didn't design it from scratch. It's called the Megazune 4 for a reason, right? Yeah. So, you know, it's, yeah, he didn't, he didn't do it down to every last transistor. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's, you know, it was very, well, it's actually quite a significantly different architecture to the version 3 of the chip. They explain, I went to a presentation where they explain the differences between the Rev 3 and the Rev 4. Yeah. And, yeah, it was quite, quite a lot of difference. Yeah. You know, sort of like half an order of magnitude better performance. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know, the thing I always find interesting about scopes these days, too, is, like, any scope you really open up, it's a lot of that. You know, it's a lot of system level, on the system level, it's a lot of, like, big chips. But, like, you know, like, but you go and open it, like, I have pictures on my site of, like, old tech scopes. Like, I have a 425. Yeah. And you open that thing up, and it's all discrete. You know, obviously, they're not doing that even close to anymore. No, exactly. But it's just interesting how it's moved that way. You know, people have been predicting it for years with, like, IP stacks and all that other stuff, a lot of FPGAs and a lot of ASICs. But you just, there's hardly anything else in there anymore. It's an RF front end, an 8, a really...

Dave Jones: Well, no, I wouldn't say. If you look at my teardown, like, you might think that from an overall system level. But if you look at the sheer number of components, there's a crap load of individual passive on... There's a whole bunch of LM324s, for goodness sake, you know? But they're... It's... But they're... You know, but what? There's LM324s in an ultra-modern...

Chris Gammell: There's LM Scope that's just been released. I guess so. I mean, yeah, I know. I saw that there's 324s in there. And that's just a cost thing, though. I mean, like, they wouldn't be using LM324s unless they... It was some grunt part, and they just needed a... I mean, they probably got those things for... Yeah, yeah, exactly. ...sub pennies, you know? Like...

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But, yeah, I mean, that's... There's a hell of a lot of components in there. Hell of a lot of passives and a hell of a lot of just discrete...

Chris Gammell: I mean, there is, but it's a lot of power and it's a lot... You know, like, the... It's a lot of power and stuff, but... The signal chain stuff is different, I think, you know? I know.

Dave Jones: That's what I'm talking about. It's, yeah, at the system level, yes, it's basically the big, badass chips, right? Right. But, you know, when you get down to building the board, it's... You know, it's far from that. Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it's like... And if you're talking the bomb cost as well.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. So... Yeah, but I mean, it's not... It's not, like, all... It's not all discreet. It's mostly... Like, the highest level functions are mostly in chips. That's what I'm saying.

Dave Jones: They are, yes, they are embedded into...

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Chris wins. Boom. Not really, no. Sorry. I just wanted to say that.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: I'll never admit defeat. I know. Speaking of... There's an article in Electronic News about... Oh, God. Here we come, boys and girls. Yeah, here we go. Talking about Chris winning. About big, big, big companies. And the future of printed electronics. Not in the home, dude.

Dave Jones: Not in the home. That's right, yeah. Exactly. Hey, there we go. He admits defeat. There we go. No, no. You heard it. It's on the record. No, no. He said not in the home. It's never going to happen.

Chris Gammell: Initially, that's what I'm saying.

Dave Jones: No, no, no.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Let's look at these companies. The industry spent... Samsung.

Chris Gammell: Nokia. Come on. Those are big names. Panasonic.

Dave Jones: These are big... And they're the ones who currently develop chips, which they've been doing for the last 50 years. And they've spent hundreds of trillions of dollars doing it and refining it.

Chris Gammell: Hundreds of trillions? I don't know about hundreds of trillions. It's got to be.

Dave Jones: Over 50 years. I don't know. Whatever. Right? An infinite amount of money. Yeah. Yeah. I'll jump from trillions to infinite. Yes. Working on this shit. Yeah. And there is no effing way in hell that you're going to print these things and build your chips in your own home because they're so complex. It'll be the same with the printed chips. The processors will be so exotic and complex. Again, they might be lower cost, but they, you know, it's not something you can, you know, churn out on your kitchen table.

Chris Gammell: It's crazy. For example, cost reductions has not pan out to be such a big issue. This is a quote, by the way. Nor is there a trend towards organic versions taking over most applications. So, people thought that, oh, it's never going to be cheap enough. Guess what? It's getting cheaper. Getting cheaper, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but cheaper, that's what I mentioned. Cheaper has nothing to do with being able to do it in your own home. Yes, they build big plants to do it, and it's very cheap for them because the processors are cheaper than silicon. That's what they're talking about because silicon is so complex and so involved that even an order of magnitude less complex than a silicon chip is ultra cheap, but it's still an order of magnitude complex more complex than what you can do in your own home. So, it's not going to happen, dude.

Chris Gammell: Moving on. Thank you. They're introducing... No, no. I'm moving on to the rest of the article. Including principal copper and a replace to replace silver inks and also principal CNT. I'm not sure if that is. Graphene and other conductors and semiconductors with the promise of even better performance. So, basically, the guy who this article is about is doing a roadmap, and the roadmap is a lot more rosy than they had previously thought. And so, it looks like... Of course. It looks like... Yeah? Well, it looks like pessimists aren't doing quite as well. So, it looks like we might see a little uptick here, Dave. You better start...

Dave Jones: Oh, of course. No, I've never, ever debated that silly... You know, that printed chips are not going to have a huge future. I've always said they will. Of course they will. There's tons of research going in. You've been able to do it for a long time in various way, shapes, and forms. You know, it's going to happen, but it's not going to happen in the home. It's not going to be viable, and there's going to be no point to it, and it won't be a revolution like you claimed.

Chris Gammell: All I'm saying is, start surfing for those tickets to Cleveland. Because you're going to have to pay up, buddy. No. Yeah. It's going to happen.

Dave Jones: No chance at all. My money is safe.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You're going to flog that dead horse for us, aren't you? Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: You're going to ride that sucker all the way home.

Chris Gammell: All the way to the bank.

Dave Jones: Yeehaw!

Chris Gammell: Oh, my goodness.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. And the arguments are still the same. Anyway, let's not go there.

Chris Gammell: You know, there's another. So, one of our former workplace, workbench of the week guys, Luvin Blanca, he wrote in too. There's a video on wax making, on wax, printing wax masks for chips. So, that's another link I'll add in there. We don't have to talk about it, but that's another helpful thing. If you don't have to use, you know, photoresist, if you can use wax, that's a good sign. So, just saying. Okay, cool. Just saying.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Sure. What is that in relation to, though? I haven't seen that article. Like, as in, like, wax directly on the board?

Chris Gammell: Well, like, wax for, as like a resist material for etching.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. Right. Okay. So, you could actually put wax directly onto the board to trace out the circuit. Is that the thing? And then throw it directly in the etching? Is that...

Chris Gammell: This is for chips, actually.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. It's actually for chip level. It's not for board level manufacturing. Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: And it's actually, it's an hour, it's an hour long video, unfortunately. But you can catch some of it. And, yeah, it's on YouTube. So, I'll post a link to that. But, uh...

Dave Jones: What idiot would produce an hour long video? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, my bench takes much longer. I might join that club, Dave.

Dave Jones: Right. I can't believe you didn't get a time-lapse photo of you constructing the thing.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: Oh, they're so fun, those time-lapse photos.

Chris Gammell: I like them, but I just, my video equipment is lacking, so...

Dave Jones: Right. Maybe if... Well, how hard is it to stick a camera on a tripod and take one shot every half an hour?

Chris Gammell: Half an hour? It wasn't a built-in function, so I didn't do it. Right. I should have. I got a lot of videos.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I can understand. I'm lazy. My little compact camera has a built-in time-lapse feature. I wish mine would have. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Hey, so we missed some shout-outs. I wanted to give a couple shout-outs real quick. Oh, yeah? So, one is actually a podcast for hackerspaces. I hadn't heard about it previously, and I think it's only on iTunes. It's called Signal, and it's... Right. It seems like it's monthly. So, yeah. So, that's good. Another one that's kind of electronics-y. Good work, aren't you? Yeah. So, I haven't listened yet, but that's something to listen to. Only on iTunes? Yeah, I think it's only on iTunes. It's weird. Jeez. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm not a big fan of iTunes, personally. No, same here. Yeah. But maybe I'm wrong. Anyways. Anyways. Yeah, the other one is the Savage Circuits Chat. Savage Circuits Chat. Wow. That's...

Dave Jones: Yeah, you've been crapping on about that lately. Crapping on? The Savage Circuits thing?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the typical terminology here in Australia. Crapping on? Talking up? Never heard that one yet. You know, talking about? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Anyways. Yeah, so that's pretty cool. It's just like an IRC chat thing, is it? Yeah, it's real simple. Just twice a month. First and third Friday. So, got invited to just drop into that and was chatting for a while on Friday. So, that's pretty cool. I don't know. Right. Yeah, it seems like a lot of the Parallax guys, actually. So, got to meet the...

Dave Jones: Okay, yep.

Chris Gammell: Ken and... I forget the other guy's name. Oh, Joe Grand. He's actually... He actually used to have a TV show. I didn't know about that. Joe Grand.

Dave Jones: Right, yeah. I know. He's the maker, dude.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, Prototype This was his show. Isn't he? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right, right.

Chris Gammell: But it only lasted for a year. So, I don't know. I'll have to check it out. I mean, I don't have a cable, so I don't ever check these shows out. I don't even get to watch Mythbusters, unfortunately. But...

Dave Jones: Ah, right. Ah. Well, you can download them, you know. There's this thing called Torrent.

Chris Gammell: Dave, that is illegal. I am reporting you to the authorities. The MVAA is coming for you.

Dave Jones: Oh, dearity.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's... Yeah, but it was cool sitting in there and just BSing about stuff, so...

Dave Jones: Awesome. Every man, these dogs got their own show. I know. Well, we're not... Did I mention... We're not special, you know. Have I mentioned before on The Amp Hour that... Who's that... What's that geek website? Ah, I'm going to get myself in a pickle here because I'm not going to be able to remember it.

Chris Gammell: It's EEVblog. There's a bunch of geek geeks on there.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. But, um... Anyway, one of these big... You know, one of the big hacker gadget... No, not hacker, but gadget, you know, websites. Gadget review. You know, they just talk about, you know, phones all the time. Yeah. And other gadgets. And it's basically one of the biggest ones in the world. Is it N-Gadget? It's the name. N-Gadget. Yes, N-Gadget. Thank you very much. Yeah. N-Gadget. And have we mentioned this before?

Chris Gammell: I think I did mention it once, but I don't remember what we said about it. You're talking about the TV show, right? Well, they've got this...

Dave Jones: The TV show. They've got this TV show. I don't know whether it's on cable or free-to-air or whatever, but... I think it's just internet. It's like they've got a massive studio... Oh, yeah. They actually produce it. I think they might. They might just produce it for the internet. Yeah. And that's the amazing thing. It's got a studio audience. Like, you know, you'd get any million-dollar primetime TV show, and they've got a massive studio, a massive audience. They have special guests on. They had The Was a couple of weeks back or something. And it's, you know... And the list of people actually producing this thing is just like a huge, you know, $100 million budget TV show. Huh. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's... So I don't know how they can afford to do that when they're just producing video for the internet. God, how much are those advertisers paying?

Chris Gammell: They must be... I mean, they must be picking up on it or something. Because, I mean, we were talking before the show about how much people pay for internet stuff, and it's insane. I mean, like... I think it's just insane in general how much people are paying for advertising, but it's a big business, you know?

Dave Jones: It must be big. Yeah. Because these guys produce a professional TV show, which must cost millions, millions of dollars to actually produce it. They've got to hire a studio, and they've got to, you know, hire... You know, and you go through the list of people, and there's, you know, someone who sweeps the floor, you know? At the end of it, the credits roll down, and there's the floor sweeper or something.

Chris Gammell: You know? Yeah, that's what they're concerned about. They're, oh, we can't make this show. We need a floor sweeper. With that...

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just... Oh, it's crazy.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. Well, I think the real money there is, like, you'll never see that for an electronic show, because the chip makers know that people are going to buy chips, and it's not a big enough audience, but I think that the gadget audience is just... It's a big audience, you know? There's a lot of... It's massive. And a lot of...

Dave Jones: Every geek in the world, you know? And we're talking, you know, 100 million. Right, exactly. I mean, like... Well, maybe not that many, but...

Chris Gammell: Or it's even broader than that, too. I mean, people who have a show... Or who just have a smartphone and are interested in smartphones, not necessarily a geek. They might just want to find out more about it, and they might find that show. Yep. Boom. Big old audience for advertisers, so... No, no. It's massive. Go where the money is.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yeah, that's it. I'm in the wrong business. I'm in this little niche field of electronics. Oh, God. I should be reviewing gadgets.

Chris Gammell: Sitting there talking to some nerd in Cleveland, and man, you were... Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: What's the deal with that?

Chris Gammell: Waste of time. Yeah. That's it. Well, you know what you should do? You should buy scratch-off tickets, but I hear that's not... I hear that's not that lucrative. You posted a link about that.

Dave Jones: I did post a link about this, and what the deal is, is we'll put the link up, of course. Some guy in Toronto, he's a Canadian, and he's a geological statistician. That's a fun job. You know, he's into stats and math, and, you know, well, it's actually very interesting. I used to be in the geological side of things. Oh, okay. And, yeah, he basically calculates where, you know, oil and other stuff is, you know, based on...

Chris Gammell: I mean, you say statistician, and I just go...

Dave Jones: Right, yeah. Anyway, he's a smart dude with numbers. Yeah. Right? And they tell the story in here of how he had... He never bought into the lottery because he knows the odds and all that, and he just couldn't be bothered. Right? So he... Somebody gave him a couple of scratchy tickets, and they were sat in his wallet for a year or something, and he decided, oh, oh, scratch these things, you know? And he scratched them, and he looked at the numbers, and he went, I think there's a pattern here. And it just, you know, it just jumped out at him. Like, it's some noughts and crosses game. Okay? It was some, you know, special variation of... Noughts and crosses? If you've ever played these scratch lotteries, noughts and crosses... Tic-tac-toe. I'm sorry. Tic-tac-toe. That's right. I was going to say,

Chris Gammell: let's make sure we clear it up for the people at home there.

Dave Jones: Right. Noughts and crosses is what we call it here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's cool.

Dave Jones: Because we actually put a nought and a cross, a zero and a cross in the... Right. ...squares. X's and O's. So that's... Yeah, X's and O's. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, anyway, it's a variation of that. It's that game. And he went, I think there's a pattern here. And he just spent a couple of days thinking about it. Like, he didn't even go out and buy more tickets and prove it. Like, he came up with this theory in his head that he knew must be right and he knew he had cracked the code because the ticket actually, before you scratch it, has a bunch of numbers on there. Yeah. And he figured out that just by looking at those numbers, you could tell the odds of whether or not that ticket was going to be a winner or not.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So you could go in the newsagent and just look at the ones that are being displayed and know that one's going to be a winner. And he figured this out all in his head. Yeah. Right? And then he, you know... Now, if I did this, the practical engineer in me would have gone, right, okay, I've got a theory. I'll go out and I'll buy a hundred tickets and, you know, scratch it and see if my theory's right. He didn't even bother. He was so sure that his theory was correct.

Chris Gammell: Mathematicians, man.

Dave Jones: Mathematicians. Bloody mathematicians. He was so sure that, you know, he didn't have to go out and do that. That's awesome, though. And he tried to... Yeah. Anyway, the story, what you were saying is that it's not lucrative, is that he did, once again, did the math and figured out, okay, I've figured out, I've broken the code for this thing. Now, if I did it as a full-time job, I'd have to go around to every news agent, okay, you know, in the state or whatever, and, you know, that'd take X amount of hours to go around to each one looking at X amount of tickets and I'd get X amount return on average. And it would pay less than his day job, which is a consultant for, you know, doing the stats stuff. So, really, he decided, well, this is no value to me. I can't make money out of it, so I may as well tell them about it. It's great. That is great. And they didn't, yeah, and they didn't believe him. You know, he contacted the head dude at the lotteries and they basically just fobbed him off. So, he went, right, he went out and bought, you know, 20 tickets or something and he didn't scratch them. What he did is sorted them into winning and losing piles and he attached a note to it and sent that to the guy and he was 19, he had 19 out of 20 correct. And within a couple of hours, they called him up and went, yeah, oh shit. And they, they actually, they, the game was flawed and they actually took it off the market. So, there you go. Awesome story. I love it. It's a great story.

Chris Gammell: I can't believe you still played a lottery.

Dave Jones: That's because this particular game didn't pay out much. It was a, you know, it was crock. Gotcha. Tell my mum that. She won $100,000 on the scratch lottery.

Chris Gammell: Oh, good lord.

Dave Jones: This was back in 1980. This was back in the early to mid 80s. Wow. Mid 80s, I think, when $100,000 was the top prize. That's a chunk of change

Chris Gammell: right there, huh?

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. No, people win. So, that's why I'm in it.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, that's good conditioning for you to be playing there.

Dave Jones: No, it's not. I play it because, well, $100,000, I wouldn't be impressed with that. I can't quit my job if I win $100,000. That's stupid. I'm in it for the big money. I don't play the scratch lotteries. I just play the regular lotteries which pay out, you know, $5, $10 million, that sort of thing.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah,

Chris Gammell: I'm in it for the big one. You know who could use that is some of that money is free scale. You see that they're...

Dave Jones: What's, what's happened to free scale? Poor free scale.

Chris Gammell: I know. Horrible transition too. Sorry about that. But basically, they got taken private a couple years ago. I don't know if you remember that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, vaguely. I remember because

Chris Gammell: I used some of the chips before and I was worried that they were going to go under and then they got bought out by Blackstone which is like a equity group. So basically, they leveraged all this debt and they said, okay, we're going to go private now and we'll just be able to do whatever we want to and just kind of rework our loans. And now they're going public again. And it's like...

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Of course, because they want to make a shitload of money. I don't know. They're not though. They're doing it because I think they need to pay off some of the debt and they can't... And it's not helping. Oh,

Dave Jones: so that's their only option. They've been forced into it, are they? I think so,

Chris Gammell: yeah. It's ridiculous. Right. But the thing I wanted to point out is just like, do you think there's going to be like a scaling down of chip companies? I mean, we keep seeing these trends that are bigger and bigger because they have to be, right? So like, Intel's building a $5 billion fab and TSMC is... I saw a thing today about them growing 22% this year or something ridiculous like that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: But like, what direction can they go? I mean, you can't go smaller. You'll get eaten up by the big guys, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean,

Dave Jones: you're not allowed

Chris Gammell: to make chips in your basement. Someone told me that. I mean, like...

Dave Jones: Exactly. And that person is right. And I... Yeah, so it's like expand or die, right? Is that...

Chris Gammell: I mean, and so it's like, I think they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place as a... I don't know.

Dave Jones: Well, that's, I guess, not terribly surprising. I don't know. You know, how do you survive as just a low-level chip maker? Have they got a fab of their own or are they a fabless company?

Chris Gammell: Freescale has some fabs. Yeah, they actually have some down in Austin. I mean, you know, Freescale used to be Motorola and then they got spun off and Motorola still makes phones and Freescale makes the chips. That's not for you, Dave. I know you know that, but...

Dave Jones: No, I wasn't sure if Freescale got any of the fabs out of the deal when they spun off. Oh, I think they got all of them. I think...

Chris Gammell: Oh, right. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was the entire Motorola chip division.

Dave Jones: Oh, the entire chip line. Yeah. Right, okay. Yeah, makes sense.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And, you know, I think they moved some of their stuff to like the TSMCs, but not all of it. I think so, but that might be wrong.

Dave Jones: Why? Because they didn't have enough capacity in their own fabs or did they shut some down?

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Operational cost?

Chris Gammell: It's just amazing because it's such a, you know, it's a huge part of the economy, right? Like, if Freescale disappeared tomorrow, right, that would mean automakers would be up a creek. You know, they're really big for automakers.

Dave Jones: Well, the answer is they wouldn't be allowed to fail. Right, exactly. That's the answer, right? They're, you know...

Chris Gammell: It's ridiculous, though.

Dave Jones: There are market forces which keep you afloat, you know, or ensure that you're bought out and some of your chip lines survive, you know, all that sort of stuff. So, I don't know. Will someone come along and just snap them up? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I don't know either. I don't know. The, uh, it's, it's just, it's just like, it's inconceivable the amount of money, like, it directly affects you and me, right? So, like, you love microchip.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And if microchip went out tomorrow, you'd be, you'd be up a creek, right? I mean, not... Well, yeah. I mean, for some projects, right? Not necessarily all of them. No, of course, but no, the whole industry would be... Anyone else, right?

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: There's, there's just like no, there's no way it's ever gonna be different, right? Unless, unless someone else gets just as big and then they eat them up. But, man, it's crazy. It's just, it's just crazy how the, the industry has, has changed over the years and, and obviously I haven't been as, a part of it as long as some older, older people.

Dave Jones: Has it? I don't know. Merges and gobbling up and all that sort of stuff has been happening since, you know, the days of, you know, since the days of the transistor companies.

Dave Jones: that's true, but they weren't, they weren't,

Chris Gammell: they weren't billion dollar companies then, you know, like they weren't, oh, I think they, well, it's a scale, it's a scale of it, you know, like,

Dave Jones: oh, yeah, scale, but still, it, you know, the industry hasn't changed, it's just, you know, it's just, just the actual numbers have gotten bigger, that's all.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Um, so the way things work, I, I don't think it's changed that much.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but the,

Dave Jones: it's, I, I,

Dave Jones: I, they won't go under, companies like that do not just go under. Yeah. Somebody will snap them up for a bargain and keep certain chip lines going and stuff like that. Yeah. So, maybe it'll be Arizona Microchip.

Chris Gammell: Arizona Microchip? Who's that?

Dave Jones: Arizona Microchip, I'm going with their old name.

Chris Gammell: Oh, is that what they used to be? Didn't, didn't you know that?

Dave Jones: they used to be called Arizona Microchip. Oh, no,

Chris Gammell: I didn't know that. See, I know, I know nothing about them.

Dave Jones: Ah, there you go. I don't know when they changed it to just Microchip. Yeah. Um, or even if they technically were called Arizona, but they, you used to, you know, no, I'm sure they were called Arizona Microchip at one stage. Yeah, absolutely. Cause that was branded on everything they had. Yeah. It was Arizona Microchip. So that's, that's how you knew where they came from. They came from Arizona.

Chris Gammell: Right. You know?

Dave Jones: It was,

Chris Gammell: I didn't know that. So no, I, I wouldn't know that, but now you, but now you've told me and now I know. So learning. There you go. Yep.

Dave Jones: So I thought I'd throw in their old name there. Anyway, maybe they'll buy them cause they're making a huge profit at the moment.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, that's good.

Dave Jones: They could gobble up everyone. Microchip.

Chris Gammell: Good for them, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They're, they're one of the few companies who are making a profit at the moment, especially in the microchip. Oh, no,

Chris Gammell: all the tech companies, all the other companies are making tons of money, dude. Don't kid yourself. They all are.

Dave Jones: No, no, no, no. You look at the who's who of the microcontroller market.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: They're making a loss. They're making a loss.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I didn't say, I haven't seen that lately. I guess I'll have to look at that.

Dave Jones: Well, Atmel have not made a cent since they started out.

Chris Gammell: Really?

Dave Jones: Yeah,

Chris Gammell: really.

Dave Jones: It's, you know, maybe one quarter here or there or something like that, but overall they've made a loss every year since they started.

Chris Gammell: Boy, that's going to be depressing.

Dave Jones: You know, yeah, exactly. Wow. That's why they almost went under and microchip tried to buy them and, you know, so, yeah, yes, it's a nasty business. Or, you know, it may have picked up in the last year or so, I think. But yeah, it's like last three, four years has, has been really shocking for the microcontroller manufacturers.

Chris Gammell: yeah, I guess there's just so many entrants in that market, you know, it's just,

Dave Jones: you got to kind of carve out your,

Chris Gammell: your niche, you know, you got to carve out your niche.

Dave Jones: And there's so many products. They've got so many variations. Oh, it's just endless, you know, which is good. Or as a user, I guess.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. It sucks when like, I hate when you have a chip or a part even, you know, and, and you know that they were just trying to satisfy a ton of different markets and you get set into one. And then, and then they're like, oh, sorry, there's no money here. And it's,

Dave Jones: there's no money and they drop it. It's like,

Chris Gammell: it's like you almost want to just design to the biggest person. It would be nice if like, like in the industrial market, right? Industrial and, and like automotive, right? That's kind of the market I work in. And like, you know, if, if Toyota or GM or any of the, or Ford, you know, like if they would just publish some of the chips they're thinking about using, and then I could design, design to that. Cause you know, those chips are going to stick around. They had these contracts where they're going to, they're like, it's exactly. We're going to be around for 20 years. It's like, okay, well I want to use that part too. Yep. That'd be actually, for sure. I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's a service like, I know there's the tear down service, like a, I supply is one of them, but I don't know if they do that for cars.

Dave Jones: Why can't, why can't the chip makers just publish the number of sales for each chip or have, how, how popular each chip is. There's an idea. There's an amp hour idea for the manufacturers. I know they all listen. All the CEOs of all the major companies listen to the amp hour. Yeah. And here's my idea for you on your website. Next to each product, have a little indicator, which shows how popular that product is.

Speaker ?: Oh,

Chris Gammell: that would be nice.

Dave Jones: And then through natural attrition, products will die out. You'll save costs. People won't get stuck with orphan parts. Yeah. Everyone's a winner.

Chris Gammell: That is. Everyone's a winner. I like that one. All right. That is it. There you go. Amp hour original right there.

Dave Jones: My checks add the, the, yes, the invoices in the mail.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, that would be great. And you think about it from a manufacturing standpoint too, then they can optimize processes for, you know, that, that very high runner chip. And you don't have supply issues, you know, like as much because you're cranking it out. If you need, you know, 10% more output, then you push it to TSMC or whoever else is the big fab. And I don't know, maybe they don't want to do it because of competition. I don't know why they wouldn't want to do that.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. I don't know. There's sure. There's dozens of reasons you can think of that. That would be a, you know, a PR nightmare for them or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. They wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, but it's a winner. It is a winner. Yeah. It's a practical winning idea. Yeah. I don't know. They'll, they'll find a million excuses. From the trenches level. That is,

Chris Gammell: that is a great idea for the people that are actually designing. That is something that would be very useful. I think.

Dave Jones: Yep. Absolutely. You know, cause how do you know how popular a party is? You've got, you know, you've got to have this whole knowledge of, you know, all these products that's used in the industry, you know, Oh, okay. This at mail chips using the Arduino and it might be popular. No, because of, well, you know, it might be popular in the Arduino, but the Arduino has only made a hundred thousand over the last, you know, five years. That's not many. That's a drop in the bucket for at mail. You know, how do you know how much, as you said, you know, some, some of the auto makers are using.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Or like to, like television manufacturers, anyone, right? I mean, like,

Dave Jones: Oh, anyone, any consumer, you know,

Chris Gammell: exactly.

Dave Jones: And people making white goods and,

Chris Gammell: you know, they could still play games with all the pricing and everything too. Cause you know, like if, if Panasonic's making a TV, do they still make TVs? I don't know if they do. If, if Samsung is making a TV and they use a certain chip, they don't, they're not going to give you and me the same price that they give Samsung, but.

Dave Jones: Oh no, of course not. but at least you'll be able to get it cause they're churning out fuel parts and more of those popular. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Much better situation for them.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: All right. We'll have to, we'll have to continue talking about that in the future. And maybe, maybe eventually one CEO will listen. Right. Doubtful.

Dave Jones: I don't know. I could call up Steve Senge at microchip. I've got his number.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. You should do that. You should send them the link. You know, if they did that, that would be, that would be bad. You, you seem to love them so much. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Send them a link. Maybe they can get on board.

Chris Gammell: Send them a link, man.

Dave Jones: I might.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Absolutely. The, the power of the Dave Jones right there, man. Right. Influencing. Influencing the market, man. Yep.

Dave Jones: All right. Maybe I'll capture a segment and I'll send him the, you know, I don't want to waste his time listening to the entire. Come on. He'll love it. Right.

Chris Gammell: We talked about, he'll love it. We talked about microchip a bunch, even though I didn't know where they were located or what they were originally called. Right. There you go. Or their mission statement.

Dave Jones: Is, is that on wiki? I wonder if you go to Wikipedia.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. I don't know. I bet it is. You mean like what it used to be called?

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm, I'm, yeah, the history and stuff like that. I'm just, I'm just typing in now.

Chris Gammell: Well, I'm sure it's on there somewhere. We'll, we'll post the link if, if, if there is indeed something on there.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Instead of listening to you.

Dave Jones: Microchip technology. They call it. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We'll let people do their own research. Said everybody could set their, their homepage to random on there.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: All right. Thanks for joining us, everyone. We'll talk to you next week, guys. See ya. Bye.

Chris Gammell: Thank you.