Moore's Lobby: Where engineers talk all about circuits

In this unique episode of the Moore’s Lobby podcast, we get to hear from not only the technologists and executives behind the company but the investor who is helping them make their dreams a reality. As an electrical engineer, Chrissy Meyer had spent years working in product design on large projects at Apple, including the Apple iPod Nano and Touch. She is all too familiar with the outdated methods of hardware collaboration and design reviews—printed schematics, highlighters, and engineers huddled around a conference room table. According to Kyle Dumont, a first-time entrepreneur as Allspice CTO, their goal is centered “around making it easy to build a workflow and collaboration process for electronics designs.” In his earlier career working in hardware at both large and small companies, he also “became pretty frustrated with how difficult it was to collaborate on our electronics designs.” Valentina Ratner, CEO of Allspice, goes on to explain that the industry is “trying to build colonies in Mars, and I don't think we're going to get there with Google Sheets and PDFs and screenshots.” In her current role as a partner at Root Ventures investing in early-seed tech startups, the engineer inside Meyer had a “visceral” reaction when Ratner and Dumont explained their vision to bring Git-style collaboration software to the hardware world. Meyer explains that “there was never a doubt in my mind that this problem that they were describing was very real. Because the truth is I had lived it for 15 years.” Meyer said, “I had to take off my engineering hat for a quick second and say, okay, reign in the excitement. Yes, this is a fantastic product for an engineer. Is this a great investment?...the truth is, there are far fewer electrical engineers than there are software developers.” With the backing of Root Ventures, Ratner and Dumont founded Allspice and quickly got to work. As a first-time entrepreneur and CEO, Ratner admits that she had to learn a lot quickly because “there are just so many unknowns.” Reflecting on some early lessons, Ratner shares some interesting advice for fellow tech entrepreneurs: “It's less about convincing anyone and more about finding the people that already believe in the version of the world that you're trying to build.” Other highlights of this round-table discussion include: -Meyers’ belief that “'there's this common misconception that in order to approach VCs, you need to have a fully polished pitch deck, and you need a financial model and forecasts and projections.” -Insights on one of the favorite features of Allspice: the ability to run digital, asynchronous hardware design reviews -Where Meyer thinks hardware and software companies are going to win in the future

Engineering careers, even very successful ones, don’t always progress in a nice orderly manner. In this episode of Moore’s Lobby, Peter Wawer, Division President of Green Industrial Power at Infineon Technologies, retraces a fascinating technical and business career that is still going strong. As a second-generation electrical engineer, the industry still excites him. Wawer says that electrical engineering is “a fascinating topic” that allows you to “innovate and develop things to the greater good.” In his encouragement to the next generation of engineers, he states that “it's very rewarding tackling the issues and the challenges that we face” in society today. Over the last decade, he has worked in power electronics at Infineon as they have invested and developed wide bandgap technology to serve important industries that are shaping our world: renewable energy, electrification, data centers, and more. In addition to his extensive work on multiple leading-edge technologies, Wawer has been inside just about every corporate transition you can imagine. These have ranged from spinoffs and billion-dollar acquisitions to bankruptcy and government-rejected purchases. When discussing major spinoffs like the creation of Infineon from Siemens, Wawer describes the “mixed” feelings within the company. Some view the larger company “as an advantage” by providing “more critical mass and more diversity.” While others see the benefits of a smaller company “being more focused.” Wawer got started in the nascent silicon PV industry during his graduate studies and early career at Siemens. Then, after a number of years working on embedded Flash, he moved back into the solar industry; a time that he describes as “big fun” with the industry really beginning to take off. In this Moore’s Lobby conversation with host Daniel Bogdanoff, Peter Wawer also discusses: -The history and differences between thin-film and thick-film solar -Why different semiconductor memory technologies—DRAM and Flash—are not fabricated in the same fabs -Unique characteristics of trench and planar silicon carbide MOSFETs -The performance and reliability challenges that impact power electronics beyond just the semiconductors

Matthias Wagner learned early in his career that not everything is like an engineering “marketing video…all so streamlined and perfect.” Sometimes you have to dive into a project with no documentation and no roadmap and “figure it out now.” That fearless, can-do attitude has led him on a circuitous and amazing route into, out of, and now back into the electronics world where he is leading Flux as they try to remake the PCB design flow. While others have previously tried and failed, Wagner recognized that many of these were “too small of dreams to make any meaningful change…you just need to start from scratch.” And yeah, that's scary. And it's a lot of work, don't get me wrong, it's very hard. But then what else were you going to do with your time that was worthwhile? One of Wagner’s career pivots was out of the electronics industry and into the music industry. In this fascinating interview, Wagner reflects on that decision and states, “that was a really dumb idea at the time, but I made it work.” And, boy, did he ever! During his foray into the music industry, Wagner’s work sold over 1 billion units across the globe and was honored with platinum and gold records. His song, Axel F by Crazy Frog, has nearly 3.8 billion (yes, billion with a b) views on YouTube. And we haven’t even mentioned his experiences developing energy systems for Burning Man that then lead to working at Facebook on products with billions of users. You will just have to listen to hear about those. And, after listening to this episode, you might be inspired to “give yourself permission to dream big dreams.” Other highlights from this Moore’s Lobby interview with Matthias Wagner include: -Why hardware engineers are jealous of software developers -The competition between hard core gamers and general users when developing Oculus -What the PCB and electronics industry can learn from developments in the music industry -Learning how to run a business by NOT running a business

I’ll bet that you didn’t know that the original concept for what became the Apple Thunderbolt interface involved optical communication. Well, in this fascinating podcast with Dr. Mader, you will learn that intriguing backstory and much more. Mader also provides a helpful introduction to silicon photonics technology and applications. Importantly, OpenLight’s business model is designed to allow them to become an Arm-like IP provider for silicon photonics. “We’re the first open siliconics platform that has the lasers and amplifiers integrated on the chip,” explains Mader. With the OpenLight Process Design Kit (PDK), customers can integrate InP lasers and amplifiers directly into their silicon IC designs at Tower Semiconductor. While the silicon can be employed to guide, modulate, and detect light, you need the InP to amplify. OpenLight literally brings the silicon and the InP together with molecular bonding. While silicon photonic is already making inroads in a number of important applications, Mader is “excited about the long tail of applications” enabled by OpenLight and their customers. In addition, Mader recounts his rich technology background that includes developing a patent while interning at Apple, being involved in an early Amazon commercial product, directing engineering at a startup that was inquired by Intel, and his family connections to the legendary Fairchild Semiconductor and our podcast’s name inspiration, Gordon Moore. So, listen in for other interesting tidbits from this discussion with Mader, including these technical insights: -A clear description of a silicon photonics system -What makes a quality integrated laser? -How amplitude modulation (AM) and phase modulation (PM) are employed is laser systems

“It’s a magical world.” After several decades in the chip design industry, Stelios Diamantidis might be just as fascinated by the work he gets to do today as when he saw his first computer as a child growing up in Greece. Inspired by the success of computers and AI systems in defeating humans in strategy games like chess and Go, Diamantidis wondered, “what if we were to one day be able to treat chip design as a game, a very complex game?” Armed with that question, Diamantidis and his Synopsys colleagues got to work. Eventually, that led to their DSO.ai (design space optimization using AI) product. As Diamantidis explains in the interview, they started on smaller challenges in the IC design flow and have expanded over the past few years. “I'm extremely excited that this…technology has provided a framework for all of them, no exceptions so far, to actually come up with great solutions.” When discussing IC design optimization, Dimantidis states, “everybody has their own definition of the problem.” CPU designers want to optimize speed, GPU designers are focused on reducing energy consumption, and flash memory designers “are very paranoid about size because they're going to manufacture tens or hundreds of millions of units.” In this Moore’s Lobby interview with host Daniel Bogdanoff, Diamantidis shares his experiences at an early pioneering tech company working with “some of the most remarkable folks I’ve ever met” while solving problems that were “the stuff of science fiction.” He also shares insights from founding two different EDA technology companies of his own. Here are a few other interesting stories and anecdotes from this fascinating interview with Diamantidis: -How some life decisions come down to snow versus palm trees -About how budding computer programmers in Greece used to share their code through a print magazine—our younger audience might find that hard to believe -What Jurassic Park, US President Bill Clinton, and Stelios’ early dreams have in common -It’s not really what you miss, but what you don't know you miss There is much more, so go listen for yourself!

Fern Yoon always enjoyed learning how things work. However, like many, or even most, electrical engineers, she grew up with a very limited understanding of the profession. Even through college, she still had a narrow understanding of what engineers actually do on the job. (Hmm…maybe this is why attracting people to engineering careers is difficult?). After beginning her career with Texas Instruments as a thin film process engineering intern, Fern had the opportunity to go on a job rotation where she could see there were “a lot of different roles that existed that I honestly didn't realize.” This experience opened her eyes to a new world of possibilities and find her true satisfaction in working with customers and being able to take in the big picture. Fern’s excitement comes across as she discusses working as a fab engineer, helping build a ruggedized laptop, and in her current position working on vehicle electrification. When I started working in automotive ten-plus years ago, cars had a big emphasis on sustainability, emissions, and of course, reliability. Fast forward ten years, the cars are starting to look like a supercomputer on wheels. In her 15 years at TI, Fern has steadily worked her way up the ranks and learned a lot of valuable lessons about working in teams, collaborating with customers, and charting your career path. In this second episode of All About Circuits’ coverage of women in engineering month, Fern provides interesting insights and anecdotes that you will not want to miss, including: -How vehicle electrification is probably impacting more in our cars than you imagine -Why electrical engineering was “the lesser of four evils” -Her best advice to engineers -Why you shouldn’t be afraid to learn that you don’t like something

Beginning with her humble roots in Delhi, India, Deepali Trehan recounts her story of overcoming the odds to become a leader at one of the most respected technology companies in the world. Encouraged, supported, and even challenged by her family and influential teachers along the way, Trehan’s remarkable journey is an inspiration for everyone from students thinking about engineering to teachers, leaders, and mentors looking to invest their time and energy into others. How can I build the mindset of embracing and learning from failures and setbacks and build that resilience? It's never a story of how you became successful. It's always a story of how many times you failed, and what did you learn from those failures to get to where you are today? On the technology side, Trehan provides insights on several of the latest hardware advancements in Intel’s Agilex FPGAs, structured ASICs, AI, and chiplets. She discusses how the latest technologies are increasing performance per watt by 2X over competing technologies as power consumption is becoming as important as execution speed. We are thrilled that this episode is part of All About Circuits’ coverage of women in engineering month. Yet, the advice and encouragement Trehan provides is valuable to everyone. Listen in as she provides insights on: -Pushing the boundaries of your role when needed. -Never allowing anybody to write a job description that could limit you. Go write your own! -“Confidence is not, ‘I know it all.’ Confidence is”...well, you will just have to listen to the episode to find out! Other highlights from this amazing interview with Deepali Treehan include: -Why you're never going to be 100% ready to take on the next role. -How to expect and embrace surprises, even knowing that some will be fun and great, while others will not. -The three sets of questions that help keep her and her team focused on the right things.

Season 6 of Moore's Lobby brings you new conversations with some of the most fascinating leaders in the electronics industry. Join host Daniel Bogdanoff as he dives deep with engineers, inventors, executives, and more about the hottest trends and most interesting technologies that are shaping our future.

Duncan Haldane has always approached problems a little differently. In high school, he scavenged auto parts to build robots. In college, Haldane was mimicking biology to create two Guinness world-record robots: the speedy, slightly disturbing X2-VelociRoACH (video) and the crazy, jumping Salto (video). Now he is leading JITX as it builds a new design flow process to automate circuit board design. I think the motivation is, how do you take the best of how we as a species know how to design hardware and apply it to every single design? How do you make the world's most expert knowledge reusable, repeatable, scalable, in the way that software is? They generate designs with code rather than schematics and use AI to help automate the flow and improve rule checking. According to Haldane, JITX software is targeted at senior engineers to make them more productive. The goal is to automate routine tasks like pin assignments, design checks, and even help users’ identify suitable parts that are in stock at distributors. Haldane recounts how they began designing for customers using early versions of their tool and kept improving by “noticing what didn't work and what was really bad.” He added that they are “making a tool for experts,” so it must “meaningfully help them very quickly, or it's not worth anything at all.” Other highlights from this Moore’s Lobby interview of Duncan Haldane include: -Why “robots suck pretty bad as compared to animals” - How simple errors in mass distribution calculations can result in robots that “spin like a maniac” - Discussion of the data challenges that circuit and PCB designers still face - Advice for tech entrepreneurs who are pursuing venture funding

Like most engineers, Michael Armstrong was first inspired by his high school English class…Wait, that can’t be right? Indeed it is! Since then, Armstrong’s career has taken numerous unexpected twists and turns that include pistachios, designing a PhD program on a napkin, and becoming an unintentional Disney Imagineer. Armstrong got involved in electric aviation long before it was made cool by Uber (yes, Uber). During his distinguished career, he has worked with many company names that we would associate with aviation, including NASA and Rolls-Royce. Armstrong has long been asking the questions: “What does the next aircraft of the future really look like? And, how do technologies like electrification change the way you think about what a good aircraft looks like?” And now, he is leading efforts to create high voltage, high power, high-reliability battery systems for electric aircraft propulsion. This includes a current program to complete the first flight certification of a battery that will propel the all-electric Diamond Aircraft eDA40. The technology is amazing, but Armstrong’s stated goal is for “the battery to be the most boring system on the plane.” And that drives his focus on safety and reliability. Drawing from his career working on electric aviation from full systems down to batteries, Armstrong provides interesting insights on battery technology, electric aviation, and even deciding upon an engineering career path. You will not want to miss this fascinating Moore’s Lobby episode as he discusses: -How electric propulsion will allow designers to complete reimagine aircraft -The massively different challenges presented by electric aviation when compared to electric vehicles -Working on multiple NASA X-plane programs, including the flying harmonica -Why after delivering a battery, “in some ways your job has just begun.”

In this Industry Tech Days 2022 keynote panel discussion, we get to hear from three industry leaders: - Michael Knight, President of the Exponential Technology Group and Senior VP of Corporate Business Development at TTI. - Jeff Newell, Senior VP of Products at electronics distributor Mouser Electronics. - Misha Govshteyn, CEO of MacroFab, a contract manufacturing company serving the electronics industry. You don’t thrive in the turmoil of the electronics industry without seeing challenges as opportunities. This is evident throughout this discussion. Misha Govshteyn demonstrated this attitude as he reflected on the last couple of years: It's messy, but I got to be honest with you. I love It. We're in wartime mode, and I think we're trying to build a very different model for how to build product and how to do manufacturing. Believe it or not, it's actually very difficult to do without a crisis. Jeff Newell also has a lot of positive things to say about the unique opportunities of our current situation, including: If you give the engineers time to really think and create versus having to go to meetings and some of the overhead things associated with working in an office environment, I think we're going to see a lot of cool things come out of that environment…I think the number of new products is going to accelerate as we get through the next few years. If I were an engineer in today's world, I'd be very excited about that. This is a spirited discussion, and everyone from executives to engineers and students can learn something from it. Our Moore’s Lobby host, Daniel Bogdanoff, leads a discussion that includes: - Gray and black market products and their relation to e-waste - Component engineers? What are they and why your company might need them - Why EE hardware engineers might be undervalued in the market - Advice for early career and student engineers

Wei has always been at the cutting edge of hardware and software as Intel transformed from a PC-based hardware company to a world leader in data centers, cloud, mobile, and now AI solutions. He spearheaded compiler development that set world records for performance on parallel servers and supercomputers. How impressive are his accomplishments at Intel? Wei and his teams have received not one, not two, but FIVE of the prestigious Intel Achievement Awards. Perhaps more importantly, Wei always seems to be having fun, even if he might be “stuck in the Matrix.” In this Moore’s Lobby episode, Wei provides his insights on hardware and software co-design, AI reference kits, and advances in CPUs and GPUs. You will enjoy this interview with host Daniel Bogdanoff as they discuss not only AI, but also: - Hardware is an accelerator for software. “It's not the other way around. It's not!” - Why Wei and Intel are encouraging and investing in the AI open-source movement - Wei’s three key pieces of advice for early-stage engineers or students

Starting his engineering education by taking classes at Caltech under Carver Mead, one of “one of the luminaries of computer VLSI design,” Sam Naffziger “really got excited about the VLSI design field” early in his career. That excitement hasn’t waned a bit as he continues to tackle important challenges in low-power circuit and system design. Low-power design techniques like boost and adaptive clocking were brand new in the early 2000s, and not much interest to teams focused almost solely on performance. So, Sam had to sneak some of those low-power features into early designs: There was another engineer who had a little tiny little microcontroller for other functions to manage the I/O interfaces, and so I managed to get a backdoor path into that microcontroller and some code space so we could actually sneak in, so that the design leads didn't actually know we had this back door. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history: So we got this stuff in there, and it proves so valuable…that suddenly it became an essential element for all future processors. So valuable that it is now used in everything from smartphones to desktop PCs and the latest supercomputers. Naffziger has had such a fascinating career in the integrated circuit world that you will not want to miss a minute of this Moore’s Lobby interview with our host Daniel Bogdanoff. Some of the other great topics in this episode are: -Early developments of in-order and out-of-order computer architectures -Why AMD pays attention to the overclocking community -Is performance per watt more important than raw performance? -Sam’s key role in one of the most famous Caltech pranks of all time!

Zoox is designing cars with autonomy as a primary requirement from the outset. That means no drivers, no steering wheel, and no gas or brake pedals. As their motto highlights, Zoox builds cars for riders, not drivers. In this interesting keynote interview from Industry Tech Days 2022, Ryan McMichael of Zoox and our Moore’s Lobby host, Daniel Bogdanoff, discuss sensor systems for high-altitude balloons and next-generation autonomous vehicles. While Ryan is having a fascinating career in engineering, his original dream was to pursue something entirely..and I mean, entirely…different in college. And even after transitioning to engineering, it was a “happy accident” that led him to specialize in optics. There are many other interesting tidbits in this interview that definitely make it worth a listen, including: -How ADAS sensors now include much more than cameras and lidar these days -Why Zoox is focusing on mobility-as-a-service -The favorite pop culture autonomous vehicle at Zoox

In this keynote interview from Industry Tech Days 2022, we hear from two leaders at electronics industry heavyweight companies—Digi-Key and Molex. Dave Doherty is the President and COO of distributor Digi-Key Electronics while Joe Nelligan is the CEO of Molex, a leading supplier of connectors and interconnect components. Both of these gentlemen started their careers as engineers and still have an enthusiasm for and understanding of the challenges that design engineers face today.

As we think about advancements in the semiconductor world, it is typically focused on nanometer feature sizes and new transistor technologies like FinFETs and RibbonFETs. But, Steven Kosier, CTO of SkyWater points out that: At any particular technology node, there are all sorts of other things that silicon can do to improve the world…power management efficiencies…superconducting chips…silicon photonics chips…and microfluidic chips. There are all sorts of things that you can do with the same equipment set and a little ingenuity. In this Moore’s Lobby interview, host Daniel Bogdanoff and Steven Kosier discuss the unique challenges and opportunities available at a pure-play semiconductor fab that focuses on technology co-creation with customers that need to develop and manufacture new technologies. In one of the most interesting sections, Steven explains how chip designers can get access to free EDA tools, download free IP libraries, and manufacture free 130nm silicon ICs in collaboration with Google and eFabless. Did I mention free? Here I will echo Steven’s comment: There's nothing stopping you from designing a chip and changing the world with it…You can go do it right now. And it's just awesome!” Other highlights from this engaging discussion about semiconductor technology and foundry business include: -SkyWater’s collaboration with Purdue University to create a new innovation center for creating new technologies and educating the next generation of semiconductor engineers -Steven’s interesting entrance into the electrical engineering world - Why accelerated radiation testing for satellite electronics doesn’t always work

Season 5 of Moore's Lobby brings you new conversations with some of the most fascinating leaders in the electronics industry. Join host Daniel Bogdanoff as he geeks out with CTOs, inventors, engineers, and more about the hottest trends and most interesting technologies that are shaping our future.

While he is currently the VP of Engineering at what is probably the largest computing company in the world, Bill Vass was not always convinced a career in computing was a good option: My primary major was in geology, actually, because I never thought people would actually pay you just to do computers. I always thought it would be using computers for other things. So, I studied marine biology, geology, and computer science. In this episode of Moore’s Lobby, we get to hear from one of the tech gurus at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on topics that include artificial intelligence; machine learning; portable, ruggedized, high-density storage; quantum computing; and explosions. Yes, explosions! Other fun topics include a discussion of Bill’s view of the Metaverse. I won’t give it all away, but it is definitely more than AR/VR goggles and involves everyone’s favorite spy, 007. After you listen to Bill explain how he graphs out his time on his calendar, you will get some insight into how he has forged such an amazing career. It might even get you to start graphing your own calendar and time usage! And, be sure to listen to the end for a truly fascinating story about how Star Trek influenced the technology we use every day. Other highlights from this fast-paced episode include: Why it would be fun to visit Bill’s barnA 5-pound snowcone and a 50-pound snowball?The best engineers and coders are also…well, you will have to listen to find out how Bill completes this sentence!

Dipti Vachani fell in love with technology during her high school years when the idea of being able to write code and magically make something do what she wanted amazed her. Her programming skills, typing speed, and… After graduating from Texas A&M with a BS in Computer Engineering where she was the only woman in her graduating class, Dipti spent 17 years at Texas Instruments. During her time at TI, she worked on numerous projects including automotive audio systems and low-power digital signal processors. As she worked her way up to a Vice President role, Dipti also led the creation of TI’s Sitara brand of Arm microprocessors. In this podcast, Dipti reflects fondly on that early work: “It was fun and no day was the same. You came in and you took technology to solve problems for your customers…and when you figured it out and they were happy, it felt like joy, like you accomplished something.” Now, in her current role at Arm, Dipti is helping bring the automotive and IoT worlds together as they both begin “to look like a network of networks.” With IoT, Arm is looking to transform every industry including industrial, retail, home, cars, and agriculture. While Dipti is active in mentoring younger women in engineering, in this interview she provides important guidance for all engineers about setting boundaries in your career and knowing when it might be time to move on to another position. Other highlights from this lively episode include: -How corporate “frenemies” must come together to grow markets -The important distinction between mentorship and advocacy, particularly as it relates to women in engineering -Why Arm is the place for Vachani as she looks to leave a legacy -The “Junk in the trunk” of automotive compute applications

When your junior high school balsa wood bridge is the envy of MIT professors, it is probably a good bet you will have a distinguished engineering career. Argo AI’s VP of Firmware and Hardware Zach Little knew from a pretty early age that he wanted to work in technology. But not even he could have imagined the diverse set of companies he would work for. Zach already had a fascinating career arc prior to joining Argo AI. And now he is working on advanced hardware and firmware to make fully autonomous driving a reality. In this entertaining interview with Moore’s Lobby’s Daniel Bogdanoff, Zach retraces his career path and talks about the current challenges and opportunities when building AVs in collaboration with Volkswagen and Ford. There are a lot of good tech discussions that you will not want to miss including single-photon lidar detection and the challenges of detecting black cars at long range. Other highlights include: How the west coast beckoned this midwestern young man with…free soda?The different challenges posed by developing AVs for both Miami and MunichThe connection between USB keyboards and AVsZach’s uncomfortable first ride in an autonomous vehicle