TIL that particle accelerators on a chip are a thing.
We humans are a crazy species.
Vikram Sekar
4,828 posts
Vikram Sekar
@vikramskr
Substack: viksnewsletter.com | Podcast: semidoped.fm | Free daily updates: semidoped.com | Consulting: semiexponent.com
Joined November 2020
- Generative AI meets RF circuit design = game changer • Passive networks tailored by diffusion models. • Specify stop-band/pass-band; AI does the rest. • Pixel patterns are not intuitive to electrical response. Designs getting more abstract. Prepare for a cognitive shift.
- Semiconductors are not like software. You can’t come out of nowhere and suddenly generate semi talent. You can’t vibe-anything your way into expertise. The North Star for my Substack is to simplify the engineering behind semiconductors, and inspire people to choose it as not
- Can someone please explain to me why Amazon AWS has written an open-source finite-element-method electromagnetics engine called PALACE. In Julia. Seriously. Julia.
- 2023 Nobel prize in physics was given for the development of attosecond pulses generated by passing a laser through noble gas. The overtones generated interference to generate really short pulses which enable us to view electrons within atoms and understand how they behave.
- Things were not as secretive 25 years ago. The OG voltage regulator TI's LM109 data sheet has the entire schematic published, along with all the component values. Today, this is unimaginable.
- Photonics is going mainstream. This is why I've been extensively writing about it in my Substack.
- ok it actually works, uggghhh
- If you think Semiconductors is easy, this highly rigorous technical report explains why this isn’t so.
- What's the best resource to start learning silicon photonics from the ground up? I found this book that seems helpful. What's one book or paper that's a must read?
- The whole chip design industry is predicated on the fact that you need advanced degrees for circuit design. I wholeheartedly disagree. Most of this academic gatekeeping is to make people in the industry feel like they are special. Chip design can be taught to anybody.
- This is anxiety inducing RF design process that we are trying to break with AI-assisted methods.
- ARM released the Chiplet System Architecture (CSA) specification. Chiplets have been somewhat of the Wild West without a document like this with guiding principles. I'm going to give this a look over. If you want to, link to document is in the comment.
- Most people shy away from hardware engineering because they look at how much their friends at Netflix and AirBnb get paid. Semiconductors are hard but niche experience can be its own career moat that no-one dare approach without being eaten alive by differential crocodiles.
