#466 – An Interview with Ryan Cousins

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Welcome, Ryan Cousins of Krtkl!

• Don’t forget to fill out the 2019 listener survey! Closes November 22nd
• Krtkl’s embedded/FPGA platform is called Snickerdoodle, which is based on the Xilinx Zynq.
• Ryan and his team got started working in the medical field working on mechatronics, doing the same stuff over and over again for customers.
• Saving time from development risk
• Example where “wires” on a base board were hooked up
• Greg Davill’s fantastic bodge wiring
• The Snickerdoodle has a low end and high end product option:
  • Snickerdoodle One is 115
  • Snickerdoodle Black is 245
• piSmasher
• Customers are doing up to 10K units per year.
• Started the company about 5 years ago
• Biggest area of interest is in video space
• Running up against the edge of what the part can do
• Since they are targeting industrial customers, Krtkl have to keep supporting older boards
• Challenge has been keeping community engaged
• There are other Zynq modules out there, like the Zed board ($450). These are more like traditional dev boards.
• Crowdfunded 4 years ago on Crowdsupply
• Ryan was surprised how critical (ahem) people were of the product.
• Chris checked and he said something nice on the interview with Clint Cole
• Software layer is an important differentiator
• Krtkl supported Ubuntu Linux out of the box
• Working on streamlining the IP, they might eventually have an “app store” for reconfigurable logic IP blocks.
• Custom peripherals need still need drivers in Linux
• “Getting linux to run on this thing was more effort than building the hardware”
• Zynq book
• Pynq, which shows how to use Python for FPGAs
• How are customers using this product?
  • Dual core system running 6 axis arm
  • Remote sensing, needed to be lower power. They put the high power module in the FPGA in deep sleep mode.
  • Company doing pinball accessory
  • Smart retail applications
• There are really two main categories: mechatronic or high bandwidth (things like video)
• It’s a mix for how many are using linux
• Krtkl is consulting on 2-3 development projects at any given time
• “If you want to get a consulting business off the ground, start a crowdfunding campaign”
• Still waiting on one line item from the crowdfunding campaign to have shipped out 100% of orders.
• Check out the company at krtkl.com and their main product at snickerdoodle.io
• Read more about the strife during the crowdfunding campaign on their update page of Crowdsupply
• Reach out to Ryan by email
• Read more about getting started on the Snickerdoodle campaign
• “It’ll only get better with time”