The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

A weekly show about the trends in the electronic industry.

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#127 – FPGA, Xess, 32 Bit – Quirky Qualitative Questions


A Raised Hand

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  • 3d Printers are here to stay, at the very least as prototyping tools.
  • OSHW’s true test will be a large company continuing to stay completely open as they grow.
  • Sparkfun has had some growing pains with their Free Day, which is a shame; that was a really cool program!
  • How do can electronics survive extreme cold? Start by keeping them dry!
  • Should you learn about FPGAs? Or 32 bit processors? We think the former in a classroom setting and the latter on your own online.
  • Online, there are resources like Xess and the Papillio
  • Why do power supplies hum? Vibration of the components.
  • The mechanical part of components can also lead to drift.
  • [tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP3Z_N8IkQQ[/tube]
  • [tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq-1vTQzM4E[/tube]
  • Eric’s was the one mentioned in episode 116 as a request from his lady.
  • Schaum’s Outlines help people learn or relearn topics in a condensed format.
  • The Art of Electronics is always a good place to re-learn basics (and advanced topics). Maybe not the best for beginners.
  • We now have a page where you can leave suggestions for which guests we should invite on The Amp Hour. Special shoutouts to people that can introduce us!
  • Sometimes learning just takes time and a bunch of experinece. This is the ethos behind Learn Python The Hard Way.
  • The key to electronics was well put by Jeri:
  • [tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhQ7d3BK3KQ[/tube]

Though this was a show dedicated to just Q&A, you’re always welcome to ask questions on the show. The best place is on the /r/TheAmpHour subreddit or contact us. We love audio and video questions!

Thanks to ARM Climate Research Facility for the picture!

Comments

  1. Could someone remind Dave that it’s actually a “hardware definition language” (e.g VHDL, verilog) what he’s referring as “high definition language”. Definitly there was something mixed up in the grey matter.

  2. Wow guys! That was almost like having an Amphour done specifically for me. Thanks!

    It may not be me who moved Dave to finish the uSupply but I will take the bragging rights anyway.

    Cheers

  4. The only question that is ‘stupid’ is the one that never gets asked. And if the lecturer doesn’t feel like answering or making an effort to actually convey the information (and not just reciting his 20 year old notes), he needs to be reeducated himself . Especially if he’s the type that only cares for his research. Teaching is part of the game, no lame excuses.

  6. Yes, it is a real shame that many of the practical aspects of electronic components and test & measurement aren’t taught in the universities. I was lucky to have a couple of summer and part time jobs during school that taught me more about the practicalities of electronics than I ever learned in the coursework (TV repair shop, and more).

  7. Thanks for the answer!!!. And again, sorry for my crappy English. Here in Argentina you don’t need to learn any new language unless you move like 5000 kilometers or so. Argentinian is correct, go Dave!!!.

    And yes, I will take the course in FPGA. I have experience with 8/16 bit microcontrollers, but none with FPGA only a couple classes at the college 7 years ago, which doesn’t count at all.

    ARM looks interesting for doing big and diverse projects (like using USB + ethernet/WiFi + graphic displays + etc; all at once using RTOS or embedded Linux).
    On the other hand FPGA is – I think – for very specific data processing (real time video processing for example).

    Also I agree that the “software people” can compete with “electronic people” in ARM stuff. But for them would be very difficult to take on FPGA, unless you have a huge talent to learn by yourself like Jery Ellsworth or something.

    So yeah!!! less competitors with FPGA!!!. Awesome, thank you very much guys, it was very clarifying.

    • Taking an FPGA course is definitly a good idea, because without it you will not know what these babies can do. Having some experience with programmable logic in the back of the head will help you out if you have a project with a weird digital interface that is impossible to bitbang.

      You will also get a strong grasp on fine grained parallelism and pipelining, that will also help you for massively parallelized software plattforms ( like GPUs ), which are definitly becoming increasingly important for high performance DSP Tasks.

  9. Open Source software company: Red Hat (Revenue $1.13 billion (2012))
    Open Source hardware company: former Ettus Research (before National bought them), makers of USRP (software radios)
    Secret sauce is charging for support.

  10. Another great podcast gents, keep up the good work! I’ve gone through about 20 in the past 2 weeks while laying out boards in work.

    I find it hard to believe that in such a boyant industry such as the technology sector (that keeps the economy going), that electronics and programming (embedded and object-orientated) is not part of the national curriculum in schools. Hopefully the likes of Maker groups, Auduino and Raspberry Pi will try to inspire a new generation to get involved.

    Btw I won’t be holding my breath for the Third Ed of “The Art of Electronics” any time soon!