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• WotW
  • Dino (who now has a uStream channel for his workshop)
    • Modular bench
    • Bench with dresser drawers
    • Bench with old Tek scope!
  • Mitch (@mitpatterson)
    • Bench with etching tools laid out
    • Panorama of home lab
• Shoutouts
  • DigiKey and Electronic Design Magazine have a new show!
• Rants
  • DigiKey and Electronic Design Magazine have a new show!
  • We don’t want to register for new shows or for engineering calculator apps for phones.
  • The people who claim to have an idea that will “make millions” but want you to build it for them…because they can’t.
• Follow-Up
  • Intel 14nm fab going to be made possible with new EUV tools.
• Discussion Points
  • Intel wants to charge to upgrade the performance of your existing CPU.
  • Europe wants the chip fabs to come back. Apparently, they just figured out that manufacturing is important.
  • Why are 9V batteries still common in cheapo DMMs?

As a reminder for those interested, the 555 Contest ends tomorrow, March 1st at 11:59 pm EST! Get your entries in now!

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Chris apologizes for the poor audio quality on his end, it was a new setup (again) while the bench is being finished.

• What’s your favorite movie about engineering? Piggybacking on an article by Bill Schewber article from EEtimes.
• Bjork pulls apart a TV and tells us about it. WTF.
  • “You shouldn’t let poets lie to you”
• Intel’s new fab is going down to 14nm! Holy hell!
  • Why Arizona? Why not somewhere with water? Like Cleveland! (we promise, the water isn’t on fire anymore)
• NY wants to bring an engineering school and high tech to NYC? If cost was no issue, perhaps?
• Dave reviews another scope and we talk about system level design
• The battle rages on! An updated roadmap for printed electronics! Chris tells Dave to look for low cost fares to the US!
• You can print wax masks for chips now, perhaps another good step for etching.
• A new podcast exists for hackerspaces, and not just on iTunes as we said in the show.
• Another shout out and place to hang out, the Savage Circuits chat is on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month.
• None of these are as big as the Engadget TV show. How do they get so many people? Good for them!
• Dave talks about an article he read about a mathematician that predicts lottery tickets.
• Freescale going public again after having been private for less than 4 years. Are chip companies too big to fail?

A new Amp Hour initiative:

Chip companies should publish their most popular parts. This would allow smaller manufacturers to target chips they know aren’t going away any time soon. This would help on price and longevity of the part for the designer and would allow manufacturing efficiencies for the chip maker as more people gravitate towards these more popular parts. Think about it, chip companies!

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• WOTW
  • Kibi (a WOTW alum!) send in pictures of a past bench! And a past beefy power amplifier!
  • Jeremy Blum (@sciguy14) submitted pictures of his work workbench on his personal site! Great toaster SMT reflow!
  • Not submitted, but Steve Liebson did a video interview with Jim Williams and we get to see Jim’s lab.

• Events
  • Analog aficionados meeting out in Silicon Valley. Sounds awesome!
• Rant
  • TI is SO thoughtful to let us upload videos for them to keep! Wow, thanks guys!
• Discussion Points
  • Dave did a review of the new Agilent Scope! Great teardown!
  • Agilent moving manufacturing for low end back into the US. Is this a new trend?
  • Karl’s documentary still isn’t done, but will be an interesting look into local electronics manufacturing in Australia.
  • Science funding is under threat in the US, but Obama is pushing for more funding in next year’s budget.
  • Neil DeGrasse Tyson explains why science funding is important regardless.
  • New wireless system for cell phones called “LightRadio” could get rid of towers.
  • Dave turned down his wireless router, but does he have ElectroMagnetic sensitivity?
  • Cold fusion is back in the news. Dave thinks it’s viable in <20 years, based on a documentary he saw recently.
  • Microchip is selling already programmed parts under different part numbers. Cool idea!
  • At the recent SavageCircuits chat, EOD asked our opinion of the Parallax Propeller.
• WTF
  • DigiKey sent Dave a catalog?? And from Switzerland no less!

  Ferudun Yurdabak emailed Dave with a photo is his old 555 timer chip, the exact same batch as Dave’s one – amazing coincidence after 34 years!
  

For reference, the WTF soundclip comes from here: End Of The World

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This week on The Amp Hour, Dave and Mightyohm Jeff Keyzer join forces to talk about:
• Jeri was naughty and got thrown out of the Designcon conference!
• Workbench of the Week from SnakeBite & Jeff’s buddy Tony
• The new one-stop EE shop, EEweb.com
• Jeff rants about Eagle and the lack of IPC footrints
• Forest Mims autobiography:
  Siliconnections: Coming of Age in the Electronic Era
• Job interviews techniques of employers
• Ridiculous packaging from HP and Newark
• And how to sneak into a trade show

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• The 555 contest continues onward! Everyone is getting excited!
  Dave’s classic 1976 vintage Signetics 555 timer chip (which he destroyed! RIP). Can anyone beat it?
  
• WOTW
  • William
    • L-shaped bench photos
  • Laurence White
    • Photo tour of the workshop
  • Mr. J from Boston
    • Home workbench
    • Radio gear
• Rants
  • Dave doesn’t like how all those cupcakes he’s sending to US Senators have been blasted with high energy rays!
• Shoutouts
  • Dino Segovis linked here from his site!
  • MAKE has a new live show! Great production value!
• Discussion Points
  • Dave plays the lotto!
  • Plastic transistors are improving in the lab…could help for future printable electronics.
  • Using lasers in board/chip construction followup:
    • @chrisindallas alerts us to PBeam technology for chips
    • And laser board cutters are already available for £80K
    • Cherish notes there are external forces pushing new methods to reduce chemicals in processing
  • Perhaps the economy is picking up? NI plans to increase headcount 19% next year.
  • ADI and NI have a free SPICE package that is pretty fancy. Bloated software but Chris liked it at first glance.
  • Microchip still charges $900 for open-source software you can download and compile for free.
  • Intel had a bit of a snafu with one of their latest chips. Time for heads to roll? Or is it a $700 million lesson like at IBM back in the day? (thanks to Eduardo for the link!)
• Videos
  • David Bowie’s Space Oddity
  • The Brown Note (Noise) episode on South Park
  • Mythbuster’s investigation of  the (busted) brown note theory
  • Super Awesome Sylvia
    
  • WTF, mate?
  • Another Gammell on YouTube has some cool soldering videos