MEP EP#208: Brian Kaczynski with Second Sound

Brian Kaczhnski

• Brian earned his Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2001
• Has worked since 1999 as a mixed-signal/RF ASIC designer focusing mainly on LAN applications such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, etc
• His passion for music and desire to bridge the gap between acoustic/electric instruments and music synthesizers (both analog and digital) inspire his current work

Second Sound

• Why the name Second Sound?
  • It sounds cool and refers to a quantum mechanical phenomenon
• How many employees?
• ACO100 and ACO160 ICs
  • What is an audio controlled oscillator?
    • Frequency detection
  • ACO160 vs ACO100
  • Moving from custom Ic to Firmware solution?
    • What drove this decision?
    • How does this differ from the hardware solution?
    • Will you be offering the ACO100 IC?
  • Development Boards
• Integrated Circuit creation
  • How did you go about designing these chips?
    • Software?
    • Required Files?
  • What was your process of getting them manufactured?
  • Tips and tricks for people wanting to manufacture Ics?
  • Challenges and what to avoid?
• What changed to enable going from a chip design to a MCU firmware based design?