MEP EP#260: A Couple Months Ago...

Parker

• Homebrew going big
  • Uncle runs a brewpub down in Alvin, Tx
  • Going to help him repair and rebuild the brewery for post COVID
  • Building more electrical boxes
• Chip shortages hit even as auto chip sales climb
  • Ford and Fiat Chrysler are temporarily closing factories due to limited supplies of electronic components that are used in displays and transmissions
  • Apple wants to make a self-driving electric car by 2024
  • VLSI Research report
    • 4th quarter auto chip sales improved by 30% over the third quarter, reaching $6.2 billion
    • Which is 11% above fourth quarter in 2019
    • Overall auto IC sales for 2020 were down about 6.4% from 2019
  • Tesla may be the best example of what happened in 2020, reaching sales of 499,000 new cars in all of 2020, an increase of 36%

Stephen

• Searching for components kind of sucks sometimes. New idea for making this easier
  • Connectors
  • LDOs and other ICs
  • Simple search removal that doesn't require that the engineer perform their own logic to reach the “perfect part”
  • No More lists or excel sheets - Savable searches
• Watch out for datasheet marketing wank…
  • TL052 precision voltage reference circuit
  • MCP1501T-30E/CHY
  • Opamp calls out max 80mA per channel and 160mA per chip...with low offset the best of all worlds!
  • Circuit works well in multiple designs but new one craps the bed
  • Got to pay attention to those charts - this is actually slightly worse than a normal opamp…..
  • Solution is to transistor buffer