Podcasts · Business

The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo: Chips, Devices, and Electronics Engineering Conversations

Fexingo

232 episodes

Lucas and Luna sit down at a lab bench cluttered with oscilloscopes and prototype boards to talk about the engineering decisions that shape the chips powering modern life. Each episode takes one piece of hardware — a new RISC-V core, a GaN power amplifier, a MEMS accelerometer — and examines its design trade-offs, yield challenges, and market positioning. They discuss why Intel’s 20A node matters for foundry customers, how TSMC’s CoWoS packaging affects AI accelerator supply, and what the CHIPS Act subsidies mean for domestic fab construction. Lucas brings the component-level knowledge (threshold voltages, die sizes, lithography steps); Luna pushes on the system-level implications (thermal constraints, software compatibility, supply chain risk). The listener is someone who reads datasheets for fun, follows EDA tool announcements, or needs to decide between an FPGA and an ASIC for their next product. No hot takes on Apple’s latest chip — just a careful look at what the die shot reveals and whether the architecture will trickle down to mid-range devices. Can a country really onshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing in a decade? How do you test a chip with billions of transistors? And what does the shift to chiplets mean for the engineer designing a PCB today? #SemiconductorIndustry #ChipDesign #HardwareEngineering #Electronics #TSMC #Intel #RISCV #GaN #MEMS #EDA #ASIC #FPGA #CHIPSAct #DieShot #EngineeringConversations #Technology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo

Episodes page 4 of 5

  1. How Chips Are Using On-Chip Oscilloscopes for Debugging

    · 12 min · S2 E82

    Lucas and Luna dive into the emerging trend of integrating oscilloscope-like circuitry directly onto chips. They explore how on-chip debug tools are helping engineers catch timing errors and signal-integrity issues…

  2. How Chips Are Cooling Themselves With Microfluidic Channels

    · 9:19 · S2 E81

    Episode 81 of The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo dives into on-chip microfluidic cooling—a technology that embeds tiny liquid channels directly into silicon to remove heat where it's generated. Lucas and Luna explore a…

  3. Why Chips Are Moving Data With Light Not Wires

    · 9:51 · S2 E80

    Episode 80 dives into on-chip optical interconnects—how silicon photonics is replacing copper wires with laser light to move data faster and cooler. Lucas and Luna unpack Intel's integrated laser breakthrough, the…

  4. Why Chips Are Using On-Chip Capacitors to Stabilize Power

    · 9:33 · S2 E79

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the emerging trend of deep trench capacitors (DTCs) integrated directly into silicon chips. They explore how companies like Intel and TSMC are embedding…

  5. Why Chips Are Using On-Chip Antennas for Wireless Interconnects

    · 7:59 · S2 E78

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the emerging trend of integrating antennas directly onto silicon chips to replace traditional wired interconnects for short-range data communication. They…

  6. How Chips Are Using Cryogenic Cooling for Quantum-Class Performance

    · 11 min · S2 E77

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the emerging field of cryogenic chip cooling—not for quantum computers, but for classical semiconductor logic. They break down how Intel and others are…

  7. How Chips Are Using On-Chip Strain to Boost Performance

    · 7:00 · S2 E76

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the technique of applying mechanical strain to silicon transistors to improve electron mobility, a method chipmakers like Intel and TSMC have used since…

  8. How Chips Are Using Chiplets to Beat Moore Law Limits

    · 11 min · S2 E75

    Episode 75 of The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna dive into the chiplet revolution—why the industry is moving from monolithic chips to modular, multi-die packages. They break down AMD's successful chiplet…

  9. How Chips Are Using On-Chip Voltage Regulators to Save Power

    · 10 min · S2 E74

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the quiet revolution in power delivery: moving voltage regulators from the motherboard directly onto the chip. They dissect why Intel's FIVR technology,…

  10. Why Chipmakers Are Building Silicon Photonics Foundries

    · 12 min · S2 E73

    This episode explores the shift from research-lab silicon photonics to commercial foundry production. Lucas and Luna discuss how TSMC, Intel, and GlobalFoundries are integrating optical components alongside traditional…

  11. How Chips Are Using Photonic Cores to Speed Up Data

    · 8:25 · S2 E72

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the emerging world of photonic computing cores. They explore how companies like Lightmatter and Ayar Labs are replacing traditional electronic…

  12. How Chips Are Printing Their Own Interconnects

    · 6:53 · S2 E71

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore how chipmakers are turning to additive manufacturing — essentially 3D printing — to build the microscopic copper interconnects that connect…

  13. Why Chipmakers Are Turning to Diamond Substrates

    · 7:54 · S2 E70

    For decades, silicon has been the workhorse of chipmaking, but it's hitting a thermal wall. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore why chip designers are now experimenting with diamond substrates — a material that…

  14. Why Chipmakers Are Building On-Chip Optical Modems

    · 11 min · S2 E69

    Lucas and Luna explore the race to put high-speed optical modems directly on silicon chips, moving data with light instead of electricity. They examine the bottleneck at the chip's edge, where electrical I/O can't keep…

  15. Why Chips Are Getting a Dedicated Analog Front End

    · 11 min · S2 E68

    On this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the quiet but crucial shift toward dedicated analog front-end (AFE) chips in modern electronics. With wireless sensor nodes expected to reach 75 billion…

  16. Why Chips Are Adopting Embedded Optical Interconnects

    · 12 min · S2 E67

    Episode 67 of The Hardware Podcast explores why chip designers are turning to embedded optical interconnects to solve data movement bottlenecks. Lucas and Luna unpack the physics limits of copper wiring, the 'optical…

  17. How Chips Are Using Glass Substrates to Beat Silicon Limits

    · 8:07 · S2 E66

    Episode 66 of The Hardware Podcast. Lucas and Luna explore glass substrates for chip packaging — a material shift that could reshape how processors handle bandwidth, heat, and interconnect density. They discuss why…

  18. How Chipmakers Are Taming Electromigration at Three Nanometers

    · 13 min · S2 E65

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore how advanced chip designers are tackling electromigration — the slow migration of metal atoms that can cause chip failure — at the three-nanometer node.…

  19. How Chips Are Securing the Data Plane with Hardware Firewalls

    · 9:27 · S2 E64

    Episode 64 of The Hardware Podcast explores how chip designers are embedding dedicated hardware firewalls directly into networking silicon to protect data in motion. Lucas and Luna break down the architecture behind…

  20. How Chips Are Learning to Compress Data at the Source

    · 12 min · S2 E63

    By 2026, the amount of data generated at the edge is overwhelming memory bandwidth and power budgets. Lucas explains how a technique called near-sensor compression is moving data reduction from the CPU to the sensor…

  21. The Hidden Science of Chip Alignment at Nanometer Scale

    · 7:04 · S2 E62

    When chip features shrink to a few nanometers, the alignment between layers becomes one of the hardest problems in manufacturing. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the quiet crisis of overlay error — how tiny…

  22. Why Chip Designers Are Embracing In-Memory Computing

    · 9:28 · S2 E61

    Episode 61 of The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo dives into in-memory computing, a paradigm shift that runs computations directly inside memory cells to break the von Neumann bottleneck. Lucas and Luna explore the…

  23. Why Chip Designers Are Turning to Ferroelectric Memory

    · 13 min · S2 E60

    Episode 60 of The Hardware Podcast explores ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM) and hafnium oxide-based ferroelectric FETs as a potential replacement for embedded flash and DRAM in advanced nodes. Lucas explains how…

  24. The Hidden Science of Chip Thermal Management

    · 5:01 · S2 E59

    Lucas and Luna dive into the unsung science of thermal management in modern chips. From the IBM z16 mainframe's liquid-cooled design to Apple's M-series unified thermal spreaders, they explore how heat dissipation is…

  25. The Search for a Universal Chip Interconnect Standard

    · 11 min · S2 E58

    Chiplets are everywhere now — Apple, AMD, Intel all mix and match dies in a single package. But the glue that holds them together is a mess of proprietary protocols, each with its own licensing and overhead. Lucas and…

  26. Why Chip Designers Are Embracing Analog Compute

    · 9:14 · S2 E57

    Lucas and Luna explore why chip designers are turning back to analog computing for AI inference, with a focus on Mythic's analog in-memory compute chip that achieves 10 TOPS per watt. They explain how analog compute…

  27. Why Chip Designers Are Turning to Backside Power Delivery

    · 7:07 · S2 E56

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the emerging trend of backside power delivery networks—a radical redesign of how chips get their electricity. They break down why traditional frontside…

  28. How Chips Are Getting a Dedicated AI Accelerator Core

    · 7:29 · S2 E55

    Episode 55 of The Hardware Podcast explores the shift toward embedding dedicated AI accelerator cores into mainstream chips, not just high-end server processors. Lucas and Luna examine Apple's Neural Engine as a case…

  29. Why Chip Designers Are Adopting Liquid Cooling

    · 6:56 · S2 E54

    Episode 54 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the quiet shift from fans to liquid cooling in high-performance chips. Lucas and Luna explore why a single AI accelerator now draws over 1000 watts, how direct-to-chip…

  30. Why Chip Designers Are Embracing Heterogeneous Integration

    · 9:50 · S2 E53

    On today's Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore heterogeneous integration — the chip design strategy that stacks silicon, III-V compounds, and photonics into a single package. They break down how this approach…

  31. Why Chip Designers Are Rethinking Power Delivery Networks

    · 11 min · S2 E52

    Episode 52 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the hidden grid inside every chip: the power delivery network, or PDN. Lucas and Luna explore why traditional on-chip power grids are hitting a wall as transistors shrink…

  32. How Chips Are Learning to Rewire Themselves

    · 10 min · S2 E51

    Episode 51 of The Hardware Podcast explores the emerging field of runtime-reconfigurable logic. Lucas and Luna dive into how a startup called FlexLogix is embedding reconfigurable data-path units inside server chips,…

  33. Why Chips Are Getting a Dedicated Security Co-Processor

    · 10 min · S1 E50

    Episode 50 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the rising trend of on-chip security cores — dedicated hardware engines that handle encryption, attestation, and key management separately from the main CPU. Lucas and Luna…

  34. The Quiet Revolution in Chip Substrates

    · 7:55 · S1 E49

    Lucas and Luna dive into the unsung hero of chip performance: the substrate. They explore how Intel's glass substrate breakthrough is reshaping the race for faster, cooler, and more efficient processors. With…

  35. Why Chip Designers Are Embracing Multi-Die Simulation

    · 7:19 · S1 E48

    Episode 48 dives into the growing complexity of simulating multi-die chip designs, where chiplets and advanced packaging create new verification challenges. Lucas and Luna explore how EDA tools are evolving to handle…

  36. Why Chip Designers Are Turning to Carbon Nanotube Interconnects

    · 13 min · S1 E47

    Episode 47 of The Hardware Podcast digs into the quiet shift happening inside chip fabrication lines: carbon nanotube interconnects. Lucas and Luna discuss why copper interconnects are hitting fundamental limits at the…

  37. Why Chip Designers Are Betting on DRAM in the Package

    · 8:03 · S1 E46

    As memory bandwidth becomes the bottleneck for high-performance computing, chip designers are moving DRAM from the motherboard into the same package as the processor. This episode explains the technology behind…

  38. Why Chip Designers Are Adopting Silicon Photonics

    · 11 min · S1 E45

    Episode 45: Lucas and Luna explore the emerging field of silicon photonics—using light instead of electricity to move data inside chips. They break down a real-world case: a startup called Ayar Labs has demonstrated an…

  39. Why Chip Designers Are Racing to Embrace Glass Substrates

    · 9:20 · S1 E44

    Episode 44 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the quiet but transformative shift happening inside chip packaging labs: the move from organic laminates to glass substrates. Lucas unpacks the physics—why glass offers…

  40. Why Chip Designers Are Switching to Open-Source RISC-V

    · 8:47 · S1 E43

    Episode 43 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, which is gaining traction from tiny IoT controllers to server-class processors. Lucas and Luna break down why companies…

  41. The Most Expensive Material Inside a Chip Factory

    · 9:06 · S1 E42

    Episode 42 of The Hardware Podcast dives into a material most people have never heard of but is absolutely critical to every chip ever made: photoresist. Lucas and Luna explore why a single gallon of the high-end…

  42. The One Test That Decides If a Chip Ships

    · 8:23 · S1 E41

    Every chip that ends up in a smartphone, car, or data center passes through a single high-stakes checkpoint called final test. This episode goes inside the multi-million-dollar test floor at a typical OSAT facility —…

  43. The Race to Make Chips That Fix Themselves

    · 7:50 · S1 E40

    Chip defects cost the semiconductor industry billions every year. But a quiet revolution in built-in self-test circuitry is changing the economics of reliability. Lucas explains how chips can now run their own health…

  44. The Unsung Hero Behind Every Chip Lithography Step

    · 9:14 · S1 E39

    Semiconductor manufacturing gets all the glory for extreme ultraviolet lithography and nanometer-scale transistors, but there is a less glamorous step that happens dozens of times per chip: the photomask. In this…

  45. How EUV Lithography Machines Make the Smallest Chips Possible

    · 11 min · S1 E38

    In this episode of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the engineering marvel behind extreme ultraviolet lithography—the machines that print the world's tiniest transistors. They explain why EUV light is…

  46. Why Chip Designers Are Betting on Chiplets

    · 11 min · S1 E37

    Episode 37 of The Hardware Podcast dives into the chiplet revolution — why major chipmakers are moving away from monolithic dies and stitching together smaller silicon tiles instead. Lucas explains how AMD's Zen…

  47. Why Chip Designers Are Betting on Advanced Packaging

    · 10 min · S1 E36

    In Episode 36 of The Hardware Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the quiet revolution in chip packaging that is extending Moore's Law. They explain how 2.5D and 3D packaging allow designers to combine chiplets from…

  48. Why Chip Teams Are Rethinking On-Chip Memory

    · 13 min · S1 E35

    Episode 35 of The Hardware Podcast with Fexingo dives into the quiet revolution happening inside chip design: the shift away from traditional SRAM toward new on-chip memory architectures like embedded DRAM and…

  49. The Hidden Economics Behind Chip Packaging

    · 8:24 · S1 E34

    In Episode 34, Lucas and Luna unpack a quiet revolution that rarely makes headlines: advanced chip packaging. While everyone obsesses over transistor shrinks, the way chips get physically assembled is becoming a…

  50. The Thermal Interface Material Keeping Your Chip Cool

    · 12 min · S1 E33

    Every chip generates heat, but the material that moves that heat from the silicon to the heatsink rarely gets attention. In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into thermal interface materials — the paste, pads, and…

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