Job Alert

Senior Research Engineer – Nitride Thin-Film Materials (Wide Band Gap)

Deadline: open until filled
Location: Austria - Villach

https://www.academiceurope.com/ads/senior-research-engineer-nitride-thin-film-materials-wide-band-gap-job-id231-0/

#hiring #SeniorResearchEngineer #MaterialsScience #ThinFilms #physics #materialsscience #Microelectronics

#electronics #maker #makers #ARM #RISCV #microelectronics #RPI #raspberryPi #olimex #piromoni #adafruit #sparkfun #DIY #craft #crafting #DIYprojects #electroniccomponents #SBC #bananaPI #orangePI #armsom #rockPI #robotics

(it's a gamepad mod for NES 8-Bit for lefties)

© Nicolas Mouart, 2026

Cornell student shows off microchips that his club designed

https://c2s2.engineering.cornell.edu/

(as a 🦊this project worried me a bit at first glance... https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/11/cornell-microchip-designers-inspire-students-fox-hunt)

#photo #photography #cornell #cornellclubs #microchip #bartonhall #electronics #microelectronics #technology #engineering

So I have a PCB I made and already bought, but it has some issues and I wondered if there are people that know #PCB better than me which would be up to point out the bugs I got here. :D

Both in terms of bugs, but also best practices I did incorrect. The schematic is available at https://cloud.midnightthoughts.space/s/5PYLnAGQFnWtTqs (see licence on the PDF)

Of course nobody is required to review this, but in the Open-Source sense I would love to get a review :)

Note that this is my first real PCB I really worked on :) So I probably did a lot wrong even though this is iteration 4. Iteration 3 only differs that the diodes in the USB-C setup are not there, and that's the version I have physically currently.

Issues I did already confirm IRL:

• The USB-C port at my PC does provide only 100mA, but this board requires 160mA to run. This works with bootloader mode but not in normal mode -> Bootloops/Brownout
• I am unsure about PROG2 on IC1. Should I add a resistor or not? It's not entirely obvious from the Datasheet.
• I am also not sure about CE on IC1. Does it need to be controlled? Does is always stay high?
• IC2 seems not to work. It reads weird data. I am guessing I wired it up incorrectly to the 3 status lines, but I am not entirely sure what exactly is wrong here. (My current working theory is that I wired 5V analog data to ports that can only do 3.3V. I only want to basically have a way to see the LED state while charging on my Homeassistant via it.)
• Touching the frontside of the board (2 layer pcb) seems to sometimes cause the battery charging chip to glitch out and restart. Unsure why. It's like it acts like a capacitor, maybe?
• The software reset of the ESP32 is not reliable.
• Some chargers I had (USB-2 with usb-c cable) seem to cause the charging chip to short and die. Power jumps from the regular 0.4-0.8W to ~1W+ constant.
• The PG LED is changing brightness under load (Not sure if that's normal or not with this chip)
• The battery I use to power it right now does after a while shutoff for unknown reason. It doesn't seem to be time-based. Possibly overcurrent protection? Or something else? Not sure.

I checked the power rails while having the jumpers open and USB power has stable 5V, +5V rail after IC3 has ~4.7-4.8V (I am guessing it needs some load to be stable?) and the +3.3V rail has stable 3.3V. The sense Pad reads 2.0V.

All of this was tested without a battery, actually attached to it.

Thanks to everyone who already read this far!

#electronics #microelectronics #pcb #esp32 #tinkering

Monday, January 5, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/01/monday-january-5-2026/

🕹️ Building Custom Graphics Cards For Cloud Gaming

https://semiengineering.com/building-custom-graphics-cards-for-cloud-gaming/

#graphics #gaming #gpu #videogames #cloud #cloudgaming #microelectronics #electronics

📅 Save the date! #6GREFERENCE and #FirstTo6G are joining forces for a joint webinar on 29 January 2026.

🔍 The session will introduce both #SNS projects, outline their objectives, and showcase how their #Microelectronics hardware concepts complement one another.

Participants will also be invited to an open discussion exploring the projects' approaches, potential synergies, and opportunities for deeper collaboration across the broader #SNSecosystem.

🔗 Register now: https://tinyurl.com/3tycwy37