Mastodawn

Andrew Tergis Aug 7, 2025

*sigh* seems like we're not nearly done with this:

https://apnews.com/article/apple-trump-computer-tariff-c01b5ce0265b0d294dd10b8966be4436

If actually done, a 100% US tariff on semiconductors is going to be very painful for assembly in the U.S. The stupid thing is this is just going to incentivize doing PCB assembly overseas, since a 20-40% tariff on the assembled good might end up being lower. But it's just going to make everyone's life harder, except the large U.S. corporations currently grovelling for a carve-out...

Trump plans 100% tariff on computer chips, unless companies build in US

President Donald Trump says he's imposing a 100% tariff on computer chips— a move that raises the specter of higher prices for electronics, autos, household appliances and other essential goods that depend on the processors. Companies making computer chips in the U.S. or planning to do so will be spared the import taxes. During the pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of autos and contributed to higher inflation. Investors continued to bet that Big Tech companies such as Apple that have made huge financial commitments in the U.S. will be exempt from the chip tariffs.

AP News

Andrew Tergis Jul 30, 2025

Pebble switches from Nordic to SiFli bluetooth MCU: https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/05/14/sifli-sf32lb52j-big-little-arm-cortex-m33-bluetooth-mcu-powers-the-core-time-2-smartwatch/

Honestly it's an eye-opener about how quickly that chinese fabless semiconductor companies are moving. The SF32 SDK is pretty impressive at a glance. I'm still seeing a chunk of the bluetooth stack buried in a binary blob, but almost everything else is open source.

SiFli SF32LB52J big.LITTLE Arm Cortex-M33 Bluetooth MCU powers the Core Time 2 smartwatch

SiFli SF23LB52J is a Bluetooth 5.3 microcontroller part of the SF32LB52x family with two Cortex-M33 in big.LITTLE configuration with a 240 MHz high-performance core for user application/GUI and a 24 MHz low-power core to manage the Bluetooth part. A few months ago, Eric Migicovsky, the founder of the smartwatch company Pebble, and now Core Devices, introduced the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 smartwatches running PebbleOS open-source firmware that were mostly relaunches of the never-released Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2 with some tweaks. We already knew the Core 2 Duo would be based on a Nordic nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F microcontroller, however, the one for the Core Time 2 was kept secret. That's until today, as Eric has just announced that the Core Time 2 would be based on the SiFli SF23LB52J MCU, since the smartwatch required an MCU with more RAM and processing power, and SiFli also offers

CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

Andrew Tergis Jul 8, 2025

Recovering a little bit and back to worth after a 7 week leave to help look after wife and baby. Wife is still a little bed bound after a badly broken leg. Caring after them both was incredibly exhausting, but she's healing up and is steadily getting better at walking again. Many elements of this have not been fun, most notably the realities of the US hospital and healthcare systems...

Andrew Tergis Jul 8, 2025

Pouring deeply into US HTS (Tariffs) for work (bet you can guess why) and I keep getting dwarf fortress vibes from these item descriptions, every time.

Andrew Tergis May 13, 2025

I've been waiting so long for the new Kicad "Jobset" functionality, it's great! Gone are the days of repeatedly clicking through dialogs and remembering export settings. (Could never get earlier 3rd party tools to work well enough either).

Andrew Tergis Apr 30, 2025

While randomly searching my email inbox, discovered:

Back in 2006 in my high-school "senior will" I left a note describing how to break out of the school's thin-client computer system to play counterstrike 😂

Andrew Tergis Apr 21, 2025

All the hardware vendor spam emails are getting real thirsty about tariffs

"Only 5 days left to place your label order before the new US import tax hits."

Show thread

Andrew Tergis Mar 27, 2025

I can't tell if it's helping or hurting that i'm knee-deep in a PCB layout at work - often a good opportunity to get into a really great flow/rhythm, but ol' pudding brain isn't making it easy

Andrew Tergis Mar 27, 2025

My brain is increasingly just a big bowl of pudding from various stresses, work, uspol, etc. Doomscrolling bluesky is incredibly informative but rough

Andrew Tergis Mar 5, 2025

Álvaro Prieto Mar 5, 2025

Have you ever wanted to debug your microcontroller over USB-C?

(I’m talking JTAG/SWD, not just USB!) If you already have a USB-C connector, there’s no need to have an additional connector to program!

This started as a twitter thread years ago, but I've cleaned it up, and added tons of new information. Let me know what you think!

https://alvarop.com/2025/03/swd-to-usbc/

SWD to USBC

Have you ever wanted to debug your microcontroller over USB-C? (I’m talking JTAG/SWD, not just USB!) If you already have a USB-C connector, there’s no need to have an additional connector to program! (or Tag-Connect pads, which are super nice, but take up additional space) I’ll explain how I did it below. NOTE: Much of this was originally a few Twitter threads back in 2022. I’m adding a lot of the original content from then, but with many updates, fixes, updated designs, and examples.

Alvaro's Blog