Beyond the frontiers of silicon - 11/05/2016
Today was a long day, with two company visits and several cultural activities. It all started this morning when we had to get up at 7:00, do the usual routine of getting ourselves into clothes and enjoying the hotel breakfast. As a full-fledged Dutch caffeine addict, I find it increasingly hard to get up without a strong ‘bakkie pleur’. Luckily, this changed later this day, but I’ll tell about that later.
The first company we visited was Broadcom, in Irvine. Irvine is a city in the Orange County region just north of our hotel and just south of LA. Driving was a breeze, not much traffic for American standards. We arrived at Broadcom at 8:30 and got a pleasant surprise: they had a real espresso machine free to use! I personally took this chance to drink, yes, two double espressos. Completely awake, I listened to several presentations about the company and their products.
Broadcom has recently been acquired by Avago, but instead of getting the Avago name they decided to make Broadcom the main brand. They are now one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world, and focus on communication ICs. Our (Dutch) host actually graduated under Bram Nauta and told us about the several fields and expertises Broadcom were active in. After that, we were told about the process of designing an IC in the industry, and we also gained insight into the technicalities of one actual ADC used for broadband RF capture. The talk was ended with a nice demo showing how well their IC worked. After the talks, we had lunch at the most excellent cafeteria of Broadcom, where we could choose from a vast variety of fresh lunches. I had a Tikka Masala curry plate which was marvelous.
We resumed our journey to the next company, EPC. EPC is a small semiconductor company focusing on GaN transistor technology. They developed a transistor type for power switching applications that is extremely fast. The technology opens up new possibilities for electronics design in fields where this was never possible, such as wireless power, +98% efficient big power stages, RF power niches, etc.
The company is located near to LAX, Los Angeles Airport. We were received by the team of EPC and they started off with some demos of their applications. Then, we listened to a long but interesting presentation about the workings and uses of their transistors in real world applications. Halfway, they gave us pizza and gave tours of the lab. The visit was long but very informing! Although we already ate a lot of food, we resumed our day to the next stop.
A piece of American ‘culture’, we visited Hooters. This is a restaurant where the customers are served by scantily clad waitresses. Although hopes were high with the technical students, the food wasn’t great and the atmosphere not that interesting.
After that, I went to a karaoke bar with some of the participants, including Wilfred van der Wiel. We had a great time and it reminded me of the fun times in Japan two years ago. A great but tiring evening all together. One positive thing: Now I can sleep a bit longer before we will go on a wild roadtrip…
By: Jelmer Kosters