My favorite riff on this: at a previous job we worked on a 12GHz SERDES, which meant each inch of the cable had a different data bit on it

Welcome to Hardware Design! The open-source toolchains come from hell. The closed-source options are supremely expensive and not much better

They don't call it EasyWare

As someone who just picked micro USB over USBC for a development card, there is a significant price and footprint size difference between the two.

I also happen to be working on an ultra-low power project with an ESP32.

It is hard to beat that 5uA deep-sleep current!

Try <1µA/MHz active current consumption on the Ambiq Apollo4 chips.

Thanks for that, looks interesting. One note, their website [1] claims 5uA/MHz, not 1

[1] https://ambiq.com/apollo4/

Yes, that's correct. I had confused it with the total consumption at rated speed - ~1mA and mixed up my figures.

No love for NXP in this thread? They make a very similar peripheral called FlexIO [1] on devices like the K32.

>[FlexIO is a] Highly configurable module providing a wide range of functionality including emulation of a variety of communication protocols

It is extremely capable! I have used it to hack together an octo-SPI... which stretches the definition of the S in SPI ;)

[1] https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/supporting-information/FTF-ACC-F...

The NXP IMXRT1011 is $1.70 from CN and much more powerful/featureful than any of the more-expensive K32 chips, by the way.

One of the main benefits of using an FPGA is that you can compensate for trace length mismatch with timing constraints

Not usually with IO ports directly associated with hard IP blocks like the DDR controller in the Zynq though.

That's pretty typical for hardware development. You software people have it too good!

And how does their fertility rate compare? Actually I'll tell you, Sweden's is 1.66, the USA is 1.64.

South Sudan, the poorest country in the world, is 4.54

South Sudan's infant mortality rate is also significantly higher than either Sweden or the US.

I would rather be destitute with my kid than live like a king without her.

>poor people tend to be much better with money than rich people.

This does not pass the sniff test. Lets see your statistics?