Since I started my channel in December 2020, I’ve posted 181 videos that have been watched 660k times for a total of 35k hours! To celebrate reaching 20k subscribers I wanted to share some of the ones I’m especially proud of, and why they matter to me.

I’d say my all time favourite was when I used a particle accelerator to look inside my own microchips!

I met Tomas Aidukas at the Free Silicon Conference. In his talk, he showed an amazing 3D view inside a microchip - captured using a technique called ptychographic X-ray computed tomography. I asked if he’d be interested in imaging one of my open source chips. It turned out that having the source files for the chip was actually pretty unique.

A few months later I was able to visit and make a film about it. It was my first time making a video ‘on location’ and I learnt a lot. I had a lot of fun making it and it was amazing to see the inside of a chip I’d designed. Some special moments were putting microphones on the test equipment and scooting around the synchrotron!

Next up is How does a flip flop work, what is metastability and why does it have setup & hold time?

This was a really confusing topic for me and it took a couple weeks of work to get to the point where I could explain it well enough. As part of my research I built a useful tool that lets you move the phase of the clock and find the metastable point of the flop. I’ve been told by quite a few professors that they use the video in their classes and that’s very satisfying.

As well as technical deep dives and lab visits, I’ve also really enjoyed interviewing people. Most people I ask are happy to be interviewed and I’ve learnt a lot from them, and I hope you will too!

I think interviewing is pretty hard and I’ve still got a lot to learn. It’s hard to pick, but one of my favorites was Analog ASIC design with digital standard cells! with Harald Pretl.

That was so cool because he did something I thought was impossible and then explained how it worked really well. Even better, when we got the chips back, the design worked as planned!

My most under-rated video has got to be Inside the cleanroom - How computer chips get made!

This video took so long to make, from getting permission and a special camera man from IHP, to commissioning my first animations, to editing 4 hours of footage down to just 17 minutes. I still think it’s one of the best ‘how chips are made’ videos out there and I really expected it to do a lot better. I blame it on releasing it too close to Christmas, but it probably could have started with a punchier intro showing off all the shiny machines in action.

Finally, if you’re new to open source silicon and want to get started, then I think I did a great job with Getting started with open source ASICs: community, tools & demos!

It weighs in at 30 minutes and I used that time to cover context, community, the tools, what’s there and what’s still missing, as well as how to get started with making your first ASIC.

I hope you’ll check out my channel and enjoy some of these older videos. With 10 new ones on the way, now’s the perfect time to subscribe!

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