This Week’s Highlights
Record Plasma Temperatures 🔥
Molten Salt Energy Storage 🧂
The Signicast Manufacturing Story ⚒️
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Featured Content:
Check out the latest podcast episode from The EEcosystem, as Judy Warner chats with electronics legends Benjamin Dannan and Heesoo Lee.
The MIT Manufacturing Working Group is hosting the 2024 Manufacturing@MIT Symposium on 5/1 in Boston, MA.
Augmental is hiring a Lead Electronics Engineer in San Francisco, CA.
Looking to get ahead in your career? We offer interviewing resources for engineers!
Interesting Links 🏭
As late as 1945, there was no commercial production of titanium, and the metal only existed in controlled laboratory environments. Fast forward less than a decade, thousands of tons were manufactured annually. Just another decade later, titanium had become the essential framework for some of the most sophisticated aerospace technologies in the world! With recent applications of titanium in commercial products like the frame of the iPhone 15, this story from Brian Potter is a thorough read showcasing the material’s journey from aerospace to our pockets. Here’s another breakdown of the material with a fun example of how it made up 93% of the SR-71’s structure.
“In Pursuit of Manufacturing Excellence: The Signicast Story” is an autobiographical account of Terry Lutz’s transformation of Signicast, an industrial castings manufacturer. When Lutz acquired the business, Signicast had $1M in revenue and 30 employees. By the time he retired, the business had grown to $149M and 690 employees. Lutz transformed the business through a continuous flow casting process where product was moved through the plant via conveyors, taking inspiration from the piping used in oil refineries. This reduced lead times from 12 weeks to 5 days, and changed the casting industry.
Open Magnetics is a free and open source platform for magnetics design and simulation. Input your specifications and get a full manufacturable magnetic design. Get the insulation coordination needed to comply with IEC 60664, 62368, 61558, and 60335. Project founder Alfonso Maritnez also runs an educational blog about magnetics fundamentals.
Zap Energy, a magnet-less fusion company, has achieved 37-million-degree temperatures (F) in a compact device, well exceeding that of the sun’s core. Zap’s Z-Pinch technology achieved fusion by passing an electrical current through a thin filament of plasma, driving it to fusion. The first step to create the conditions for fusion is to generate a plasma – the energetic “fourth state of matter” where nuclei and electrons aren’t bound together into atoms but flow freely in a sub-atomic soup. Compressing and heating a plasma made of two forms of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium causes their nuclei to collide and fuse. When they do, fusion reactions give off roughly 10 million times more energy per ounce than burning the same amount of coal.
Researchers have developed a new type of recyclable PCB substrate material with comparable performance to FR-4. PCBs generally use plastic and glass fibers to form the substrate with which copper is bonded to. These new ‘vPCBs’ use a vitrified jelly (instead of plastic) which can be separated using a simple organic solvent and then infinitely recycled. While it is too soon to understand the costs at scale researchers were able to fabricate IoT device boards using 2.4GHz antennas successfully.
Hyme Energy has inaugurated the world's first MW-scale thermal energy storage system based on molten hydroxide salt technology in Denmark. This breakthrough innovation can store energy from renewable sources like wind and solar, and then discharge it as heat or steam for industrial use or electricity generation, helping to address the challenge of intermittent renewable energy supply. The system is charged by pumping a ‘cold salt’ (350C) through electric heaters until it reaches the ‘hot salt’ temperature of 700C. The molten hydroxide salt technology developed by Hyme melts at lower temperatures compared to other salt-based storage solutions, enabling more efficient and cost-effective thermal energy storage at the grid scale to support the transition to renewable energy.
Startup News 🌱
Ascent Aerosystems has been acquired by Robinson Helicopter Company for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2015 Ascent produces modular coaxial airframes which are designed for autonomous electric flight applications. Ascent appears to be fully bootstrapped having publicly announced ~$1M in funding over its lifetime, $400k crowdfunding and $600k in grants.
EU-based PLD Space has raised an additional tranche of $83M in funding to expand its production facilities for its small launch vehicle the Miura 5 which it plans to launch in 2025. Investors include Aciturri and Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology. This Tranche is on top of $42M euros in grants the company has receive from the Spanish government.
Iceye have raised an additional $93M in funding for their specific aperture radar (SAR) constellation which currently has 34 satellites in operation and 15 more planned to be launched in 2024. Led by the Finnish Sovereign wealth fund with Move Capital Fund I, Blackwells Capital participating.
Kratos and Rocketdyne have successfully tested its Zeus 2 hypersonic missile motor. Following up on the success of the Zeus 1 test in 2023 the new Zeus 2 solid rocket motor is nearly twice as large as the Zeus 1, and will be a critical first-to-market device for commercial and military applications.
Science has acquired the assets of retinal prosthesis startup Prixium Vision. CEO Max Hodak wrote in a blog that they intend to use the sensor hardware which the company was developing and had active clinical trials to use in their own neuroprosthesis to restore vision.
The newest and largest nuclear reactor in the United States has reached commercial operation. The Vogtle 4 reactor is the newest of Westinghouse AP1000 to enter service with an annual capacity of 30MWhrs and an expected facility lifetime of 60-80 years.
Open Jobs 💼
Full-Time:
Zap Energy is looking for a High Voltage Pulsed Power Engineer.
Synapse Design is looking for an ASIC Engineer.
Ultima Genomics is looking for a Staff Electrical Engineer.
Phantom Neuro is looking for an electrical engineer.
Valar Atomics is looking for Really Good Engineers who believe energy should be free.
Samsara is looking for a Product Design Engineer (New Grad).
Gridware is looking for a Product Testing and Reliability Engineer.
Lightship is looking for a Senior Technical Program Manager - Vehicle Hardware.
Internships:
Noah Medical is looking for a Mechanical Engineering Intern and a Mechatronics Engineering Intern.
Carbon is looking for a Systems Engineering Intern.
Monolithic Power Systems is looking for an electrical/mechatronics engineering intern.
FormLabs is looking for a hardware test engineering intern.
To see previous jobs that may still be open, check out our previous issues! Want to share an exciting role at your company? Reach out to us at info@hardwarefyi.com
Western components found in the Russian Orlan-10 autonomous drone.
Meet our Sponsors:
Summit Interconnect is a manufacturer of advanced technology printed circuit boards focused on complex rigid, flex and rigid-flex PCBs.
Cofactr is an automated electronic component procurement and inventory management platform.
AllSpice.io is the Git for hardware collaboration platform, connecting native engineering design tools to provide revision control, automation and more.
Partsbox controls your electronic components inventory management software. Keeps track of where your parts are stored, manages BOMs and production.
The EECosystem is a platform dedicated to educate, connect and equip professional electronics hardware design and development engineers
FixturFab designs and manufactures custom hardware products that test circuit boards.
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