Hardware handholding

I am working on a prototype chip using electron beam lithography near the
technique's limits (10 nm wires).  I need to bridge from the chip to the PC
world and need some embedded hardware.  I am a biochemist and programmer
(with an MBA, so I am a 'suite' who wants to grab a soldering iron) and
while I have studied IC fabrication for a number of years, much of the
stuff is still pure voodoo to me.  The hardware I need will probably have
to have an FPGA to actually communicate with my prototype and basically
will need to monitor changes in current (I imagine on the level of pico
amps, but lack enough knowledge to make this much more than a guess).  The
main caveat is that there can be no permanent connection to the prototype
chip as particularly during development (and even if it makes it to
production, but I suppose it can use a package with pins) I will be going
through a lot of prototypes and will need to be able to quickly swap the
chips.  In total the minimum number of contacts will be 10, though 100 is
my goal.  

What I am looking for is someone who can tell me in small words and baby
talk what I need to do to take some sort of embedded hardware kit, connect
it to my prototype chip such that I can easily replace it as needed, then
get me started on the programming to detect and monitor the current
changes, cache the information, then allow for retrieval from my
workstation.  I have more than 10 years of programming experience and
consider myself an expert in C and C++, but have never done any embedded
programming and never used a soldering iron except for some trivial fixes.

I don't have much of a budget for this project, so it might be better
suited for a graduate student or someone more curious than financially
motivated.  I am in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, so clearly
someone local would be easier, but I think that it may be practical to do
this remotely with occasional phone calls.

While this is very low budget, it does have huge economic potential so the
usual NDA and consulting restrictions will apply.  If you are curious but
not so willing to work for peanuts you might still be interested in a bit
of a gamble:  if the prototyping is successful the revenue potential within
the next 12-18 months is such that full-time employment and/or extensive
consulting agreements are quite possible as undoubtedly several versions of
the embedded hardware will need to be made and the commercial product will
require embedded hardware as well as ASIC design.

If you are interested, please contact me at mitakeet – at – sol –
dash – biotech – dot – com (the 'dash' really is a dash) and let me
know what your qualifications are and what you would expect for
compensation.

Thank you all for your time!

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:57:52 -0600, mitakeet wrote:

> I am working on a prototype chip using electron beam lithography near
> the technique's limits (10 nm wires).  I need to bridge from the chip to
> the PC world and need some embedded hardware.  I am a biochemist and
> programmer (with an MBA, so I am a 'suite' who wants to grab a soldering
> iron) and while I have studied IC fabrication for a number of years,
> much of the stuff is still pure voodoo to me.  The hardware I need will
> probably have to have an FPGA to actually communicate with my prototype
> and basically will need to monitor changes in current (I imagine on the
> level of pico amps, but lack enough knowledge to make this much more
> than a guess).  The main caveat is that there can be no permanent
> connection to the prototype chip as particularly during development (and
> even if it makes it to production, but I suppose it can use a package
> with pins) I will be going through a lot of prototypes and will need to
> be able to quickly swap the chips.  In total the minimum number of
> contacts will be 10, though 100 is my goal.
> 
> What I am looking for is someone who can tell me in small words and baby
> talk what I need to do to take some sort of embedded hardware kit,
> connect it to my prototype chip such that I can easily replace it as
> needed, then get me started on the programming to detect and monitor the
> current changes, cache the information, then allow for retrieval from my
> workstation.  I have more than 10 years of programming experience and
> consider myself an expert in C and C++, but have never done any embedded
> programming and never used a soldering iron except for some trivial
> fixes.
> 
> I don't have much of a budget for this project, so it might be better
> suited for a graduate student or someone more curious than financially
> motivated.  I am in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, so clearly
> someone local would be easier, but I think that it may be practical to
> do this remotely with occasional phone calls.
> 
> While this is very low budget, it does have huge economic potential so
> the usual NDA and consulting restrictions will apply.  If you are
> curious but not so willing to work for peanuts you might still be
> interested in a bit of a gamble:  if the prototyping is successful the
> revenue potential within the next 12-18 months is such that full-time
> employment and/or extensive consulting agreements are quite possible as
> undoubtedly several versions of the embedded hardware will need to be
> made and the commercial product will require embedded hardware as well
> as ASIC design.
> 
> If you are interested, please contact me at mitakeet – at – sol – dash –
> biotech – dot – com (the 'dash' really is a dash) and let me know what
> your qualifications are and what you would expect for compensation.
> 
> Thank you all for your time!

I wouldn't work on something like this under the terms you present.  Use 
that MBA of yours and ask if you'd chase "lots of work later" in return 
for free or heavily discounted work now.  And if you do find someone to 
work on your terms, will you be saying "tee hee"?  Or will you be saying 
"oh, this one must be a fool."?  And if the latter, why do you want them 
working for you?

Perhaps you should look up "equity" in the dictionary.

Even then, every consultant in the world gets offered equity, so expect 
that if you do attract some talent it'll be a frustrated (or laid-off) 
9-5er.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

I am the great scientist. I have the tremendous top secret idea that=20
will change the world. I need someone to explain me 2+2=3D4, so we can ge=
t=20
the project started. I have no money but I promise the royal rewards and =

honors: you may be hired as the oarsman for my galley. How about that?

VLV



mitakeet wrote:

> I am working on a prototype chip using electron beam lithography near t=
he
> technique's limits (10 nm wires).  I need to bridge from the chip to th=
e PC
> world and need some embedded hardware.  I am a biochemist and programme=
r
> (with an MBA, so I am a 'suite' who wants to grab a soldering iron) and=

> while I have studied IC fabrication for a number of years, much of the
> stuff is still pure voodoo to me.  The hardware I need will probably ha=
ve
> to have an FPGA to actually communicate with my prototype and basically=

> will need to monitor changes in current (I imagine on the level of pico=

> amps, but lack enough knowledge to make this much more than a guess).  =
The
> main caveat is that there can be no permanent connection to the prototy=
pe
> chip as particularly during development (and even if it makes it to
> production, but I suppose it can use a package with pins) I will be goi=
ng
> through a lot of prototypes and will need to be able to quickly swap th=
e
> chips.  In total the minimum number of contacts will be 10, though 100 =
is
> my goal. =20
>=20
> What I am looking for is someone who can tell me in small words and bab=
y
> talk what I need to do to take some sort of embedded hardware kit, conn=
ect
> it to my prototype chip such that I can easily replace it as needed, th=
en
> get me started on the programming to detect and monitor the current
> changes, cache the information, then allow for retrieval from my
> workstation.  I have more than 10 years of programming experience and
> consider myself an expert in C and C++, but have never done any embedde=
d
> programming and never used a soldering iron except for some trivial fix=
es.
>=20
> I don't have much of a budget for this project, so it might be better
> suited for a graduate student or someone more curious than financially
> motivated.  I am in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, so clearly
> someone local would be easier, but I think that it may be practical to =
do
> this remotely with occasional phone calls.
>=20
> While this is very low budget, it does have huge economic potential so =
the
> usual NDA and consulting restrictions will apply.  If you are curious b=
ut
> not so willing to work for peanuts you might still be interested in a b=
it
> of a gamble:  if the prototyping is successful the revenue potential wi=
thin
> the next 12-18 months is such that full-time employment and/or extensiv=
e
> consulting agreements are quite possible as undoubtedly several version=
s of
> the embedded hardware will need to be made and the commercial product w=
ill
> require embedded hardware as well as ASIC design.
>=20
> If you are interested, please contact me at mitakeet =F2=C0=D3 at =F2=C0=
=D3 sol =F2=C0=D3
> dash =F2=C0=D3 biotech =F2=C0=D3 dot =F2=C0=D3 com (the 'dash' really i=
s a dash) and let me
> know what your qualifications are and what you would expect for
> compensation.
>=20
> Thank you all for your time!
>=20
>=20

Yes, I know all about equity.  Enough to know it is nonsensical to pay
someone equity potentially worth millions (and clearly, just as potentially
worth nothing) for a few hours worth of work.  If a few hundred bucks are
too little to pay for some handholding for someone who has demonstrated the
willingness to learn from books then I guess I get to go through the
learning curve myself.  On the other hand, if the handholding is successful
and the product comes to fruition then why shouldn't I be happy to stick
with a proven quantity and either hire directly or continue consulting with
the handhold-ee?  Likely an experience and well established consultant gets
an offer to trade effort on spec often, and I am sure that many such
opportunities lead to nothing, but if just a small percentage result in
decades long consulting relationships at top dollar, who is the fool:  the
one taking the offer and chancing wasting his time or the one who ignores
the offer and thus the potential for the business relationship?

If I had a budget, I would simply go to a hardware company and have the
work done and not spend my time dealing like this.  This is an opportunity
for someone who might be interested in an intellectual problem for some
pay, perhaps to make it worthwhile for even a professional, well
established consultant (and particularly for a student, which is why I
pointed that out) that has a chance of more to come, not an offer of no pay
now and stock that statistically is likely to be worthless.

Oh, as a btw, I have often done work free on spec (as a biochemist,
programmer and MBA), often hundreds of hours, so to me the idea of actually
getting paid for work that might lead to more is something I would expect
lots of people to be interested in.

> Oh, as a btw, I have often done work free on spec (as a biochemist,
> programmer and MBA), often hundreds of hours, so to me the idea of actually
> getting paid for work that might lead to more is something I would expect
> lots of people to be interested in.

Yes, if you come to San Diego, I will hold your hand.  Or if you paid
my expenses to DC, I will hold both your hands.

Your biggest challenge is to build the semiconductor sensor to detect
pico amps.  Forget the FPGA, it's not likely critical enough for your
project.

mitakeet wrote:
> Yes, I know all about equity.  Enough to know it is nonsensical to pay
> someone equity potentially worth millions (and clearly, just as potentially
> worth nothing) for a few hours worth of work.  If a few hundred bucks are
> too little to pay for some handholding for someone who has demonstrated the
> willingness to learn from books then I guess I get to go through the
> learning curve myself.  On the other hand, if the handholding is successful
> and the product comes to fruition then why shouldn't I be happy to stick
> with a proven quantity and either hire directly or continue consulting with
> the handhold-ee?  Likely an experience and well established consultant gets
> an offer to trade effort on spec often, and I am sure that many such
> opportunities lead to nothing, but if just a small percentage result in
> decades long consulting relationships at top dollar, who is the fool:  the
> one taking the offer and chancing wasting his time or the one who ignores
> the offer and thus the potential for the business relationship?

The first fool is the one who offers value for nothing.  The second fool 
is the person who hires the first fool, thinking that financial 
foolishness doesn't extend to technical foolishness.

So again, you have an MBA and you're saying "give me a bunch of value in 
return for nothing, and _maybe_ later I'll give you an opportunity to 
give me a lot more value in return for your going rate".  So you're 
offering something that you _know_ that each and every one of your MBA 
profs would council _you_ against signing up for, yet you expect that 
you'll find someone who has some magic combination of technical smarts 
and financial stupidity.

I suppose it'll work if you're charismatic in person.

> If I had a budget, I would simply go to a hardware company and have the
> work done and not spend my time dealing like this.  This is an opportunity
> for someone who might be interested in an intellectual problem for some
> pay, perhaps to make it worthwhile for even a professional, well
> established consultant (and particularly for a student, which is why I
> pointed that out) that has a chance of more to come, not an offer of no pay
> now and stock that statistically is likely to be worthless.

If the stock is likely worthless, then how worthwhile is the promise of 
future work later?  For me, the likelihood that the future work would be 
worth anything is (likelihood of company succeeding) * (likelihood that 
you'll come through on your vague promises) - (likelihood that I'll have 
to work as much for pay from you as from anyone else).  That comes out 
to something less than zero, while the value of equity works out to (% 
of company that you're staking) * (likely value of company in the end) * 
(value adjustment for time spent getting there).  _That_ computation 
always comes out to a positive number; the only quibbling is how small 
it is.

Now, a signed note that _promises_ that if you gross more than so many 
$$ a year _guarantees_ work at higher than your putative contractor's 
going rate, or just plain cash -- that gets closer to the equity value 
equation, and you don't have to call it "equity".  Mostly because it 
gives your contractor something he can show to a judge when you or your 
successors decide that you didn't really promise anything, after all.

This has to be MBA logic at work "I'll offer them something that's worth 
even less than equity, then say they don't want equity because I have no 
faith in my ability to make it worth anything.  That'll convince them."

That's the sort of argument that flies when you're addressing a room 
full of people who you can fire if they point out the logical 
deficiencies in your argument, but you're swimming upstream if you think 
it's going to work with someone whose been successfully running a small 
business.

Getting your hypothetical student, or consultant who's just starting out 
may work.  In that case the value equation for them is "a bit of money 
now and something to put on my resume".  But even then, I wouldn't 
counsel _anyone_ to work for vague promises of more work -- unless it's 
concrete and signed, it's just gas.  Further, were I you I wouldn't 
trust the technical prowess of someone who would agree to provide so 
much for so little, unless _they_ could show _me_ the value that they're 
getting beyond the crummy pay that I could scrape up.

> Oh, as a btw, I have often done work free on spec (as a biochemist,
> programmer and MBA), often hundreds of hours, so to me the idea of actually
> getting paid for work that might lead to more is something I would expect
> lots of people to be interested in.

Good for you.  Did you get more out of it than you put in, or is this 
why you don't have any $$ to pay your way?

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

Tim Wescott wrote:

> That's the sort of argument that flies when you're addressing a room 
> full of people who you can fire if they point out the logical 
> deficiencies in your argument, but you're swimming upstream if you think 
> it's going to work with someone whose been successfully running a small 
> business.

LOL...

>Your biggest challenge is to build the semiconductor sensor to detect
>pico amps.  Forget the FPGA, it's not likely critical enough for your
>project.
>

Despite your sarcasm, at least you provide something more useful than
complaining about what a stupid idea my post is.

As I mentioned, I have no clue how practical even detecting the change in
current is.  I will have a 10 nm or so channel (3-5 nm deep) with a fluid
that is mostly water with some number of charged molecules flowing through
it.  The charged molecules will be around 1 nm in diameter.  My goal is to
detect the change in current flow between two conductors that are broken by
the channel.  I know this sort of thing can easily be done on the macro
level (conductivity meter), but I also know that things get strange when
you get down to the nm and single molecule level.  I also know that
researchers have been able to put 'patch clamps' on the surface of a cell
membrane and measure the movement of charged molecules through pores in the
membrane.  I have read anecdotal reports that some researchers have been
able to isolate single channels in membranes, hence measure the charged
molecules moving through a single pore (which, btw, would be smaller than 1
nm), but haven't been able to put my hands on the primary literature which
might lead me to the technical means they used to detect the changes.

What I have read makes me think that if I take a lead from an FPGA and
connect it with my chip that the level of current might not be so high that
it causes the fluid to boil.  If it is that simple then doing what I need
should be straightforward.  If getting that to work is highly unlikely then
it indicates that the initial prototype might need embedded circuitry just
to know if it has any chance of success, greatly complicating prototyping
within my budget.

So, is there a chance for helpful advice from what I thought was a forum
devoted to embedded hardware or just more unhelpful comments about how
asking for help and being willing to pay for it is a bad thing and subject
to ridicule?

On Nov 3, 10:27 am, "mitakeet" <mitak...@sol-biotech.com> wrote:
> >Your biggest challenge is to build the semiconductor sensor to detect
> >pico amps.  Forget the FPGA, it's not likely critical enough for your
> >project.
>
> Despite your sarcasm, at least you provide something more useful than
> complaining about what a stupid idea my post is.
>
> As I mentioned, I have no clue how practical even detecting the change in
> current is.  I will have a 10 nm or so channel (3-5 nm deep) with a fluid
> that is mostly water with some number of charged molecules flowing through
> it.  The charged molecules will be around 1 nm in diameter.  My goal is to
> detect the change in current flow between two conductors that are broken by
> the channel.  I know this sort of thing can easily be done on the macro
> level (conductivity meter), but I also know that things get strange when
> you get down to the nm and single molecule level.

Hence, your difficulties will be the nano analog domain, not digital.

>
> What I have read makes me think that if I take a lead from an FPGA and
> connect it with my chip that the level of current might not be so high that
> it causes the fluid to boil.

No difference with taking a lead from a uC or, parallel pin or serial
control pin.  Talking FPGA is just irrelevant at best.

>No difference with taking a lead from a uC or, parallel pin or serial
>control pin.  Talking FPGA is just irrelevant at best.
>

Since I have many (minimum 10, ideally at least 100) independent
conductors to measure simultaneously, I thought the ability of FPGAs to be
programmable to operate in parallel would be better than having a single
processor sequentially check each conductor.  Even presuming there aren’t
problems with propagation delays (I have been warned that such delays will
probably put a ceiling on the speed of the monitoring processor), if the
duration between each iteration of the serial checking is too large then
there exists the possibility to miss a signal.  I figure to have a reliable
chance to detect the passing of the molecule I need to check at least 10
MHz, probably 100 MHz.  To be able to differentiate signal from noise
cleanly I will need to repeatedly measure that the same molecule is between
the conductors several times before it passes through the detection area. 
I will have some influence on how long the molecule will be in the
conductor area, but the overall throughput is totally dependant on the rate
at which the molecules move, so faster measurements are always going to be
better, at least until some other rate limiting step is reached.

However, your suggestion of using something less complicated than an FPGA
as a proof of concept is well taken.  How often might I be able to sample
on a serial pin or something equivalent?

Thanks for your input!