The Ware for March, 2006, is shown below. Click on the picture for a much larger view.

And you say, “but it is April”, and I say, alas, never fear. Although I am late, I am committed to putting up 12 wares a year, so this ware will run short. I already have my next couple of wares lined up for the shooting, so I just need the time to write them up (and judge them…that’s really the hardest part of it all, because the responses are always so good and detailed!).

This ware is a write-in by John Miles. Thank you John! I love the way this one looks, such a wonderful mass of cables and RF waveguides.

Again, I am impressed at the alacrity and accuracy of the answers posted to name that ware. This time, people made generous use of the SHA-1 hash, but unfortunately, it doesn’t help much at the end of the month for judging. Luckily, bdb’s second post has a hash that I was able to generate a collision for: echo “geiger counter” | sha1sum matches. I’d be floored if his answer was anything else, and as such, he wins! email me to collect your prize, bdb!

A little more on this ware. This one is a little chunk of American history. It is a “civil defense” geiger counter, a Victoreen CDV-717.

These units were sold/distributed back in the cold war so that people could hide in their bomb shelters and know when it was safe to come out again. It has a detachable ion chamber with a six-foot cable so you can hang it outside your shelter and read the radiation levels without having to open the hatch. Duck and Cover! As such, the unit is actually fairly insensitive…I originally got it because it was cheap and I wanted to wander around the lagoon in my backyard to see what sorts of interesting things were being washed into it from upstream in San Diego (you never know…), and to see if any of the granite in my house contains radioactive veins. The unit doesn’t seem to be sensitive enough for that, so I guess I’ll just have to someday spend real money on a modern unit. But, hey, this is a neat ware and an interesting conversation piece.

And, btw, this unit comes from a day when schematics were put in just about everything. Check it out:

I finally got approval to post a picture of the chip I’ve been working on at Luxtera for the past few months of my life. This chip was talked about briefly at ISSCC 2006, but a photo wasn’t included in the paper…so here it is.

And in its package, with the lid and fiber couplings removed:

Briefly, the chip is a dual 10 Gigabit/s optical transceiver with integrated electro-optical signal conditioning, clock and data recovery, control and calibration circuitry, and various other testability features (I guess if I were to put on my marketing hat, I would use words like “world’s first integrated photonic system on a chip”). It was a very interesting chip to design. The interaction of the photonic elements and how it guides the architectural and physical design choices you can make in an integrated system are definitely unique and interesting. I think my favorite part of doing this chip was the opportunity to work on every level of the project–physics, silicon, tools, models, circuits, systems, layout, architecture, photonics, market reqs, test, characterization, boards, yield, etc. and to work on all of this with a talented team of engineers…a great learning experience that pushed me on all fronts.

The Ware for February, 2006, is shown below. Click on the image for a much lager view.

Ah, there is nothing like the last minute to get you motivated. If I waited another hour, I couldn’t call this February’s ware!…oh, in fact, since my server is on the East Coast, the post time already says March 1st. :-P Unfortunately, the ware I really wanted to post this month isn’t ready yet, so you’ll have to stand by until next month. This one, however, is still pretty neat, I think.

I’m guessing someone out there may be able to guess this one outright, but in case it turns out to be a tough one, I have one more picture (a sensor assembly) that I can give out as a clue that should give away what it is. It’s a pretty old piece of equipment (includes a sticker with the complete schematics of the assembly inside the case!), but still a neat thing to have around if not just as a conversation piece and to own a small piece of history.

Surprisingly, nobody got the right answer on this one. To be honest, I wouldn’t have gotten it either, but then again there are a lot of ware-sharpshooters out there who seem to headshot my wares within minutes of posting.

Here is the cover for the unit, I think it says it all:

SRS is for a Supplemental Restraint System–e.g., an airbag–and even though it says “Diagnostic Unit” I am informed that this is the sensor and trigger controller for an airbag unit that had deployed in an accident. It’s unclear if the sensor was destroyed as part of the deployment or not, but it was removed by the mechanic who was working on the car. I haven’t seen the sensor myself, but I’m guessing it’s some kind of accelerometer assembly, and I have heard many airbag sensor assemblies are fire-once (and of course, the airbag and it’s charge are fire-once as well). Why such a unit takes so much electronics, I don’t know…maybe someone out there knows the reason??

As for picking a winner, this time it’s tough. A lot of people gave really detailed, excellent answers. I’ll have to give it this time to JimmyJo, partially because he went so far as to check with OnSemi reps for the part number lookup, and partially because I’ve already named Mouser and Roastbeef as winners in the past already (did you guys get your prizes yet…? I think I mailed them out).

Oh yes, and the crud on the board…it seems to be the remnants of some kind of foam filling that was applied to the backside of the board (possibly as a shockmount?). It’s a fairly brittle foam that breaks up into small particles when you mush it under your finger.