TNP #47 - SHF 100CP 20GHz Broadband GaAs FET Amplifier Teardown & Experiments

[@kevy1yt]

Yes, would love to know more about the BER.

[@PixelSchnitzel]

YES!!!

[@OutThere458]

Yes definitely! I didn't know that BER analysis could be a dedicated instrument.

[@fredflickinger643]

Looking forward to it!

[@steve_case]

Yes, and BER with optics.

[@MrMersh-ts7jl]

Your content so entertaining that although this is miles above my head I watch with so much enthusiasm. You're enthusiasm is very infectious. Thank you

[@donepearce]

Where do you find your dumpsters?

[@loberd09]

If im not mistaken around bell labs

[@glasslinger]

I hear this dumpster stuff and wonder if someone "threw it away" so they could get it past security to reclaim it later!

[@YSPACElabs]

Ah yes, just an RF amplifier in a dumpster. TELL ME WHERE ARE THESE MAGIC DUMPSTERS!!!?

[@garci66]

Nokia / bell labs most probably. I've done my fair share of touring old / empty buildings of the company and ran into a cubicle with maybe 10.HP vintage spectrum analyzers. Not yet in the dumpster... But given they were sitting next do discarded drywall... Not far off.

[@solosailorsv8065]

Old School SMT components, hand soldered under a microscope. WOW Without two more stages for input and output matching, I am Impressed !

[@OneBiOzZ]

we have procedures to test all equipment before declaring a device or product defective as previously someone tossed thousands of dollars in devices due to a faulty bench power supply used to test them and i heard a similar story from a friend where thousands of dollars were tossed due to a faulty SMA cable Always test your test equipment

[@wolpumba4099]

I'm interested to learn more about bit-error rate.

[@bluesteelbass]

Interesting the circuit board trace design from then to now for GHz and beyond Low Noise Amplifiers. Very, very good to see the small variations in solder amounts will not detrimentally affect things to ~20GHz for DIY projects. 😛Keep me in mind if you ever find the dish and feed that accompanied that LNA find!

[@regweldrotmg]

I love how they used the through hole components like a bridge to hop the DC over the RF signal line

[@rolfdieterklein]

yes please showing more on BER would be great. -- excellent video of this nice device.

[@lucvanhove9639]

This must work with specific selected components, normaly we adjust by cutting a part of the trace or add a silver band arround the transistors. Adjust the coupling with small ceramic blocks for optimal results of power vs reflection and oscillation.

[@chrisdickens4862]

The multistage inductor concept is interesting. Thanks for the great video!

[@neekonsaadat2532]

Fantastic video

[@bansci]

Really nice to see the hand construction of the bias circuitry. Would have thought placing that large inductor over the output trace would have given some issues... I know it's perpendicular, but the coils aren't!

[@glasslinger]

Maybe the cause of some of the ripples in the trace.

[@macgillie4560]

Please, would love a video on BER. Maybe enhance it with packet loss in Ethernet networks? I.e. RFC2544 testing.

[@aishwaryagunaputi009]

Would love a video tutorial on BERT!!

[@JohnDoe-es5xh]

Maybe this amp has problems with the long term temperatur stability and was thrown away caused by that? It's not unusual as I experienced turing my working life.

[@jimomertz]

That’s what I was thinking. Maybe after a couple of hours of use, it gets hot and dies.

[@Thesignalpath]

I did run it for hours, and it continued to work. But it is possible that it could fail with time.

[@vincei4252]

LMAO at the Ripley joke. Was that orange pooch under her arm ?

[@MrJef06]

When you're an RF engineer you don't say "connect backwards" you say "reverse bias" 😂

[@vincei4252]

The only dumpsters I have near my house have all the waste from an IGA supermarket. 😭😭😭not about to go diving in that 😂

[@tomteiter7192]

Yeah, I wonder where all these glorious dumpsters are. Here in germany all has to go "the right, triple signed, and pencil pusher defined way" and you even can't take something from the community eWaste disposal sites. DAS IST VERBOTEN! A few weeks ago there was a Commodore VC-20 I wasn't allowed to take home. I tried to explain, but the low wage drones only knew DAS IST VERBOTEN! It's a damn shame...

[@amogusenjoyer]

​@@tomteiter7192he works at bell labs, probably related :)

[@andreagiudici926]

😢

[@martinsiebert1368]

I am analyzing the distributed amplifier in my current restoration project of an Tektronix Oscilloscope 545A. I learn much of this. With smaller geometric size of semiconductors and physics of this, we gain GHz-Amplifiers! I see integration of distributed amplifiers on semiconductors with antenna arrays on chip, connecting things on home cinema together in households. Now my question for you: I cannot compete with the necessary measurement equipment for this. Would you show poor mans solutions in GHz-range in measurements requirements for your patrons?

[@xDevscom_EE]

What are the square crossed patches on the dielectric substrate and lines near the input and output transmission line traces? Capacitive fine-tuning?

[@mohamedlanjri]

Most likely is due to glass crazing/etching. Overtime the tungsten will evaporate and deposit on the glass making the insulation more conductive and prone to shorts.

[@Darkknight512]

If you do a video on BERT, can you do a combination video, looking at a backplane or cable performance with a BERT instrument but then also the same measurement using an FPGAs internal BERT like Xilinx's IBERT? Would be nice to see the differences.

[@wolpumba4099]

could you x-ray the amplifiers? or is it impossible to get the board out?

[@jorikvarta81]

Ripley 🤗

[@sparticl3]

Would love to know which dumpsters you are haunting to find some of this gear lol. The ones around my area are not nearly as fruitful!

[@_wave64_]

Where is that dumpster??

[@jamwaffles]

Please do a video on BERTs!

[@jozefnovak7750]

Super!

[@GoldRimmer]

I always get anxiety when you wave metal scribers near displays and miniature components.

[@Thesignalpath]

The tool is further from the display or components than it seems from the video. :)

[@TheBackyardChemist]

All GaAs, no brakes

[@brothertheo2677]

It looks like you never test the amp down to 100 khz. Perhaps the failure is there. Or did I miss something?

[@hinz1]

It's AC coupled, so it never goes down to DC. Also, hardly anyone who uses these amps, cares for below 100MHz performance on these things, when looking at GHz signals ;-)

[@LightningHelix101]

@@hinz1it was a good thought though. Maybe this is needed for some system that has low and high frequency performance which is why it would be specked down to such a large BW.

[@Kevin_geekgineering]

where exactly is your dumpster?

[@erisugiatmoko8692]

Pardon, what's this function?

[@carlos_dox]

BERT tutorial please 😀

[@chrismumford9206]

can you take an x-ray?

[@ostrov11]

спасибо хорошая работа

[@lorinczhuff2022]

I don't know how to say this any other way. Can I have the amplifier?

[@Richardincancale]

4:10 😂😂😂

[@zyeborm]

Does Bert have a friend called Ernie? 😂

[@hinz1]

No DC block and no attenuation on input? Next, OMG, broken dumpster amplifier blew my $50k VNA ;-))

[@davidgustafik7968]

You should sell tickets to your dumpster.

[@deanagoes2791]

Saya bahkan tidak tahu kenapa saya menonton ini 🤦

[@YDKMPablo]

Let's open it and see if something is roasted. Nay... Let's diagnose the failure with $500 k worth in toys to open it anyway... 😀

[@zahirkhan778]

I think you need to slow the speech to 0.9x you speak too fast for a newbie like me to keep up.

[@PlasmaHH]

wtf kind of dumpster you have?

[@jimmuehlberg2153]

Nokia Bell Labs Dumpster. Really.

[@IGBeTix-Electronique]

Hi, interesting but the flow of speaking is to much high for foreign people....

[@Richardincancale]

Did you know the KZbin application allows you to slow down replay to a half or even a quarter speed? It works well

[@IGBeTix-Electronique]

@@Richardincancale ok thanks

[@timeltdme4355]

personally i hate slow speakers and fast forward or even skip most of the content, but not here

[@wolpumba4099]

Here's an "Explain Like I'm Five" version of the abstract, focusing on the most interesting parts: *What's this video about?* This video is about a cool machine found in the trash! It's called an amplifier, which makes tiny signals bigger. Think of it like a megaphone for electricity! *What's so special about it?* This amplifier works with really, really fast signals, which is tricky to do. It was labeled as broken, but it actually works perfectly! *What did they do?* They tested the amplifier to make sure it was working and then they opened it up to see how it's made. It has these special parts inside called "fets" and lots of twisty wires to make the signals go super fast. *Why couldn't they break it?* They wanted to break open the special parts to really see how they work. But, since the amplifier works, they didn't want to ruin it! *Abstract* This video explores the internal workings of a dumpster-salvaged 20 GHz amplifier labeled as broken. Surprisingly, the amplifier was found to be functional, delivering 20 dB of gain as specified. Its broadband design incorporates gallium arsenide FET devices for high performance. The examination reveals a multi-stage construction with careful bias networks and thermal management. While the desire to analyze the die inside was unfulfilled due to the unit's functionality, the video provides insights into the construction principles of high-frequency amplifiers. disclaimer: i used whisper and gemini. this method can't recognize all words and can't distinguish multiple speakers

[@wolpumba4099]

@@alifesh gemini tends refer to "the authors" if you give it a text like this transcript and ask for the eli5 abstract. i didn't think it worthwhile to fiddle with the prompt to fix this.

[@DmitryAvsioukov]

​@@alifeshnowadays "they" is a common way to refer to a single person while not specifying gender, i.e. not saying "he" nor "she", but "they"