The Amp Hour

An Interview with Ryan Cousins

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Welcome, Ryan Cousins of Krtkl!

  • Don't forget to fill out the 2019 listener survey! Closes November 22nd
  • Krtkl's embedded/FPGA platform is called Snickerdoodle, which is based on the Xilinx Zynq.
  • Ryan and his team got started working in the medical field working on mechatronics, doing the same stuff over and over again for customers.
  • Saving time from development risk
  • Example where "wires" on a base board were hooked up
  • Greg Davill's fantastic bodge wiring
  • The Snickerdoodle has a low end and high end product option:
    • Snickerdoodle One is 115
    • Snickerdoodle Black is 245
    • piSmasher
    • Customers are doing up to 10K units per year.
    • Started the company about 5 years ago
    • Biggest area of interest is in video space
    • Running up against the edge of what the part can do
    • Since they are targeting industrial customers, Krtkl have to keep supporting older boards
    • Challenge has been keeping community engaged
    • There are other Zynq modules out there, like the Zed board ($450). These are more like traditional dev boards.
    • Crowdfunded 4 years ago on Crowdsupply
    • Ryan was surprised how critical (ahem) people were of the product.
    • Chris checked and he said something nice on the interview with Clint Cole
    • Software layer is an important differentiator
    • Krtkl supported Ubuntu Linux out of the box
    • Working on streamlining the IP, they might eventually have an "app store" for reconfigurable logic IP blocks.
    • Custom peripherals need still need drivers in Linux
    • "Getting linux to run on this thing was more effort than building the hardware"
    • Zynq book
    • Pynq, which shows how to use Python for FPGAs
    • How are customers using this product?
      • Dual core system running 6 axis arm
      • Remote sensing, needed to be lower power. They put the high power module in the FPGA in deep sleep mode.
      • Company doing pinball accessory
      • Smart retail applications
      • There are really two main categories: mechatronic or high bandwidth (things like video)
      • It's a mix for how many are using linux
      • Krtkl is consulting on 2-3 development projects at any given time
      • "If you want to get a consulting business off the ground, start a crowdfunding campaign"
      • Still waiting on one line item from the crowdfunding campaign to have shipped out 100% of orders.
      • Check out the company at krtkl.com and their main product at snickerdoodle.io
      • Read more about the strife during the crowdfunding campaign on their update page of Crowdsupply
      • Reach out to Ryan by email
      • Read more about getting started on the Snickerdoodle campaign
      • "It'll only get better with time"
        • ...more
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        The Amp HourBy The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)
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