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Big Clive got one of those irons and the wire fell out as he was holding it in his hands. Maybe the next big Chinese special will be some combination of the soldering iron and the wet baby detector!

Dave, I work in the semiconductor ind. Those temperature sensing wafers are used in areas of the process that involve heating up the wafers. This is seen a lot in the lithography steps where the wafers are baked and cooled. Fluctuations in the temp across oven plates causes problems further down the line when the wafers get exposed. These sense wafers are typically used to calibrate the oven plates used to heat the wafers, this ensures that all of the wafer gets heated to the same temperature. Great show by the way :)

Proabbly going negative as scope input unterminated.

Dave, The shock pen was mine, lol. Thanks for the teardown! I wish I could afford to send something more interesting. Still the greatest feeling in the world to have my stuff on your vblog. Been following weekly for years.

Those temp-sensing wafers are so bizarre and beautiful, they should be framed and hung up in the lab.

The schematic diagram for the "wet babay" alert is hilarious =) They're using "integ-rated" chips none of this "dis-crete" rubish.

I bought some LED lightbulbs off of China once. They emitted so much interference that it produced a +30 dB noise level on my HF radio. I eventually took one apart and found one of the most scary SMPS circuits ever.

Still wating for the Altium-I mean the DaveCADHQ building tour!

He seamed to like the £1 soldering iron. Yes it was me who ordered it for him.

I used to work at Digital Equipment years ago. The LSI 11-23, was known internally as the "Fonz-11" project, and they had the "two thumbs up" icon from "the Fonz" on the TV show "Happy Days" right there on the Silicon! They also had a support chip known as the "MIC" chip (stood for "multiple level interrupt controller"), and it had 'Mickey Mouse' in the corner of the chip (good thing Disney never found out about that one!). Then there was the 11-73 micro processor chip. It was internally called the "Jaws-11", and had a logo of the 'Great White Shark' from the movie on the chip. I got to look at all of these under a microscope, so I saw the artwork.

Those are single photon avalanche photo diode detectors. My MSc. thesis was based around designing these at the device layout level, and characterizing various designs for integration on the same die with other CMOS circuits for medical applications (and I did it in Canada too, even the silicon wafers were made in Canada!!!). It was quite the happy day when I finally actually saw some of those magical pulses coming out of APDs that I had actually designed! The afterpulsing is generally caused by the detector itself emitting a few photons when the avalanche current starts to flow after a photon is absorbed, and before the quench circuit lowers the reverse bias below the avalanche threshold to stop the current flow. The detectors typically have an array of APDs, so the photons emitted by one APD in avalanche will trigger the breakdown of others in the array. Also slight temperature changes of the junction (just from the larger average current that's flowing while the device is exposed to the more intsense light) shift the avalanche breakdown threshold, which will change the amount of excess bias voltage, which greatly changes the sensitivity of the device. The way to mitigate this is to use an active quench circuit with a gating signal. You want to keep the bias voltage across the device a little below the threshold when you know the device will be exposed to a lot of light (the laser pulse), then you crank the bias voltage up above the threshold when the excitation light is shut off to do the measurements. If I had to guess, the detector is made by Hammamatsu, even the quench circuit and everything else might just be re-badged Hammamatsu kit. If the quench circuit is designed properly, the device will not be damaged by exposure to too much light. There will be a saturation threshold where the device can no longer measure more light and give meaningful results, but as long as the quench circuit keeps the average power flowing to a reasonable level to not cause heat induced damage, there should be no long term effects.

"Houy, welcome to everyone's favorite segment mailbag!" Who else at home says the intro every time along with Dave? I can't be the only one... Edit: Dave, when you start pronouncing Peltier correctly, maybe I'll change my pronunciation of geocaching. :P

27:17 My neighbors are probably wondering what I'm watching

The blue tape is to hold all the dies together after dicing :D

lol they didn't solder together the soldering iron ahahahaahahaahahh

05:51 - It's an 8-bit digital mirror!

The temperature sensing wafer (called on-wafer) is used to measure the different temperature zones in a Dry Etch plasma tool of the Electrostatic Chuck (ESC). For zonal temperature tuning. This is used to control the etch rates on across the inner to outer zones. Critical when you are trying to control etch rates within +-10 Angstroms across the surface of a 300 mm wafer. A couple of tenths of a degree makes all the difference.

Wow right from the get go we get to see so many amazing silicon wafers!

They would look lovely in a frame in your new office .

At 23:30 it's not photons going through your thumb, it's your thumb emitting IR light due to heat.

30:22 thats the one i send. i have a few of those and they run fine after half a year of normal use.

OMG, the soldering iron reaction had me laughing on the floor....

The light saturation of the detector after the LIDAR pulse is due to charge trapping inside the detector. In fact, for atmospheric LIDAR it would be better to employ a gated SPAD detector, which can really be turned off during the laser pulse and pretty much no saturation should occur.

I work on several OEM opto-mech modules for KLA, unfortunately i've never heard of their temperature sensing system. Did some research and it seems really interesting

The photon counter is made in Québec, where I live. It was made in Vaudreuil, which is west of Montréal. We have a lot of scientific research companies up here.

It's crazy I know two of the engineers that have many patents issued when they worked at Dallas Semiconductor! Bradley & Thomas Harrington. I bet Dave would have a blast talking to them.

worth a like for the crotch eczema and other chinee wonderness

In case you didn't find out, the remote is for a generation 1 AppleTV. My family has one of those.

"I have no idea what that is, but it looks impressive!" There's yer next sciencey t-shirt, Dave.

Good mailbag. Had a good laugh at the wet baby detector and soldering iron. I'm surprised China isn't on fire right now.

lifx kickstarter was probably the most professional and on time kickstarter I've seen

I found one of those shocking pens at a small store up north and I was able to get a 4 watt night light bulb to glow red. Wasn't bright to see by though. This pen used a single AAA battery.

the remote control looks like my Apple TV remote. I have often stared at that obelisk and wondered how the hell they put it together. Good luck indeed; mine remains unexplored.

That is an apple tv remote. Geo caching was invented a couple miles away from me in Estacada, Oregon by a guy from Beavercreek, Oregon which is where I am from. I love your videos, I always learn something, thank you for the time and effort and I think Sagan is an awesome name. Thanks again mate.

They use those plugs in China, too. And there they have 230v. I was really surprised when I went to China though, to find that most outlets accepted most plugs, even european Shuko :P

I suppose with all the stuff you got in the mailbag and the ENORMOUS new lab, you could set up the official EEVblog museum

oh god, I made the mistake of buying one of those sort of soddering irons when I was trying to get into electronics but didn't know what I was doing (and still don't, which is why I gave up for now). Those things are so dangerous and scary to use, mine started smoking through those grates, I used it once and never again.

The wafers are mounted on the mylar before being singulated so the die don't go flying everywhere and can be picked

Dave this is one of the best mail bags ever

That photon counter was incredibly interesting

The potting compound on the light might be thermally conductive. I did something similar in a flashlight design.

Re those led light bulbs at around 28:00 , i bought one and every time i turn it on, my pc emits the sound like when it's looking for new hardware :D

A crowdfunding campaign that actually kept its promise to its backers and actually shipped. Batteriser take notes!

You should make a tabletop with the wafers sealed under clear resin

At 23:10, could the IR from your thumb (body heat) be saturating the camera? It says detection ranges to 1060nm, and its being cooled with that TEC.

only half way in and this is the best mailbag I can remember.

Game plan: Find the biggest box, send the smallest object. Be first to be featured in Mailbag segment.

8:00 you can hand that up wall as picture painting. nice

Those APDs are not cooled to cold temperatures but they are kept at 20°C or so.

Something I discovered, that "American" plug on that soldering iron is actually made for Chinese outlets. Apparently they fit the 220/240 volt outlets there...

A quick Google tells me that the model car module is still being sold for 36€ delivered (at least in Germany).

The wet baby alert was the best part. XD

My LIFX is working just fine. I like it, because they documented the protocol fully, so I was able to control it from Linux easily from a script, not just by phone. Nice overall.

Dave, do a collaborative post with Chris, he's worked in a fab so he can probably add something to description of the process with photos of those wafers.

Try getting a new APD from ebay and repair your photon counter. Then you could do some photon correlations with your detectors.

My guess is that the air is floressing (sp?) after being excited by the laser and the detector is picking up those photons.

+EEVblog Dave, you forgot to include the link to the RU-vid video with the silicon wafers!

Dave. is there a separate video going through each wafer?

I never saw the point of geocaching. You just walk until the coordinates on your receiver matches the posted coordinates and then look down. Now, before the advent of the GPS system it would have actually been interesting. Loran wouldn't have been precise enough, especially not in the woods, so you'd have to rely on trigonometric surveying. That would have made it a pretty cool challenge.

I'd love to have a complete wafer someday. I'd frame it nicely and hang it on the wall. Preferably I think I'd want something with a lot of visible details, such as at 5:27 or even later at around 7:44. Naturally if I ever get the opportunity to get one, I'd try for the one that has the most to look at to the naked eye. But they all definitely will have fun things to see if you add magnification.

Hi Dave! I work with a type of avalanche photodiodes, namely Silicon Multi Pixel photon counters. I have some ideas regarding the saturation effects that the letter was talking about. It's likely due to an excessive amount of electron captures in the silicon during the initial pulse. These electrons are later released, creating afterpulses. There's not much to do about it! The long "lag time", i.e. the time it takes from electron capture to electron release increases as the APD gets colder. But you also need a cold APD to decrease the dark count.

just a mechanically educated guess here, the apple remote was hollowed out with a t-slot cutter on a milling machine and the boards are stuck in there like the sliding glass doors of a cupboard.

Any updates on the new lab?

when it comes to computer related stuff do you pronounce like how you did in the video as well? or is it just geo-cache that you guys pronounce it like that

thet german module it is for the fallar car system that are little ho cars that drive around the railroad (H0) they follow a magnet wire and they have a readsensor for stopping

regarding the photon counter the signal when you had your thumb over the sensor is probably your own ir emsions , from what i saw it counted a fair bit into the ir spectrum

I love the looks of these discs. If you are ever going to get rid of them, I'd love to have some. I'll pay for shipping no problem!

I haven't been in a single meeting, but reading the words makes me immediately think of a Metting. The only one i don't understand is the "Jon Fosses Kumøkbingo", probbably something that is not that known in the area where i live.

What will Dave do if everyone's favorite segment is no longer mailbag?

I thought us poms were the moany wingers -- Cheers Dave

I bought a whole bunch of those LED bulbs. Work great to be fair. I'm limited in what size I can use due to design. Feel bad now though lol.

30:20 hahaha. Are you SURE, it's not for enclosed light fixtures ?

My first soldering iron was just like that. I was freaked out to plug in...

Hiii Lewys here, the photo is my best friend from high school Christian, not me ;)

Those pens are crap, if you want to shock your mate, use a megger tester! :) Another trick we used to do was charge up 300v caps and when sneak up behind someone and prod their ear lobes with the lead wires :)

I have heard that tone from the baby moisture detector in a gift card before, I wonder if they adapted it from that.

Amazing, I bought a load from aberco last month! Make great wall art :D

Don't suppose you would want to donate a photon counter (high dark counts just aren't a big deal) to a university group doing photon correlation spectroscopy with very little funding? :)

It's remote for Apple TV old style, or for Mac computers.

Could the weird pulses from the photon detector be due to wrong termination on the scope? Dunno if it wants 50 ohms...

The pronunciation is Antwan (like swan) :D

I'd like to see how they make the connections to the pins onto those tiny wafers.

Could the tail of pulses after the laser saturation be due to increased temperature of the sensor? Sort of increased thermal noise due to heating.

Surprising quality of solder joints on that chinesium LED bulb board...... well.... at least the smt...

Where do you get items like the Dallas Semiconductor items? I've always wanted use items like this in an art project, other than photography. That is, if they are affordable. Nevermind, as soon as I typed the question, Dave gave the answer.

Ah, so 10 seconds after throwing shade on the "fanboys", you are impressed by Sir Jony Ive's design?

Is that soldering iron UL approved? How about the wet baby alarm? The latter may have undesirable conditioning effect - a reward for peeing unless the music scares the baby in which case it would deter peeing.

What kind of knife is that for opening mail??

Thought that pen would be a grill ignitor or something.

Hey Dave. I just looked up that Geocaching Travel Bug. Has it been placed in a cache? The only tags I see are people who saw it in this video.

Wow, the logo on the christmas shirt is a Peanuts reference. Doubleplus Minnesota.

I am not sure, but, i think that the top and bottom part from that remote controller are ultrasoon welded.

always fun to watch

He-he! One might actually suspect Big Clive for "harassing" Dave with all those Prime Chinese products. Love the tune of the Wet Baby Alert by the way, because it's only natural to play a cheerful tune when the baby wet itself.

Come on dave, smart lightbulbs are quite useful as status lights, you cant deny that...

220V with american plug is actually commonly used in China

lol maybe I should've watched the video first. I know nothing about diode photon counters. I'm assuming that photon counter is a photomultiplier tube because of the high voltage warning. If it is, there is a photocathode coating on the window that emits electrons when it is struck by the photons and those electrons are whats actually multiplied. Those photocathode coatings can be effectively 'charged' like a capacitor by the light and continue to emit electrons even after the light is removed. Different photocathode materials with different sensitivities to different wavelengths bleed off that charge at different rates. Some tubes I have have to be in completely darkness for HOURS AND HOURS for that charge to bleed off if exposed to typical ambient light. As for the signal delay, I don't know if that due to signal conditioning, buffering or something. It's been a while, but I think there is a trade off between quantum efficiency of the tube and the response time. I'm probably 100% wrong though. Hamamatsu has a great PDF with pretty much anything you could want about PMTs.

Antoine is pronounced Antwon with a French accent! Think of Marie Antoinette. Those wafers are amazing!

My wife was near the door after you opened the soldering iron. She thought I was watching porn. 27:16 on. "I don't even want to touch it! But I have to." :)

Dave, you need to organize a museum.