Surviving Space: Radiation, Bit Flips, and Naked Silicon. An interview with Matthew Gill

Surviving Space: Radiation, Bit Flips, and Naked Silicon. An interview with Matthew Gill

Author: Matt Venn January 19, 2026 Duration: 835:31:57
A deep dive into radiation, bit flips, orbital hot spots, and what it really takes for silicon to survive in low Earth orbit.

Follow Matthew Gill: https://www.linkedin.com/in/42-matthew-gill/

00:00 Intro 
01:30 Matthew is a nuclear engineer 
02:26 How do you test without going to orbit? 
07:01 How does a bit flip happen? 
09:00 What does a hardened PDK and tooling look like? 
11:31 ESD testing 
14:15 RP2040 on HUNITY 
19:39 What is LEO like? 
23:35 Building a sensor to measure these effects 
25:22 Open source silicon intersecting with space 
30:26 What kind of shielding could we add? 
33:54 Van Allen belts 
39:18 Error detection 
41:28 Wafer variability 
44:05 Managing thermals 
49:44 Thanks

For anyone curious about how the tiny, powerful chips that run our world are actually created, Zero to ASIC Course offers a clear and engaging path through the complex landscape. Hosted by Matt Venn, this podcast demystifies the journey of designing Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), breaking down the barriers between abstract concepts and physical silicon. Each episode serves as an informal lesson, weaving together foundational physics, current industry news, and practical engineering insights. You'll hear conversations with practitioners and pioneers who are actively shaping open-source silicon, making a field often shrouded in proprietary secrecy feel accessible and collaborative. This isn't just theoretical; it's about the tools, the challenges, and the community effort to bring custom chip design to more people. By listening to this podcast, you gain a nuanced understanding of semiconductor development, from initial design to final fabrication. The discussions naturally explore the intersection of education, technology, and open-source philosophy, providing context for both newcomers and seasoned engineers looking to stay current. Matt guides the exploration with a focus on real-world application, ensuring that every interview and news segment builds towards a comprehensive, practical knowledge base. Tune in to connect the dots between software, hardware, and the innovative future of computing.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 43

Zero to ASIC Course
Podcast Episodes
Analog ASIC design with digital standard cells! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 439:07:01
For TinyTapeout 3, Harald Pretl made an analog temperature sensor out of digital standard cells. In this interview he explains how he did it.
Jeremy Birch on Tiny Tapeout's static timing analysis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 672:48:21
Jeremy Birch implemented a custom STA timing setup for Tiny Tapeout 3. In this interview we discuss his background, what we needed the check and the results.
September news update: MPW7 & 2, GDS renders, new videos & more! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:30
MPW7: https://zerotoasiccourse.com/post/mpw7_submitted/ MPW2: https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-announce/c/HelusBBUZ20 Efabless Job: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3293645910/?refId=BA5W4wSSRYOP%2FlHyVfboBw%3D…
July news & Free Silicon Conference 2022 (FSiC22) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:29
https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/FSiC2022 00:00 Intro 01:04 Charles Papon 05:18 Tristan Gingold 09:10 Staf Verhaegen 11:30 Naohiko Shimizu 16:38 Tim Edwards 20:46 Harald Pretl 21:40 Mirjana Videnovic-Misic
Crafting open source standard cell libraries with James Stine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:28
00:00 Intro 03:05 Teo's work on optimising adders 04:35 Proppy's work with Jupyter notebooks 05:32 Open source is the key to innovation 07:51 GF180 08:10 When teaching the design of standard cell libraries, what do stude…