Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Speaking at EHSM


I'll be doing a talk on general IC RE techniques at EHSM in Berlin later December.  Come by and say hi!  (no I won't be wearing my super-villain outfit)  In other news, work has been busy so not many updates. But a few teasers.


Thanks to help from a friend or two I was able to write a reasonably working camera driver for my MU generation AmScope camera (MD is similar chipset but didn't have obscurified protocol).  Also CNC microscope software has undergone a revamp and is much cleaner and runs on Linux through gstreamer. Having the video widget integrated into the GUI is much more convenient.  I did a proof of concept run but haven't done any "real" imaging runs yet.


Additionally hardware is getting a revamp by adding CNC Z, theta X, and theta Y using picomotors.  If space permits I may add a rotary stage for manual (or possibly CNC) rotation.  This should allow nearly fully automatic imaging (the most time intensive part of imaging right now is leveling the chip).


Finally, I have been learning OpenCV and experimenting with automated techniques.  Needs work but I'm getting better and its been a good learning experience if nothing else.  In short, while Degate is out there I don't really understand how it works and can't improve it (at least the image processing side).  While degate focuses on standard cell matching I'm working with less regular older chips to form polygons.  So, it should form a good compliment to Degate as well as help me contribute as I learn more.