Matt of tinytapeout.com

Matt from Tiny Tapeout follows a real-world chip design flow from hardware description to fabrication. He covers the basics of semiconductors, CMOS circuits, and how to build and test a system on a chip. If designing a chip seems elusive, this is THE workshop that gets it done. Watch Matt Venn’s 3-minute youtube video explaining Tiny Tapeout.

Four weeks after the event, your designs are sent for fabrication (at no cost to you). You will be able to test your chip on your own laptop 8 months later.

Biography:

Matt Venn is a science & technology communicator and electronic engineer. He has been a leader of the open-source silicon movement for the last 5 years and has sent 30 chips for manufacture.

Matt has helped over 600 people learn the tools on his Zero to ASIC course, and created the Tiny Tapeout shuttle service that has facilitated manufacture of over 1500 custom chip designs since 2022. Find more about Matt Venn on LinkedIn.

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John

Design your own printed circuit board (PCB) at this Hackday, and get a grant of up to $140 from project OnBoard and Hack Club to have it manufactured! Students are designing and building projects like Lidar sensors for a robot and rasberry-pi picos with the knowledge and skills gained through OnBoard grants.

John Cohn and Theo Loke will lead you through the design process in just a few hours. Your PCB, populated with components after fabrication, will be shipped to you 1 week after submission by mail.

Biography:

John Cohn is a Consulting Scientist at eVTOL company BETA Technologies. He earned a BSEE from MIT ('81) and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon ('91), where he was named Distinguished Alumnus in 2014. John has authored over 50 papers, contributed to four books, and holds over 120 worldwide patents. He is an IEEE Fellow (2005) and member of the National Academy of Engineering (2022), recognized for advancing analog circuit design and STEM education. John is also an IBM Fellow Emeritus in the MIT-IBM Watson AI Research Group based in Cambridge, MA. He has authored more than 30 technical papers, contributed to four books and has more than 100 worldwide patents.

Find our more about John Cohn on LinkedIn

Visit John’s website: http://johncohn.org

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Theo

same as second speaker

Biography:

Theo Loke is a Grade 12 student athlete at Canyon Crest Academy (CCA), San Diego, in the Engineering Pathways Program. He recently served as a teaching assistant for the OnBoard PCB workshop at CCA and remotely interned at Georgia Tech designing PCBs. Theo has published two articles in the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine. He plays competitive soccer and plans to pursue a degree in electrical engineering.

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Clay of Hack Club

same as second speaker

Biography:

Clay Nicholson is a student from Vermont, where he serves as captain of the RoboHawks (FTC) and Green Mountain Robotics (FRC). He is also an Engineer at Hack Club, running national maker programs, and founded his school’s CS Club to expand access to computing. Clay has represented Vermont as a STEM advocate to state and federal leaders, helping launch new robotics teams and events across the state.

He earned Vermont’s first Grand Award at the 2025 Regeneron ISEF and is a Dean’s List International Finalist in both FTC and FRC. He has also been recognized with the VT Congressional App Challenge, the Yale Science & Engineering Association Award, and as an MIT LLRISE Scholar. For fun, Clay competes in varsity Ultimate, mountain bike racing, and skiing.

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Alvin of Intel Corporation

Biography:

Alvin Loke is a Senior Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation, San Diego, working on analog design/technology co-optimization for nanoribbon CMOS. He received a BASc from UBC, and MS/PhD from Stanford. Alvin spent several years in CMOS process integration and has thereafter been involved in analog design and its enable me. He is an active IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society volunteer and advocates for pre-college outreach in electronics.

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