Matthias (DL9MJ)
Matthias (DL9MJ) is a professor of computer engineering at the University of Würzburg. In his free time, he is interested in HAM radio and jazz. He is the Youth and Education Chair at the German Amateur Radio Club DARC.
Beitrag
Open-source chip-design initiatives and EDA tools are enabling affordable, workflows from SystemVerilog to GDS-II, making custom ASICs accessible even to hobbyists. As a demonstration, a collaboration between JKU Linz and the University of Würzburg realized the first fully integrated WSPR transmitter IC using the Tiny Tapeout 130 nm mixed-signal process, eliminating the need for PCs, microcontrollers, or FPGAs. The chip combines a digital subsystem that generates WSPR symbols using CORDIC and sigma-delta modulation with an analog RF chain that performs IQ modulation, filtering, and amplification, proving that real-world amateur radio applications can be implemented entirely with open-source tools.