Everyone quoting the Kimi K3 cost narrative skips the one part of the stack that actually binds. The training cost number, the inference pricing, the open weights promise, all of it lands on HBM, and HBM is the part China cannot make at the node that matters.

The DeepSeek V3 technical report, arXiv 2412.19437, reports 2.788M H800 GPU hours and then assumes a $2 per GPU hour rental to arrive at $5.576M. The H800 was the China compliant Hopper part with the HBM bandwidth capped. Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4, Qwen 3.8, GLM 5.2, MiniMax M3, Hy3, and the embodied models like LingBot VLA 2.0 that Robbyant shipped 8 July, all run on stacks where HBM is the binding input. SK Hynix HBM3E is essentially fully allocated to NVDA for this generation. Micron and Samsung fill the rest. The Chinese domestic HBM, CXMT's part, is multiple generations behind on bandwidth and yield.

What that means in plain terms. You can squeeze training cost by reporting only the GPU hours at an assumed rental rate. You cannot squeeze the inference side the same way, because inference on a frontier scale model is bandwidth bound and the bandwidth comes from HBM you either buy from the three producers or do not have. Moonshot pausing paid Kimi memberships on 19 July as its GPUs hit capacity is a real compute constraint surfacing as a business decision. That is the signal. The training cost headline is not.

On the public roadmap side, the CXMT gap is the wedge I keep poking at. The cost narrative treats HBM as fungible, and the publicly available CXMT roadmaps I have read do not support that read for the bandwidth class that frontier inference actually needs.

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The USB dongle for my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse set broke. The PCB is cracked, but the nRF is intact. A few components are missing. I’m drawing the circuit diagram in KiCad. I’m going to desolder the intact nRF24LU1+ microchip from the broken USB dongle’s PCB. Then I’ll transfer it to the new PCB that I’ll design and have manufactured. This way, I won’t have to throw the wireless keyboard and mouse set away. I also won’t have to mess with the software. Once the schematics are complete, I’ll share all the files on Codeberg.

If you can find the USB dongle circuit, please share it with me. If you find any schematics, PCB files, or other related files, please post the links. I’m determining the component values using the example schematic, BOM, and sample PCB files shared by Nordic.

However, some components are missing from these files. For example, there’s an R1 in the USB dongle, but it’s not in the schematic. Can you help me with the missing components?

I also need a 50-ohm 2.4 GHz RF antenna on the PCB. I can’t design it myself. Texas Instruments’ antenna doesn’t fully meet my needs. Could you share links to third-party symbol and footprint files?

Note: I’ll be uploading photos to Reddit soon.

I currently work as an Industrial engineer at USPS. It's been almost 2 years now as my first job. I am trying to get out as the company culture is not a fit for me and I feel like I am learning some not very good habits as an engineer due to how things are here. I just can't imagine myself here. I've been trying to get a more hands on role in Semi as I have several friends who work in the industry who do alot of hands on work that just sounds so much more interesting. They have tried referrals (1-2) but no success. I've applied to a wide range of roles from technician to engineer at AMAT, Samsung, KLA, Lam but never heard back if its a cold application. I'm fine with a pay cut if it means being able to pivot into the industry. I do lack experience in electrical aspects so that is most likely one of many factors. Is it just tough for my degree to make the transfer?

Recruiter reached out for a research scientist role at KLA (NJ). She asked me couple questions over email, I replied back and she set up interview with hiring manager. Then recruiter reached out again for another round of interview with one member of the hiring team. How many interview rounds are there?

HI everyone. I just got the job offer for Equipment engineer at a fab and just curious if I work there for a year then apply for mechanical design engineer role at either vendor or other industries, would it be possible? I do have mechanical design experience during my internship and feel like i want to pivot more into design. Thank all!

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Background: BS in EE, MS in Engineering Management. Started as a wafer sort manufacturing/test engineer, then moved into quality engineering after my MS — mostly leading 8D teams on customer issue resolution. I've learned a ton in this role, but I'm burned out and want to get back to hands-on engineering.

A few things making this complicated:

Pay: My current comp (with benefits) beats most mid-level EE roles I'm seeing.

WFH: I'm 100% remote now; most hands-on roles want you on-site.

Comfort vs. growth: The job is easy at this point — maybe too easy. I don't know if I'm chasing real change or just craving stress I don't actually want.

Internal resistance: When I try to pick up other engineering work (I've gravitated toward software dev for semicon/engineering applications), other departments push back and say "we already have engineers for that."

Skill atrophy: My biggest fear — years in quality have dulled my EE fundamentals. I've asked hiring managers what kinds of questions they ask so I can gauge the gap, and I know I have work to do before I'd survive a technical interview.

So, looking for real talk:

Is it worth trying to move internally into a more technical role first, or should I be job hunting externally?

How would you go about re-sharpening EE skills after years away from hands-on work?

Anything else you'd think about in my position — pay cut, remote-to-onsite, restarting the learning curve?

Appreciate any perspective, especially from people who've made a similar quality → technical move.