Taiwan is nearly a world-class leader in the upstream of the LEO satellite supply chain (RF PA, filters, high-frequency PCB), and has decent participation in the downstream (ground terminals, antennas) — but a structural void exists in the hottest new theme of 2025–2026: mid-stream C, Orbital Data Center (ODC) hardware integration.
This is not an accident. It is a structural opportunity window.
Designing a phased array transmitter for space is not just a matter of getting the RF circuitry right.
Architecture selection, signal chain calibration, PA linearization, thermal reliability, radiation hardening — every layer involves trade-offs, and every decision influences the next. This post is drawn from my work on the XT-144 system design and measurement during my time at the RFVLSI Lab at NCTU and at Tron Future Tech. The goal is to connect the logic behind each of those decisions.
In March 2026, Jensen Huang said something on the GTC stage:
"Space computing, the ultimate frontier, has arrived."
This was not a metaphor. In November 2025, US startup Starcloud launched an NVIDIA H100 into orbit (Starcloud-1) and completed the first large language model training session in space. Two months later, on January 11, 2026, Axiom Space launched two orbital data center nodes (ODC Node 1 & 2), connected them to Kepler Communications' optical relay network, and began offering cloud compute services to external customers.
Earth orbit has officially become a new location class for data centers.
設計一個 800 Mbps、X-band 的 LEO 衛星傳輸器，最難的部分不是 RF 電路本身——而是量測完之後，面對一個歪七扭八的星座圖，你知道問題在哪嗎？
這篇文章整理自交通大學電子所謝書超的碩士論文，記錄了一套 Zero-IF X-band 傳輸器從「星座點一團亂」到「EVM 達標通過 SEM」的完整校正歷程。有些眉角，教科書上找不到。
This post captures my current engineering thesis across AI systems, space infrastructure, blockchain, and RF validation.
This post is automatically generated for the week starting 2026-03-23.
Bugs encountered during New Product Introduction (NPI) are eighty percent not the "wrong line of code" variety of pure software problem — they are cross-layer interactions: hardware design passes review but SMT variation kills a certain batch; ATE test passes but the system side hits a firmware corner case because of a different profile; everything works in the lab until the customer's environment surfaces a coexistence interference issue.
This post fully documents the checklist I use on Wi-Fi / RF SoC product lines to "classify first, find root cause second." Future cases can be run through this list from the top.
General-purpose LLMs are powerful, but when it comes to deep analysis in specialized domains, they have two hard limitations: knowledge that lags behind the cutting edge, and factual dilution for niche fields. Take the Polkadot ecosystem as an example — key 2024–2026 developments like Agile Coretime, RegionX, and JAM are either unanswerable by general models, or return outdated information.
The solution is not a bigger model — it's giving the model a structured, trustworthy external knowledge base, then wrapping it with a persona and task prompt. That's the motivation behind my myGPTs.
I first encountered Plurality while browsing documentation about Project Liberty's efforts to expand DSNP (Decentralized Social Networking Protocol) across platforms like TikTok, Bluesky, and Frequency — and I noticed that former Minister Audrey Tang was also involved.
I first came across Plurality because I saw Project Liberty actively advocating for breaking the traditional single decision-making model — encouraging people to approach issues from multiple angles and form governance structures that are more inclusive and adaptive. This plural perspective allows participants to explore multiple possibilities in different contexts, rather than being forced down a fixed, predetermined path. For more details, see the book Audrey Tang co-authored: Plurality GitHub Repository
The term "Web3" was coined by Dr. Gavin Wood to refer to "a decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain." By leveraging blockchain's inherent transparency, Polkadot implements OpenGov — on-chain governance — which interestingly shares notable similarities with the ideas in Plurality.
Polkadot is a blockchain platform committed to cross-chain interoperability. Its core philosophy includes:
OpenGov (Open Government) focuses on transparency, participation, and collaboration between governments and citizens. Its key characteristics are:
Although both Polkadot and OpenGov aim to break traditional centralized governance models, they differ in emphasis and implementation:
Technology-driven vs. institutional reform
Governance models
Application domains
Plurality offers us a framework for plural co-governance, allowing technology and democracy to advance side by side. Whether it is Polkadot's technical innovation or OpenGov's institutional reform, both are pushing society toward a more transparent, inclusive, and decentralized future.
Polkadot JAM (Join-Accumulate Machine) is a proposed upgrade to the Polkadot network designed to replace the current Relay Chain, making its design more modular and minimalist. It combines Ethereum-style smart contract functionality with Polkadot's scalability, creating a more flexible development environment.
JAM's computation model is based on the "Join-Accumulate" mechanism, where "Join" and "Accumulate" functions execute on-chain, while "Collect" and "Refine" processes complete off-chain. This design reduces on-chain computation overhead and improves efficiency. According to the Polkadot Wiki, JAM will be a domain-specific chain focused on processing rollups and providing strong security guarantees.
Additionally, JAM supports asynchronous interaction — unlike the synchronous interactions typical of many smart contract platforms. Messages and token transfers are sent and received within the same 6-second execution epoch, but there is no immediate return path, leaving room for future performance optimizations such as allocating additional gas.
JAM's performance targets are ambitious. According to published analyses, JAM plans to use 350 JAM cores, each with a 6-second execution window and 5 MB input, yielding a combined throughput of 850 MB/s — theoretically supporting over 3.4 million TPS (transactions per second). By comparison:
To achieve this, JAM will use a RISC-V processor architecture, replacing the current WebAssembly-based framework. RISC-V is an open and widely adopted processor architecture already in use by companies such as Google, Nvidia, and Alibaba. This choice aims to improve computational efficiency and support multi-core parallel processing.
Test infrastructure includes:
JAM's economic model centers on the DOT token. Developers purchase "coretime" to run computations, similar to purchasing gas on Ethereum.
JAM will also introduce Agile Coretime, a more economically flexible model that allows users to purchase coretime in bulk on a monthly basis and split or resell it on secondary markets. This improves market efficiency for compute resources, and all transactions use DOT tokens.
On the governance side, JAM retains Polkadot's decentralized leadership model — upgrades require approval through DOT holder voting. On May 28, 2024, the JAM upgrade passed with near-unanimous approval, supported by over 31 million DOT, signaling strong community endorsement of this transformation.
JAM is currently under active development and is expected to require approximately 2 years before it is fully ready for deployment. The upgrade is planned as a single deployment rather than a phased rollout, to avoid the complexity of frequent incremental updates. Importantly, the functionality of existing parachains will not be affected, and DOT holders and traders will not experience disruption from the upgrade.
To accelerate development, the Web3 Foundation has set aside a 10 million DOT "JAM Implementer's Prize" to encourage the creation of multiple client implementations, enhancing network resilience. The establishment of this prize pool reflects the community's confidence in JAM's potential.
For developers, JAM offers significantly greater flexibility. They no longer need to compete in auctions for parachain slots; instead, deploying a service only requires specifying three entry functions: "Refine", "Accumulate", and "onTransfer". This simplifies the development workflow and makes Polkadot easier to support for a wide range of applications including smart contracts, ZK-rollups, and UTXO models.
JAM's security mechanism includes SAFROLE (SNARK-based block production), a zero-knowledge proof-based block production method that improves security and reduces the need for frequent updates.
At the same time, JAM's multi-core processing capability enhances Polkadot's computational power, enabling developers to deploy applications at lower cost.
Compared to platforms like Ethereum and Solana, JAM's high throughput and multi-core compute capabilities give it a significant performance advantage. In particular, its 850 MB/s data availability target is 42× higher than the current Polkadot (prior to introducing Asynchronous Backing). This performance improvement positions Polkadot more favorably in the blockchain scalability race.
Polkadot JAM is an ambitious upgrade proposed by Gavin Wood, aimed at transforming Polkadot into a more flexible, efficient, and scalable blockchain platform. By combining Ethereum's smart contract capabilities with Polkadot's multi-chain architecture, JAM gives developers broader room for innovation while maintaining network security and decentralization.
Although full realization will take several more years, its potential has been widely recognized by the community and approved through a governance vote.