Categories
Analog Electronics Blogging Renewable Energy Sustainability

A Slightly Changed Course

Holidays have been used in the past to paste some pictures together for my background image. This time it was a change of role as well. As I’ve once stated, I don’t really like the “sustainability” title on things. It’s much too management whereas I like focusing on engineering. So I stuck to the “renewable energy” stuff, or so I said. In the meantime I’ve realized that I really don’t write about renewable energy anymore. It turned out it WAS a passing phase for me, as Cherish from “Faraday’s Cage is where you put Schroedinger’s Cat” once said in the comments of a post.

Don’t get me wrong, I like renewable energy. I like it a lot. It’s definitely important, especially given the oil snafu’s of late. But in terms of what I can add to the conversation and where I feel I fit best, I think I would choose analog electronics before renewable energy. Anyway, it doesn’t matter much; if I start writing about renewable energy a whole lot more, I’ll just change it back!

In other news, I’ve changed up the headings at the top of each page. I’ve removed some things and added another. As I’ve written about in the past, I’ve been searching for alternate sources of income. I’ve decided to offer my non-day-job time to anyone who needs help on their projects. No, it shan’t be free, but I will promise the first 3 projects 50% off my standard rate. If you have any needs for electronics projects, please look at the services I offer and how we might work together.  Then give me a shout and we’ll start working on your exciting new project together.

Categories
Analog Electronics Digital Electronics Interview

A Talk With An EDA Consultant

As more circuits get pushed into SoC (Systems on a Chip), the software that designs them becomes more and more important. Well, it’s been important for a while now. Important enough to be a multi-billion dollar industry. Biiiiig money.

Harry Gries is an EDA consultant with over 20 years in the electronics industry in various roles. He now consults for different companies and also writes a blog about his experience called “Harry…The ASIC Guy”. I love hearing about the different pieces of the electronics food chain and Harry was nice enough to take some time to talk to me about his work. Let’s see what he had to say…

CG: Could you please explain your educational and professional background and how you got to where you are today?

Harry The ASIC Guy (HTAG): My education began when I was raised by wolves in the Northern Territory of Manitoba. That prepared me well for a stint at MIT and USC, after which I was abducted by aliens for a fortnight. I then spent 7 years as a digital designer at TRW, 14 years at Synopsys as an AE, consultant, consulting and program manager. Synopsys and I parted ways and I have been doing independent consulting for 3 years now. A good friend of mine tricked me into writing a blog, so now I’m stuck doing that as well.

CG: What are some of the large changes you see from industry to industry? How does company culture vary from sector to sector?

HTAG: Let’s start with EDA, which did not really exist when the aliens dropped me off in 1985. There were a few companies who did polygon pushing tools and workstations and circuit complexity was in the 1000s of gates. Most large semiconductor companies had their own fabs and their own tools. Gate arrays and standard cell design was just getting started, but you had to use the vendor’s tools. Now, of course, almost all design tools are made by “EDA companies”.

As far as the differences between industries and sectors, I’m not sure that is such a big difference culturally. The company culture is set from the top. If you have Aart DeGeus as your founder, then you have a very technology focused culture. If you have Gerry Hsu (former Avant! CEO), then you have a culture of “win at all costs”.

CG: How hard was it for you to jump from being a designer to being in EDA? What kinds of skills would someone looking to get into the industry need?

HTAG: The biggest difference is clearly the “soft skills” of how to deal with people, especially customers, and understanding the sales process. For me it was a pretty easy transition because I had some aptitude and I really had a passion for evangelizing the technology and helping others. If someone wanted to make that change, they would benefit from training and practice on communicating effectively, dealing with difficult people, presentation skills, influence skills, etc.

CG: With regards to the EDA industry, how much further ahead of the curve does the software end up being? For instance, is EDA working on software necessary to define the 13 nm node currently?

HTAG: As you know, the industry is never at a single point. Rather, there is a spectrum of design nodes being used with some small percentage at the most advanced nodes. Most EDA tools are being developed to address these new nodes, often in partnership with the semiconductor manufacturers developing the process node or the semiconductor designers planning to use them. The big EDA companies are really the only ones, for the most part, that have the resources to do this joint development. Whatever is the newest node being developed, some EDA company is probably involved.

CG: You have written about the nature of the industry and how there being few players affecting the nature of the system. What kinds of limitations do you see in the industry due to the economies of scale (TSMC dominance, for instance)?

HTAG: Consolidation is a fact in any industry and a good thing in EDA. Think of it as natural selection whereby the good ideas get gobbled up and live on with more funding (and the innovators are rewarded); the bad ideas die out. Most small EDA companies would want to be bought out as their “exit”. At the same time, there are some “lifestyle companies” also in EDA where the founders are happy just making a good living developing their tools and selling them without having to “sell out” to a larger company. For all these small companies, the cost of sales is a key factor because they cannot afford to have a larger world-wide sales direct force as the larger EDA companies have. That’s where technologies like Xuropa come into play, that enable these smaller companies to do more with less and be global without hiring a global sales force.

CG: What drives the requirements placed upon new technology in the EDA space? How are the products developed? Are there a lot of interactions with specific big name designers (i.e. Intel) or does it shade more to the manufacturers (TSMC)?

HTAG: In fact, a handful of key customers usually drive the requirements, especially for small companies. When I was at Synopsys, Intel’s needs was the driver for a number of years. Basically, the larger the customer, the greater the clout. Other customers factor in, but not as much. The most advanced physical design capabilities of the tools are often a collaboration between the EDA company and the semiconductor manufacturers (e.g. TSMC) and the also the designers (e.g. Qualcomm). Increasingly, EDA tools are focusing on the higher-levels and you are seeing partnerships with software companies, e.g. Cadence partnering with Wind River.

CG: A good chunk of chip design is written and validated in code. This contrasts with much more low level design decisions in the past. In your opinion how has this changed the industry and has this been a good or bad thing? Where will this go in the future, specifically for analog?

HTAG: Being a digital designer and not an analog designer, it’s all written in code. Obviously, the productivity is much higher with the higher level of abstraction and the tools are able to optimize the design much better and faster than someone by hand. So it’s all good.

For analog, I am not as tied in but I know that similar attempts are being tried; they use the idea that analog circuits can be optimized based on a set of constraints. I think this is a good thing as long as the design works.  Digital is easy in that regard, just meet timing and retain functionality and it’s pretty much correct. For analog there is so much more (jitter, noise margin, performance across process variation, CMRR, phase margin, etc, etc). I think it will be a while before analog designers trust optimization tools.

CG:It seems that the EDA industry has a strong showing of bloggers as compared to system level board engineers or even chip designers. What kinds of benefits have you seen in your own industry from having a network of bloggers and what about EDA promotes having so many people write about it?

HTAG: I think blogging is just one form of communication and since EDA people are already communicators (with their customers), they have felt more comfortable blogging than design engineers. Many of the EDA bloggers are in marketing types of positions at their companies or are independent consultants like me, so the objective is to start a conversation with customers that would be difficult to have in other ways. A result is that this builds credibility for themselves that then accrues to their company. I think there has also been a ton of sharing and learning due to these blogs and that has benefited the entire industry. On a personal level, I know so many more people due to the blog and that network is of great value.

CG: How has your career changed since moving back out of the EDA space and into consulting? What kind of work have you been doing lately?  How has your experience helped you in consulting?

HTAG: It is interesting to have been on the EDA side and then move back into the design side. Whenever I communicate with an EDA company, whether a presentation or a tool evaluation or any conversation, I can easily put myself in their shoes and know where they are coming from. On the one hand, I can spot clearly manipulative practices such as spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about a competitor and I can read between the lines to gain insights that others would miss. On the other hand, I also understand the legitimate reasons that EDA companies make certain decisions, such as limiting the length of tool evaluations, qualifying an opportunity, etc.

Most recently I’ve been working on some new technology development at a new process node. It’s been interesting because I’ve been able to dig deeper into how digital libraries are developed, characterized, and tested and I’ve also learned a lot more about the mixed-signal and analog world and also the semiconductor process.

Many thanks to Harry for taking the time to answer some questions about his industry and how he views the electronics world. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments or pop over to Harry’s main site and leave a comment there.

Categories
Economics Life Politics Supply Chain Sustainability

Is There Room For The Electronics Industry In A Sustainable World?

Even though I’ve stated that I’m not as interested in sustainability as I used to be, it doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. I have been thinking about it in conjunction with investing and my own work in the electronic industry.

Growth is a very important component to the electronics business. It’s priced into many stocks and it drives much of the electronics food chain. Moore’s law has helped for a long time too. Shrinking the geometry of silicon every 18 months really required manufacturers to update their equipment often. This then drives the equipment manufacturers to advance technology to make the new fabrication possible. The analog engineers (ok, digital too) out there utilize the new chips and make requests for the next generation. The ripple effect continues all the way down the line, requiring input from the manfacturers and returning revenue to the shareholders of said manufacturers. Like I said, this growth is an assumption and is priced into how people invest in companies involved in electronics manufacturing.

There’s no denying that electronics are a dirty business. Not oil-gushing-from-a-hole-in-the-ocean dirty, but still, not exactly the most environmentally friendly situation either. The chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing are not known for their safety nor their easy disposal; I’ve only had training on how bad they can mess people up but it goes beyond that; there are entire departments in semiconductor manufacturing facilities devoted to containing and disposing of the chemicals. Outside of the semiconductor world manufacturers have had to drastically reduce the amount of lead in products (in the solder and otherwise) but there are still elements of boards and parts that are not good for the environment. And given both the amount of turnover in the products that people consume year to year and the fact that very few products are designed for long term use, almost all electronics are bound for a landfill within a 10 year time frame (unless recycled). All of this adds up to a nasty picture for the planet.

A business built on growth and components that are not biodegradable nor regulated in their disposal. Is this model sustainable? Can manufacturers continue making products that are not safe for disposal and yet expect people to continuously update their personal electronic portfolio at home? Can manufacturers continue to crank out new devices ad nauseum and not be held responsible for the impact they make?

I do not believe the long term growth of electronics will plateau. While this may be good for my own career, part of me is very conflicted by the idea that my own success could be tied to the fact that we will have to consume more and more over time. Growth will always be driven by the next “must have device”, updating of previous generation devices and bringing electronics to a greater percentage of the population. But how can we rectify the needs (or perceived needs as it may be) with the very real issues and impacts associated with modern electronics? The material and energy inputs required and the waste from technology churn all make for hundreds of miles worth of disposed and forgotten cellphones and CRT monitors which took large amounts of the earth’s resources to make.

So assuming that growth of the electronics industry will continue unabated for various reasons, I think the question is better asked: Is a sustainable world possible with the electronics industry as we know it today?

I don’t usually say it on this site, but I have no clue about the answer to this question. Do you? Is it possible for there to be a healthy electronics industry when taking the planet into account? How does this affect the business model and should the people that manufacture products be responsible for what happens to the at the end of the products’ lifetime? Please let us know in the comments.

Categories
Analog Electronics Blogging Learning

Clueless About Income

I’ve been going over my personal finances lately. I’ve decided that I would like to increase my wealth (shocker, I’m sure). I’ve always been a bit of a cheapskate and I’ve cut back more thanks to the recession. And so I need to go in the other direction. And why not? Making more is just as effective as spending less on the road to wealth.

So how do I make money?

I’ve never really thought about that before. I guess there are the conventional routes:

  1. Ask for more money at my current job — We’re in a recession, remember? Try again.
  2. Get a new job — I could, but I like my current job and there are a lot of hidden costs with changing jobs. My move from Austin was pricey, and that was with help from my current employer. Not to mention I would have to win out over the many other qualified people out there who are currently employed. No thanks.
  3. Win the lottery — Ah yes, the illogical man’s backup plan. This wasn’t serious, I’m just trying to illustrate how little I’ve thought of making more money for myself in the past.

Wasn’t that a fun exercise? I’m not saying that’s all there is, I’m saying that’s all that came to mind before I really started thinking about it. So what other options are there?

Well, I’m sure at least one or two of you have noticed that I run a website. I could pretend that I could make money on here, selling links and putting up ads for people, but I just don’t think it will work; plus I usually hate how that stuff looks on websites. Aside from the fact that you really can’t make money with a blog, I’m not even sure I would want to. If you focus all your efforts on your one endeavor (such as writing), you lose the spice that makes your perspective so unique. Why else would an online comic artist go back to school for physics? (duh, to get good jokes about nerds!) I’d prefer to write AND continue working with analog electronics every day to be able to use skills I learn from one in the other.

Then there’s consulting. Ah, the money that can be made from consulting, so they say (you know…”they”). The thing is, I really don’t have that much experience yet nor do I have the contacts necessary (the most important part, so I hear). And this whole model is still dependent on others giving you a salary of sorts (albeit with more independence). While this is a possibility in the future, I just don’t see this as a possibility yet. (FYI: I also group “freelancing” in with this category. Freelancing is just consulting for a much lower price in my opinion).

Well why not make something? Selling a product has probably never been easier. The supply chain is set up, you can get prototypes up quickly and cheaply and there is a whole region of the world just waiting for you to send ideas their way that they can manufacture. The problem is, I said I want to make money, not spend it. And spend you will if you ever try to launch a product in any capacity. There’s always the homemade versions of electronics, such as kit manufactures and hobbyist board houses, but they’ve got those models down pat and I don’t have a lot of interest. So as of now, I’m counting the “product” idea out as well.

I wrote this post because I wanted to point out that there may be lots of ways to make money, but I’m stuck in a mode where I am dependent on others to give me a salary. That’s a dangerous position and one that will limit your earning potential over the life of your career. I’ve stated that one of my long term goals is to start my own company, but I’m thinking that I should perhaps start in sooner than later. That way I can get the mistakes out of the way early and decide if it’s a hobby or an actual money making endeavor. The main thing holding me back is that I have zero clue as to what I would do.

What about you? Have you broken out of the conventional model of going to work every day and earning a steady paycheck? I’m on the beginning steps of a long journey that could take many directions and having one or two people wave at me from down the path might make me feel a little better about thinking about finally leaving home.

Categories
Analog Electronics Engineering Interview

A Talk With An Analog Chip Designer

People who have read this site before are sure to have seen some of the witty comments from our friend Fluxor, who writes on his site, Flying Flux. What you may not have taken the time to find out is that Fluxor is a successful analog chip designer and has worked on myriad designs throughout his career. In my continuing quest to learn more about analog electronics, and specifically the difference between an analog system designer and an analog chip designer, I asked Fluxor if he’d answer a few of my questions. He was very gracious with his time and gave great insight into the world of analog chip design.

CG: Could you explain your background? What kind of schooling did you get and what subjects did you focus on?

Fluxor: I studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo (largest engineering school in Canada) where there’s a mandatory co-op program which allowed me to get a peek inside industry during my undergrad years. I worked for a laser company (now defunct), a telecommunication giant (now defunct), an aviation equipment company (now defunct), and my own company that I started with classmates (now defunct). I was especially interested in analog circuits (see It’s a Digital World…) and pursued that interest in the form of a Master’s degree at the University of Toronto (largest EE grad school in Canada).

CG: What kind of demand was there for engineers with your skill set when entering the job market? Do you think those same demands exist today and into the future?

Fluxor: When I finished my Master’s, it was the golden age of hi-tech, a few years before the dot-com bubble burst. Within 2 weeks of starting my job search, I had four job offers in my hands. Today, new grads have a really hard time finding jobs and the future job growth in hi-tech is no doubt in China and India. My company’s CEO, who I like to call the Big Flux, recently said explicitly that the company intends to hire mostly in these two countries with only very targeted hiring within North America.

CG: What kind of (technical) software do you use on a daily basis? How much time in a day is spent with that software?

Fluxor: I used to use Cadence software on a daily basis until I moved into a team lead position. Nowadays, I mostly use Microsoft products in my role as a “PowerPoint Engineer“.

CG: You work with leading edge technologies. How do you begin to rectify the theoretical knowledge with the on-chip realities? Does simulation take care of most problems or is some kind of other prototyping possible?

Fluxor: Simulation accuracy depends on model accuracy. Model accuracy depends on a stable manufacturing process. Leading edge, by definition, means that the manufacturing process has yet to become stable. Designing with ambiguity is part of the job, but the situation is getting worse as technology advances and transistors move ever so much more into the nano-world.

Theoretical knowledge provide you with a starting point in design and is great for understanding first order or perhaps even second order effects. Beyond that, simulations are necessary. But because the models may be unreliable, engineers must either over-design or ensure designs are inherently insensitive to manufacturing variations.

Prototyping is possible — that’s called taping out a test chip. You don’t get too many testchips as they are very expensive (millions of dollars for each iteration). Most of our designs have one testchip. The next one is supposed to be the real product, although with design bugs, multiple iterations (or sub-iterations, such as metal changes) are not uncommon.

With chip design, you not only have to make the chip work, you have to make sure that out of the millions of chips that are produced (one product that I worked on is now in production — 1 million parts per week), almost every single one of them will work across varying supply voltage levels and temperatures. That’s called designing for manufacturability or designing for yield.

CG: What is the granularity of the pieces of the design you work on? Are you creating entirely new transistors or piecing them together into larger structures? Who does the architecture for the entire chip? How do you interact with people that create other components in that architecture?

Fluxor: I rarely do circuit design nowadays, but not too long ago, when I designed a PLL, I had to design at the transistor level for almost every single sub-block of the PLL. This means VCOs, charge pumps, loop filters, dividers, etc. That means deciding how large of a transistor you’d need and then stitching them all together to make, for example, a charge pump. Then at a higher level, stitching together the charge pump with the loop filter with the VCO, etc. to make a PLL. At the PLL level, system level simulations can be done with Matlab or other high level simulators, like Cadence’s AMS (analog mixed-signal).

Architectural work can be done at the block level, sub-system level, system level, chip level, board level, etc. How many levels you have in the chip depends on its complexity. There’s a good amount of architectural work that’s required at each level of design. Some are done by circuit designers, some are done by “architects” that do mostly Matlab simulations, and some are done by digital folks who are responsible for stitching each component of the chip together.

As for interactions with other groups — meetings, meetings, and more meetings.

CG: How much interaction do you have with the process people in the fab? Do you have any design decisions on low level characteristics (doping, etc) or is that preset as building blocks you are allowed to work with? Do you spend any time in the fab?

Fluxor: None, no, and no. Our company does have a group that deal directly with the fab. They have more say in how things are done.

CG: Once you receive first silicon how much time do you spend on the bench verifying the design? Do you take care of that yourself or is it left to test engineering?

Fluxor: Testing can go on for a year or two. Some of it is done locally in our new expensive lab, but most of it is left to test engineering with guidance from the circuit designers.

CG: How much do you hear back from end users on the implementation of your device? How does this feedback affect your future design decisions? Are you told to design to a certain specification or is it more of “As good as possible” for all characteristics?

Fluxor: Our customers are not end users. They take our chips and put them into a larger product that then gets sold to end users. We only hear back from our customers and their feedback can very well impact future design decisions. Our specs are a combination of hard specs (non-negotiable) and soft specs (I’ll do my best to meet them). Mostly, they’re hard specs.

CG: What, if anything, do you wish was different in your specific job? Do you wish you did anything differently in your career?

Fluxor: For me personally, I wish I didn’t have to work with the Psycho Colleague. But overall, this is the best company I’ve ever worked for. For one thing, it’s not defunct…yet; for another, I get free food! It’s also best job I’ve ever had and I feel awfully blessed to be in such a position; my last job was the absolutely worst job I’ve ever had (yes, even when compared against my high school job as a french fry maker).

If I had to do it all over again, I would have tried to work for Goldman Sachs. One year’s worth of bonuses is enough to retire on. I can then take that money and do all the cool and wacky engineering that I’d really like without worrying about money.

It was really great of Fluxor to take the time to explain the kinds of experiences he has had in the industry. In my own position I have realized that there are lots of different roles throughout the “electronics food chain”, from the chemical suppliers to a fab, to a test engineer in a packaging factory in China, to a board level designer such as myself, all the way to the sales people that hand you the cell phone you just purchased. I hope to find and talk to more people throughout the industry and get their perspective on how they view their positions and how they fit into the larger electronics scene. If readers know anyone, I would welcome suggestions. And of course I would try to focus on how the jobs of those I talk to specifically relates to analog electronics.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and be sure to click through some of the links above and read Fluxor’s daily experiences!

Categories
Engineering House Learning Life

On The Importance of Prototyping

Sometimes I dive head first into problems and it gets me in trouble. Other times, this is called “prototyping”, which is encouraged in many engineering circles, and sometimes even required! The best case scenario is when you can flesh out the details and downfalls of a project before you make costly design decisions. You can realize not to use a particular op amp or even decide if a project is feasible at all.

I’m not shy to say that Google SketchUp is one of my recent favorite prototyping tools. While it’s not the SPICE simulation or the rapid circuit prototyping that most people might think of for analog system designers, it is useful in myriad projects. Even just knowing what form factor a future analog board might need to take (by making a quick drawing of what you envision your product to be) can save lots of time, money and headaches.

My experiences with Google SketchUp  prototyping (drawing, really) has been to help me realize what kinds of components I’m looking for when making design decisions. And it could help you too, at least in a mechanical perspective. Perhaps you know that a certain connector shape and size will be better than another. Or that you’re space constrained and can’t use a particularly large inductor.

My most recent (home) project has been building myself a home theater PC (or HTPC). I use it to watch shows on Hulu.com and surf the internet in my living room; in the future I might also task it with home automation type functions as well (turning on lights, closing blinds, etc). Quite convenient and the first PC I have ever built. But I wanted to mount the HTPC in a nearby stairwell to keep it out of sight. I first did a mockup drawing in Google Sketchup:

As you can see, the models are 3D; they’re darn easy to make too. I can’t speak highly enough of the program itself.

Aside from the program though, the results allowed me to figure out what I would need for my build. The first requirements were easy. I wanted to make sure my HTPC didn’t fall down the stairwell. I know, I’m a stickler for protecting my investments. But figuring out the shelf and strap idea was a breakthrough in my design. It would be low cost and sturdy. Here’s how it ended up looking:

Notice I ended up buying cheap off the shelf wall mounting brackets instead of trying to create my own out of 2x4s cut at funky angles. This was an iteration on the original design idea I had in the SketchUp drawing.

And a picture of the component that the model pointed to as critical for the design:

So would I have been able to design all of this without the “prototype” I made? Yeah, probably. I would have figured something out or used duct tape or something to get it all together and working in some capacity. In the situation shown here though, I was able to determine troublesome components and think of a workaround before they became an issue (i.e. it only took me one trip to the hardware store, pretty good given my past record).

So next time you’re doing a home or work project, try prototyping, even if it isn’t necessarily electrical (hey, maybe that’s even more reason to try it, right?). It could save you time, money and frustration.

https://chrisgammell.com/2008/07/23/analog-engineer/