Survey: FPGA PCB layout

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
news:0SSNj.2092$7Z2.69@newssvr12.news.prodigy.net...
> Errr, well, those sure sound like ivory tower statements. For some reason 
> all the phenolic I ever used has never smelled.

Maybe you're missing those receptors in your nose? :-)  I've found that 
phenolic has a much stronger smell than FR-4... not necessarily all that 
"malodorous" vs. any other common board materials, but definitely a lot more 
noticeable.

> Sometimes I wish that professors had more nose-to-the-grindstone industry 
> work under the belt. I mean real design work where cost is a big factor. 
> Otherwise they are going to tell students they should use Rogers for just 
> about everything ...

Yep, that is a problem.  Have you been to something like IEEE's MTT-S 
recently?  It really is a different world, and unfortunately the same part of 
our culture that now says you need a BSEE to be an oscilloscope salesman is, I 
think, what has made it much more difficult for working engineers to enter 
academia.  Becoming a EE professor is now seen as a career in and of itself, 
rather to the preclusion of of being a "practicing" engineer where you have 
significant cost constraints.

---Joel

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:b60473de-efdf-458a-aae3-ebc5ea85b9e6@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> 5) Hit the "add subnet jumper" feature and it finishes the tracks and
> does all the pin swaps for you and updates the schematic.

Sounds like a really nice feature, David -- thanks for the tip.

Joel Koltner wrote:
> "Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
> news:0SSNj.2092$7Z2.69@newssvr12.news.prodigy.net...
>> Errr, well, those sure sound like ivory tower statements. For some reason 
>> all the phenolic I ever used has never smelled.
> 
> Maybe you're missing those receptors in your nose? :-)  I've found that 
> phenolic has a much stronger smell than FR-4... not necessarily all that 
> "malodorous" vs. any other common board materials, but definitely a lot more 
> noticeable.
> 

Possibly :-)

Just went over to the lab and took a sniff. The really old dark versions 
might have a wee scent but the newer more light boards don't. The 
shepherd looked at me quite puzzled when I sniffed the boards. So she 
took a sniff as well but walked away upon dicovering that it ain't 
edible. If there were a stench she'd have sneezed.


>> Sometimes I wish that professors had more nose-to-the-grindstone industry 
>> work under the belt. I mean real design work where cost is a big factor. 
>> Otherwise they are going to tell students they should use Rogers for just 
>> about everything ...
> 
> Yep, that is a problem.  Have you been to something like IEEE's MTT-S 
> recently?  It really is a different world, and unfortunately the same part of 
> our culture that now says you need a BSEE to be an oscilloscope salesman is, I 
> think, what has made it much more difficult for working engineers to enter 
> academia.  Becoming a EE professor is now seen as a career in and of itself, 
> rather to the preclusion of of being a "practicing" engineer where you have 
> significant cost constraints.
> 

IEEE also needs step onto the real world of engineering, and soon. Else 
member retention will become a problem.

I'd be interested in teaching once I retire but the bureaucratic hurdles 
are so high that it might have to be in a more private setting, without 
academic institutions, colleges or schools involved. I am not going to 
spend thousands on a teaching credential just to appease some 
bureaucrat. And the students must be motivated, otherwise I won't do it.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Joerg wrote:

> 
> I'd be interested in teaching once I retire but the bureaucratic hurdles 
> are so high that it might have to be in a more private setting, without 
> academic institutions, colleges or schools involved. I am not going to 
> spend thousands on a teaching credential just to appease some 
> bureaucrat. And the students must be motivated, otherwise I won't do it.

Teaching doesn't require much in the way of credentials for university level.
Getting on the tenure track is an entirely different matter.

If you want to teach, head off to see the dean of your local university/community
college, and ask what they need.  Not much money, but it still can be a very
satisfying experience.

-Chuck

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:52:38 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
<zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> wrote:

>"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
>news:ZjRNj.9697$2g1.9469@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...
>> Not anymore. Part of my daily bread is earned salvaging designs where 
>> someone thought "Oh, it's just slow stuff". But it ain't grampa's old SN7400 
>> anymore, today's logic chips are fast.
>
>OK, ok, good point.  Doesn't someone now have a logic family that's purposely 
>been slowed down due to this "problem?"
>
[snippage]

You can control edge rates (drive current) on FPGAs, at least the
Xilinx families we use. Amazing how simple you can make a DDR2 memory
interface to a FPGA with a little thought. We get by with no
terminations with beautiful looking signals. That saves a lot of power
and board area.

---
Mark

Chuck Harris wrote:
> Joerg wrote:
> 
>>
>> I'd be interested in teaching once I retire but the bureaucratic 
>> hurdles are so high that it might have to be in a more private 
>> setting, without academic institutions, colleges or schools involved. 
>> I am not going to spend thousands on a teaching credential just to 
>> appease some bureaucrat. And the students must be motivated, otherwise 
>> I won't do it.
> 
> Teaching doesn't require much in the way of credentials for university 
> level.
> Getting on the tenure track is an entirely different matter.
> 

There shouldn't be any tenure in the first place. There is a reason why 
the tenure concept does not exist in industry. Just my humble opinion.


> If you want to teach, head off to see the dean of your local 
> university/community
> college, and ask what they need.  Not much money, but it still can be a 
> very
> satisfying experience.
> 

Some day I will, when I throttle back design work and money (hopefully) 
isn't a big issue. It doesn't have to be any ritzy school as long as the 
audience is motivated and the school isn't a huge driving distance away.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
news:Zv5Oj.4677$iK6.2580@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
> There shouldn't be any tenure in the first place. There is a reason why the 
> tenure concept does not exist in industry. Just my humble opinion.

Doesn't tenure just mean that you have to screw up particularly badly to get 
fired?  And that even after you officially quit teaching/researching you're 
generally still allowed to come and play in the lab and perhaps have an 
office?  Or is there more to it than that?

I was asked to write a letter of recommendation for a professor I had to turn 
him from an assistant professor into a full-fledged (and perhaps tenure 
track?) professor.  He's a good teacher so I was happy to do it, but I found 
it a little odd that the professor in charge of this whole process said, "If 
you don't feel you can write a letter that presents [this guy] in a positive 
light, it's OK -- let me know and we'll find someone else."  Hmmm....!

> Some day I will, when I throttle back design work and money (hopefully) 
> isn't a big issue. It doesn't have to be any ritzy school as long as the 
> audience is motivated and the school isn't a huge driving distance away.

These days "distance learning" is becoming quite popular.  You could probably 
host your own classes on more advanced/specialized topics (where they might 
not be enough people interested to get an actual physical class together in a 
smaller town), set it up so that everyone gets audio & video and remote 
students can send back audio (for questions/discussion), charge tuition to 
cover the conference server feels, your costs and compensation, etc. and be 
quite successful.

Doug Smith (http://www.emcesd.com/) appears to have done pretty well with his 
approach of giving away a *significant* amount of useful information for free 
and then having a subscription service for those who want even more.

---Joel

Joel Koltner wrote:
> "Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
> news:Zv5Oj.4677$iK6.2580@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...
>> There shouldn't be any tenure in the first place. There is a reason why the 
>> tenure concept does not exist in industry. Just my humble opinion.
> 
> Doesn't tenure just mean that you have to screw up particularly badly to get 
> fired?  And that even after you officially quit teaching/researching you're 
> generally still allowed to come and play in the lab and perhaps have an 
> office?  Or is there more to it than that?
> 

Plus probably a nice retirement benefit.


> I was asked to write a letter of recommendation for a professor I had to turn 
> him from an assistant professor into a full-fledged (and perhaps tenure 
> track?) professor.  He's a good teacher so I was happy to do it, but I found 
> it a little odd that the professor in charge of this whole process said, "If 
> you don't feel you can write a letter that presents [this guy] in a positive 
> light, it's OK -- let me know and we'll find someone else."  Hmmm....!
> 

That is strange. Normally they should have known this guy inside out 
before even offering tenure if that's what his new position entails.


>> Some day I will, when I throttle back design work and money (hopefully) 
>> isn't a big issue. It doesn't have to be any ritzy school as long as the 
>> audience is motivated and the school isn't a huge driving distance away.
> 
> These days "distance learning" is becoming quite popular.  You could probably 
> host your own classes on more advanced/specialized topics (where they might 
> not be enough people interested to get an actual physical class together in a 
> smaller town), set it up so that everyone gets audio & video and remote 
> students can send back audio (for questions/discussion), charge tuition to 
> cover the conference server feels, your costs and compensation, etc. and be 
> quite successful.
> 

True, but I am a believer in face to face sessions when it comes to 
explaining EE matters. You can't beat the hands-on training in front of 
a big scope or analyzer. "Sir, I can't get that dang thang to trigger!"


> Doug Smith (http://www.emcesd.com/) appears to have done pretty well with his 
> approach of giving away a *significant* amount of useful information for free 
> and then having a subscription service for those who want even more.
> 

Yes, his site is indeed excellent. I am surprised IEEE lets him publish 
his papers. When I wrote papers for IEEE transactions there was a pretty 
clear statement that you pretty much surrender copyright to them.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
news:KD6Oj.9778$2g1.2542@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...
> That is strange. Normally they should have known this guy inside out before 
> even offering tenure if that's what his new position entails.

I believe they did know him inside and out, were happy with his performance, 
and that's why it happened: They had already decided they were going to offer 
him the promotion, but some standard procedure required getting a student 
evaluation as well... so they had to find someone who was willing to write up 
a positive one.  I just think it's strange that they bother getting a student 
evaluation when their minds are already made up... since it then puts them in 
the rather awkward position of having to say, "Please write us a good 
evaluation, or if you don't feel you can, that's OK, we'll find someone 
else..."  Weird.

Perhaps they'd do better to ask a handful of students to write up objective 
evaluations without the pressure of "...but, um, it has to be positive?" --  
and then culling any that were negative? :-)  I suppose they're stuck in a 
way... being tied to the government (they're a land-grant university) means 
they have to follow lots of procedures that regular businesses don't.

Regarding the nice retirement packages... my understanding was that state 
workers ended up with rather cushy retirement packages in exchange for having 
to accept noticeably below-average salaries (relative to private industry) 
during their working years.  In Oreogn we have the PERS (Public Employee 
Retirement System) which used to work this way, but the "cushy" benefits were 
signifcantly reduced via the ballot box when some interested parties pointed 
out how much better PERS was than what those folks in private industry get. 
Hence you now have a system where public employee pay still isn't competitive 
with private industry and now the retirement isn't either!  This was a common 
topic of complaint by the professors (that you'd get to know well enough) when 
I was in grad school; a significant number left for private industry during 
that time, and I certainly coudn't blame them.

That being said, I don't know enough to evaluate whether or not public jobs 
are still attractive when you look at the total package -- some people would 
argue they are and that PERS benefit reductions were just "corrections" to a 
system that had become too "generous" in its compensation.

---Joel

Joel Koltner wrote:
> "Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message 
> news:KD6Oj.9778$2g1.2542@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...
>> That is strange. Normally they should have known this guy inside out before 
>> even offering tenure if that's what his new position entails.
> 
> I believe they did know him inside and out, were happy with his performance, 
> and that's why it happened: They had already decided they were going to offer 
> him the promotion, but some standard procedure required getting a student 
> evaluation as well... so they had to find someone who was willing to write up 
> a positive one.  I just think it's strange that they bother getting a student 
> evaluation when their minds are already made up... since it then puts them in 
> the rather awkward position of having to say, "Please write us a good 
> evaluation, or if you don't feel you can, that's OK, we'll find someone 
> else..."  Weird.
> 
> Perhaps they'd do better to ask a handful of students to write up objective 
> evaluations without the pressure of "...but, um, it has to be positive?" --  
> and then culling any that were negative? :-)  I suppose they're stuck in a 
> way... being tied to the government (they're a land-grant university) means 
> they have to follow lots of procedures that regular businesses don't.
> 
> Regarding the nice retirement packages... my understanding was that state 
> workers ended up with rather cushy retirement packages in exchange for having 
> to accept noticeably below-average salaries (relative to private industry) 
> during their working years.  In Oreogn we have the PERS (Public Employee 
> Retirement System) which used to work this way, but the "cushy" benefits were 
> signifcantly reduced via the ballot box when some interested parties pointed 
> out how much better PERS was than what those folks in private industry get. 
> Hence you now have a system where public employee pay still isn't competitive 
> with private industry and now the retirement isn't either!  This was a common 
> topic of complaint by the professors (that you'd get to know well enough) when 
> I was in grad school; a significant number left for private industry during 
> that time, and I certainly coudn't blame them.
> 
> That being said, I don't know enough to evaluate whether or not public jobs 
> are still attractive when you look at the total package -- some people would 
> argue they are and that PERS benefit reductions were just "corrections" to a 
> system that had become too "generous" in its compensation.
> 

All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling. Paid 
sick leave, fat disability payments where lots of people tried and 
succeeded to be declared "disabled", cradle-to-grave medical with hardly 
any co-pay. The latter alone will saddle our communities with previously 
unheard of debt. Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit 
tied to the last work year. So, folks have themselves transferred into 
high-cost areas such as the Bay Area for 13 months or so, then move 
back. That ratchets their monthly checks up substantially, until their 
dying day. That ain't right.

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.