microelectronics design...

M

maitre Aliboron

Guest
Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks

--

maitre Aliboron
 
On Thursday, November 12, 2020 at 11:08:35 PM UTC+11, maitre Aliboron wrote:
Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?
Click to expand...

Not since Jim Thompson died. He was the only person who posted here who actually designed integrated circuits. I can\'t say I was all that fond of the parts he had designed.

People like Barry Gilbert and Bob Widlar devised much nicer parts. Some of us do know a bit about what goes on inside integrated circuits, and there are people who lurk here who may know more.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
On 2020-11-12 13:08, maitre Aliboron wrote:
Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Fire away! It cannot possibly be worse than some in here.

Jeroen
 
Not since Jim Thompson died. He was the only person who posted here who actually designed integrated circuits. I can\'t say I was all that fond of the parts he had designed.

People like Barry Gilbert and Bob Widlar devised much nicer parts. Some of us do know a bit about what goes on inside integrated circuits, and there are people who lurk here who may know more.
Click to expand...

OK, thank you for the answer. I try to post my question anyway in case
somebody is deep in the matter. My apologies if the question may seems a
bit obscure.

I just wonder if somebody makes use (or plans to do it) of the Murmann\'s
and Jesper\'s method of MOS sizing (gm/Id method). This is not a new
method but it is getting more and more popular among analog designers,
mainly now that quadratic law fails with deep sub-micrometer devices.

I am interested in any kind of feedback (both postive, negative and
neutrals). Recently I tried to use it in a couple of design but I found
this method not much practical. Finally I had to adapt it to my needs
and it took some effort from my side. I just am interested to listen to
real practical design experience from other colleagues.

Thanks to anybody could advise.

--

maitre Aliboron
 
On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:08:15 +0100, maitre Aliboron
<maitre.aliboron@iaciners.org> wrote:

Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Do you mean design of a semiconductor chip itself? This is mostly a
political/virus/feud forum, with a very few people who can design at
board level, with available chips.

But ask.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

Science teaches us to doubt.

Claude Bernard
 
On 12/11/2020 23:08, maitre Aliboron wrote:
Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You could try asking in this slack:
https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-announce/c/75Mt_qw4WBA
https://slack.skywater.tools/

It seems like a large fraction of the internet\'s hobbyist/student chip
designers are in there, lured by the promise of a free tape-out. Perhaps
you are already reading it.
 
On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 2:10:20 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:08:15 +0100, maitre Aliboron
maitre....@iaciners.org> wrote:

Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks

Do you mean design of a semiconductor chip itself? This is mostly a
political/virus/feud forum, with a very few people who can design at
board level, with available chips.
Click to expand...

Rather more than John Larkin thinks. Anybody who doesn\'t praise his efforts at this kind of work gets written off as inexpert, which does leave out quite a few people who are more competent at it than he is (though less good at making money out of it).

> But ask.

Good advice,

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-announce/c/75Mt_qw4WBA
https://slack.skywater.tools/

It seems like a large fraction of the internet\'s hobbyist/student chip
designers are in there, lured by the promise of a free tape-out. Perhaps
you are already reading it.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I didn\'t know. I will surely try.

--

maitre Aliboron
 
Rather more than John Larkin thinks. Anybody who doesn\'t praise his efforts at this kind of work gets written off as inexpert, which does leave out quite a few people who are more competent at it than he is (though less good at making money out of it).

But ask.

Good advice,
Click to expand...

I cannot read (yet) the original reply, so I answer here.
My humble question was in the first reply to Bill Sloman: shortly I was
looking for feelings from somebody who makes use of the gm/Id method for
MOS sizing in analog design. I start to think that it looks like a sort
of \"scam\", kind of \"microelectronics design marketing\" since it seems to
gain a certain popularity.
But I would be glad I\'m wrong; perhaps it depends only me and I would
figure out if and where my opinion fails.

--

maitre Aliboron
 
On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 8:52:33 PM UTC+11, maitre Aliboron wrote:
Rather more than John Larkin thinks. Anybody who doesn\'t praise his efforts at this kind of work gets written off as inexpert, which does leave out quite a few people who are more competent at it than he is (though less good at making money out of it).

But ask.

Good advice,

I cannot read (yet) the original reply, so I answer here.
My question was in the first reply to Bill Sloman: in short I was
looking for feelings from somebody who makes use of the gm/Id method for
MOS sizing in analog design.
Click to expand...

I\'ve passed the question on to the chair of electron devices chapter in the NSW branch of the IEEE. She worked for some years at IMEC in Belgium, and did known what the question was about. She passed it on to the secretary of the chapter, who might know enough about it to give some kind of answer. No response from there yet.

> I start to think that it looks like a sort of \"scam\", kind of \"microelectronics design marketing\" since it seems to gain a certain popularity.

Things that work can get popular too.

> But I would be glad I\'m wrong; perhaps it depends only me and I would figure out if and where my opinion fails.

Asking questions is usually a good idea. The chances of getting a useful answer aren\'t all that high, but sometimes you can get a response that lets you ask a more useful question, so it can open up new avenues of enquiry, or even put you in a place to ask a better question - sometimes one you can answer for yourself.

Science and technology is all about talking about and dissecting problems. Sometimes you can put together an answer, but most of it is getting a clearer idea of the problem you ought to be tackling. which isn\'t always quite what you thought it was.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
I start to think that it looks like a sort of \"scam\", kind of \"microelectronics design marketing\" since it seems to gain a certain popularity.

Things that work can get popular too.
Click to expand...

Just to be more precise about this point, it was not my intention to be
spiteful about the method: it do works! My concern was about some other
aspects such as: a long preliminary job to put it in place and too many
degrees of freedom (that could be good sometimes, but it may not drive
you to an optimal solution or, in the best case, you must always cope
with the unavoidable design compromises, cluelessly, as in the standard
design flow).
Finally, when I was talking about \"design marketing\", the fact that
sometimes in a few papers it is boldly presented as \"the ultimate
solution to the analog design issues\".
Well, to be honest, in the end I find it not so different to the old
classical methods which make use of charts, graphs and tables. Only the
set of design parameters (or figures of merit) is different. So, I do
not understand the aforementioned claim. But, perhaps it\'s me...


--

maitre Aliboron
 
On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 11:36:25 PM UTC+11, maitre Aliboron wrote:
I start to think that it looks like a sort of \"scam\", kind of \"microelectronics design marketing\" since it seems to gain a certain popularity.

Things that work can get popular too.
Click to expand...

<snip>

> Finally, when I was talking about \"design marketing\", the fact that sometimes in a few papers it is boldly presented as \"the ultimate solution to the analog design issues\".

There\'s always a tendency to talk up a method that works for you. It may work better for some kinds of work than others, and if you haven\'t had to use it cases where it\'s bit time-consuming you won\'t know about that.

> Well, to be honest, in the end I find it not so different to the old classical methods which make use of charts, graphs and tables.

Anything you can automate can get done a lot more quickly by a machine. Charts, graph ans tables are just ways of presenting numerical information so that you can process it fast. If you can work out how you are processing the data, and get a computer to do it for you, the computer is usually a lot quicker.

> Only the set of design parameters (or figures of merit) is different. So, I do not understand the aforementioned claim. But, perhaps it\'s me...

It isn\'t always easy to work exactly what kind of processing you are doing in your head. If you can formalise that, you can usually get a machine to do it faster.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
The least electronics oriented, most active troll in this group...

--
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

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Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
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On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 2:10:20 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:08:15 +0100, maitre Aliboron
maitre....@iaciners.org> wrote:

Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks

Do you mean design of a semiconductor chip itself? This is mostly a
political/virus/feud forum, with a very few people who can design at
board level, with available chips.

Rather more than John Larkin thinks. Anybody who doesn\'t praise his efforts at this kind of work gets written off as inexpert, which does leave out quite a few people who are more competent at it than he is (though less good at making money out of it).

But ask.

Good advice,

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Click to expand...
 
On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 11:12:32 AM UTC+11, John Doe wrote:

--
Bill Sloman <bill....@ieee.org> wrote:

X-Received: by 2002:a37:4796:: with SMTP id u144mr130662qka.235.1605236029547; Thu, 12 Nov 2020 18:53:49 -0800 (PST)
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Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 18:53:49 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <qsjqqfpgt6cqi55qi...@4ax.com
Complaints-To: groups...@google.com
Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=202.53.36.8; posting-account=SJ46pgoAAABuUDuHc5uDiXN30ATE-zi-
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User-Agent: G2/1.0
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Subject: Re: microelectronics design
From: Bill Sloman <bill....@ieee.org
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On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 2:10:20 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:08:15 +0100, maitre Aliboron
maitre....@iaciners.org> wrote:

Hi, is this the right group to talk about microelectronics design?
I have a simple simple question in case.
In the opposite case does anybody know a suitable group/forum (not
necessarily UseNet)?

Thanks

Do you mean design of a semiconductor chip itself? This is mostly a
political/virus/feud forum, with a very few people who can design at
board level, with available chips.

Rather more than John Larkin thinks. Anybody who doesn\'t praise his efforts at this kind of work gets written off as inexpert, which does leave out quite a few people who are more competent at it than he is (though less good at making money out of it).

But ask.

Good advice.

The least electronics oriented, most active troll in this group...
Click to expand...

Since this comes from the top-posting troll who knows so little about electronics that he things he can label me as our \"least electronics oriented\" poster, its even sillier than his usual output.

I\'m interested enough in electronics to have passed the original query in this thread on to the chair of electron devices chapter in the NSW IEEE. She\'s Italian, but worked at IMEC in Belgium for years, which is an academic fab for northern Europe, and owns a couple of Cambridge Instruments tools for semiconductor fabrication (and helped make them rather better, if mostly after my time at Cambridge Instruments). It turned out to be outside her interests, but she passed it on the secretary of the chapter, who hasn\'t responded.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
> She\'s Italian,

Nice coincidence, I am italian too. Please let me know if you get a
reply, I would be interested to know her advice (although I\'d prefer
opinions from people active in the industry rather than in academic
institutions or labs).


--

maitre Aliboron
 
On Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 5:28:01 AM UTC+11, maitre Aliboron wrote:
She\'s Italian,

Nice coincidence, I am italian too. Please let me know if you get a
reply, I would be interested to know her advice (although I\'d prefer
opinions from people active in the industry rather than in academic
institutions or labs).
Click to expand...

She was at IMEC in Belgium for years. We do have one semiconductor fab in Sydney, now owned by Silanna (formerly Sapphicon Semiconductor) (formerly Peregrine Semiconductor) (formerly Integrated Device Technology) which was originally built by and for AWA. Cambridge Instruments sold them an electron beam microfabricator of a model that I\'d worked on, and the Cambridge Instrument reps found out that my younger brother had negotiated the contract (when he was working for LendLease ) for the construction of the building.

She\'s chosen not to comment, but did pass on the query to the secretary of the local Electron Devices chapter, who hasn\'t reacted.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
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