Xilinx courses

[Martin Euredjian]

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)" Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I don't want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was simply not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours. The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation. The labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all. So, all you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot and move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an expert in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I also felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a peer who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant experience in the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay $1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different, better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

Thanks,


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
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[Mike Treseler]

Martin Euredjian wrote:

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours.

That's where learning happens.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from scratch--
to learn FPGA's,

That's a pretty broad topic.
Consider picking focusing on a more specific goal.

I don't need to pay $1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

Learning that was worth the price of admission.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke?

Hey, that's *our* trademark, "if it works, it's a fluke"

Are Altera's courses better?
No. Just different.

I heard that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true?
Yes.

Does it make a difference?
The problem is that vendors can't help talking

about their specific architecture and special features.

There is too little coverage on design entry and simulation,
where there is the most to learn.

related thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=vhdl+trial+error+self+study+boris

-- Mike Treseler

 

[Austin Lesea]

Martin,

I am sorry you had a bad experience.

I will ask about it. I had heard from others that this particular course was a
good one (some of my own staff have taken it), so I am hoping that your
experience was not the course, but perhaps the instructor (still unfortunate,
and not acceptable).

Austin

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I recently took the "Advanced FPGA Implementation (v6)" Instructor-Led
Course and came out of it with a fair bit of dissappointment. I don't want
to engage in Xilinx-bashing but it bothers me that the course was simply not
worthy of the title it was given.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours. The
class boiled down to a bunch of slides (a very small subset of the book,
maybe 20%) being read out loud with a degree of re-interpretation. The labs
were based on an obscure design that was not introduced at all. So, all you
could do in the alloted time was type from the book like a robot and move
on. No real learning took place there.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from scratch--
to learn FPGA's, I thought that an advanced course taught by an expert in
the field would be a great way to take my skills up a notch or two. I
needed to get to that proverbial last few percent and, frankly, I also felt
stuck with regards to timing optimization, floorplanning and other advanced
areas. I thought that an "advanced" course would be taught by a peer who'd
offer the sort of insight that only comes from significant experience in the
field and, yes, inside information. That is certainly not what happened. I
can read slides just as well as the next guy. I don't need to pay $1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different, better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

Thanks,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"

 

[Jesse Kempa]

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different, better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

To answer your question about Altera: Yes, we do have a dedicated
training department with teachers who do the classes at customer
sites. I understand that our distributor Arrow also leads traning
events. For special workshops and things like that (such as the SOPC
World events going on now or other internal training events), other
Altera employees specializing in that area may present. Occasionally
we have had third parties present *on their specific product*, such as
those who do synthesis tools.

Here's a link to the Altera Training homepage:
https://buy.altera.com/etraining/etraining.asp

Hope this helps,

Jesse Kempa
Altera Corp.
jkempa at altera dot com

 

[Martin Euredjian]

Well, I think there's a very important distinction that needs to be
understood. The "intro" or "beginner" classes can probably be taught by
just about anyone who passes the cold mirror test and is a decent teacher
(although my preference would be to have an experienced individual instead).
However, the minute you characterize a class as "Advanced" you better get a
guy who's had some skin in the game for a while and can truly shed some
light on some of the dark corners of these technologies.

I think all of you guys (meaning FPGA companies) have had it good.
Engineers bust their butt's digging and experimenting and figuring things
out...digging for information that you should be providing. I hope things
change before we get to the 100 million gate devices, 'cause the real cost
of designing with these chips is being borne by the OEMs that pay for these
individuals to (through no fault of their own) put a lot more hours into a
project than might be required with a higher quality of documentation.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
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"Jesse Kempa" <kempaj@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:95776079.0310031106.71c90277@posting.google.com...

So, I wonder. Was this a fluke? Are the other coursed different,
better,
worst? Are Altera's courses better? It seems that Xilinx contracts out
the
trainig to a third party (a company called "Technically Speaking". I
heard
that Altera chooses to use insiders. Is this true? Does it make a
difference?

To answer your question about Altera: Yes, we do have a dedicated
training department with teachers who do the classes at customer
sites. I understand that our distributor Arrow also leads traning
events. For special workshops and things like that (such as the SOPC
World events going on now or other internal training events), other
Altera employees specializing in that area may present. Occasionally
we have had third parties present *on their specific product*, such as
those who do synthesis tools.

Here's a link to the Altera Training homepage:
https://buy.altera.com/etraining/etraining.asp

Hope this helps,

Jesse Kempa
Altera Corp.
jkempa at altera dot com

 

[Vinh Pham]

Well, we didn't do the latter. We did the former. And, when a student
asked about how to use the phase shifter clock input there was no answer.

Perhaps a part of the registration process should require the students to
email the teacher a list of their most important questions, or list what
they're hoping to learn. Then the teacher can say, "No, you won't get what
you want from my class, so save your money and time," or "Yes, I'll be able
to answer that at the class. I look forward to seeing you there." Then the
teacher can better prepare the class to suit the needs of the students.

Good point about efficiency. Of course if you put 10 Virtex-II Pros in each
of your products, you might have enough volume to get a dedicated FAE ;_)

--Vinh

 

[Robert T. Binkley]

Theron Hicks (Terry) wrote:
<snip>

The area of improvement is
in simple, useable documentation. If I need to check three or for different
areas for a full picture of what it taakes to get a job done, can you at least
create a link between the areas.

Check out publications by part:
http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xweb/xil_publications_index.jsp?category=Publications
This was recently added this area to the web site to do just that. If
you see anything missing, or have suggestions on how to improve it you
can contact me directly since I do not check this newsgroup too often.

Xilinx could save a bundle in tech support, if

they would just improve the documentation.

We have also put the ability to provide direct feedback on specific
documents in our documentation collection. If you ever look at a doc
and do not feel it has met your needs, you can tell us by clicking on
"Helpful? Yes|No". Be as specific as possible.

Let me know if there is anything else we can do.

Thanks,

Robert

 

[Mike Treseler]

Martin Euredjian wrote:

I'll have to respectfully disagree with some of what you said.

That's what the newsgroup is all about.

.. . .

Then there's the issue of efficiency. I've taken a few very well taught
courses over the years where, within a few days, you go from a rudimentary
understanding of the subject to having a very clear and organized insight
from which to build. This isn't so much due to the verbal tradition I was
speaking of, but rather because someone who truly understands the subject
AND is a good teacher lays out the subject right there, in front of you, to
assimilate and build from. Good teachers are worth 1000 books. No doubt
about it.

--
I agree that instruction from a qualified and interested expert
with recent industrial experience is ideal.

The practical problem is finding such an expert who is
also in the business of teaching.

So, if you attend a good course, you can be on your way very quickly. It's
a matter of efficiency. And, while it might be true that all in the
universe could be learned from books and, these days, the Internet, there's
a real imporant factor we must not forget: the business equation. If what
you do is a hobby then, by all means, burn time experimenting and reading
through hundreds of documents, surfing the Web or playing with dev boards.
However, in the context of a business that needs to get product out the
door, it is much more efficient to pay someone to show you the ropes quickly
and then get on with your work.

--
I agree that it makes good business sense to pay a
consultant or take a course that teaches you something
faster than you could learn in yourself. However, my
experience with such seminars is that this just
doesn't happen beyond the introductory tutorials.

I set aside an hour or two a day for focused self-study, and
I don't believe this has adversely affected the time
it takes me to get working designs out the door. In fact I
think it helps.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that spending 45 minutes listing all of
the I/O out of a DCM block has a place in an advanced class? Or how many
clocks can be distributed in a Virtex II?

I agree with you. This is exactly what happens.
This is where I walk out and why I no longer attend.

How about getting into how to
properly start-up a DCM with real-world issues and code?

Yes. A little more *code* please.
Design entry, inference, and simulation are routinely neglected.

$1,000 is a lot of money for a printed version of PowerPoint slides. I
would gladly pay $5,000 for a class that had the right content. Money is
not the issue here. If you tell me you'll teach an advanced class for $1K,
then do it. If that class requires $10K, then tell me so.

Maybe other designers will post some good experiences with seminars or classes.
I wish I had some to report.


-- Mike Treseler

 

[Martin Euredjian]

"Austin Lesea" wrote:

One bad review posted here does a lot of damage: and we are concerned
especially
when we have hundreds of glowing reviews for the same class/instructor!

Please understand that I meant this to be constructive criticism, meant to
help improve things, not cause damage.

Let me give you my opinion as to why you have so many glowing reviews, at
least from the group I was with.

In short: Corporate students.

Pretty much everyone else at the class was from the same company. They had
been sent out on what I like to call a "corporate training tour". It's a
fun break away from the office and you get to learn something to boot.

These guys took a number of courses during the same trip. At least one (and
probably more) of them was fresh out of school. I had a couple of good
conversations with him during breaks and realized that he did not belong in
that class at all. When I asked how much FPGA experience he had, he replied
that he'd just done the usual labs at school, not much more.

I can't comment on every single person at the class, but you can learn a lot
about them based on the questions they ask. Again, it didn't seem that they
had enough time at the wheel. When the team leader is asking questions
about the I/O of a DCM block in an advanced class I pretty much know that
they didn't have a decent look through the VirtexII data sheet. Another
couple of guys were asking about how to configure Select I/O in order to
have series termination. They were also asking about good development
boards, etc.

In general terms, to the uninitiated, the class was wonderful. If you are
too lazy to learn the basics (ok, to be fair, maybe didn't have the time?)
then the class exposed you to a lot of interesting information that, if
researched further, would result in valuable learning (wheen you are coming
from that context). For someone without the experience this class was
rocket science and you probably left in awe of all that's possible.

Then there's the "I'm happy to be out of the office" effect. Everyone is
happy to do that. At least when you are part of a large corporate entity
and you are very detached from the financials. You'll probably get raving
reviews out of this group as well.

Lastly, it takes caring and ... well ... balls to say what I'm saying. What
does a rank-and-file guy gain by saying that the class wasn't adequate?
Zilch.

As a small business owner who actually pays the bills, designs hardware,
writes code, etc., etc., I'm intimately aware of the value of time and
money. I came to the class with a completely different frame of reference.
That's why you are not getting my stamp of approval by default, which is
what I think most attendees tend to do.

Thanks for looking into it,

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
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[Austin Lesea]

Martin,

"Advanced" is not very definitive, I'll be the first to admit.....

Still working the issue(s). No basic disagreeements here. You found the text
to which I was referring, and it was not an endorsement of the course(s) at
all. That was my point, so I thank you for restating it specifically for the
one course in question (rather than for "a course" which implies any or all).

Austin

 

[Martin Euredjian]

Yup. I've only taken one FPGA course ever. I'm not qualified to, nor can I
offer opinion on other courses or training programs I know nothing about. I
urge readers of this thread to keep this very clearly in mind.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
0_0_0_0_@pacbell.net
where
"0_0_0_0_" = "martineu"


"Austin Lesea" <Austin.Lesea@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:3F81EE71.AEBA3558@xilinx.com...

Martin,

"Advanced" is not very definitive, I'll be the first to admit.....

Still working the issue(s). No basic disagreeements here. You found the
text
to which I was referring, and it was not an endorsement of the course(s)
at
all. That was my point, so I thank you for restating it specifically for
the
one course in question (rather than for "a course" which implies any or
all).

Austin

 

[Hal Murray]

Perhaps a part of the registration process should require the students to
email the teacher a list of their most important questions, or list what
they're hoping to learn.

If I knew enough to ask the right question I could probably find
the answer myself. Or ask here, or ...

The main reason I go to a class is to learn something about a topic
when I don't know enough about it to ask the right questions.

Another reason to go to a formal class is to get out of the office
and away from your phone/email so you can concentrate on learning
for long enough to make some progress. Sometimes you really do
learn things by going through "dumb" lab exercises. (Especially if
there is a good instructor who can answer questions when something
interesting happens.)

------

It sounds like the main part of Martin's comments was a mismatched
expectation about what "advanced" meant. Was there a good description
of the course? Did the course match the description?

Did a bunch of students show up who weren't ready for an "advanced"
class? Maybe the instructor dropped back to their level without
noticing that a few people were ready for a tougher course.

--
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my
other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses.
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[Martin Euredjian]

"Hal Murray" wrote:

Perhaps a part of the registration process should require the students to
email the teacher a list of their most important questions, or list what
they're hoping to learn.

If I knew enough to ask the right question I could probably find
the answer myself. Or ask here, or ...

The main reason I go to a class is to learn something about a topic
when I don't know enough about it to ask the right questions.

Not necesarily true. I would expect that anyone attending an intermediate
or advanced class could generate a list of things they may have doubts about
or want learn. Perhaps problems they've been having that he/she could use
help with. Or maybe express a desire to concentrate on a certain topic.

While you may know enough to ask the right question, getting from there to
an answer might not be all that simple. You can bounce around the online
documentation from manual to manual and not get very far.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

To send private email:
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where
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[Austin Lesea]

Hal,

Judge for yourself:

http://www.xilinx.com/support/training/abstracts/adv-design.htm

Describes the course, and what you should learn from it.

Austin



Hal Murray wrote:

Perhaps a part of the registration process should require the students to
email the teacher a list of their most important questions, or list what
they're hoping to learn.

If I knew enough to ask the right question I could probably find
the answer myself. Or ask here, or ...

The main reason I go to a class is to learn something about a topic
when I don't know enough about it to ask the right questions.

Another reason to go to a formal class is to get out of the office
and away from your phone/email so you can concentrate on learning
for long enough to make some progress. Sometimes you really do
learn things by going through "dumb" lab exercises. (Especially if
there is a good instructor who can answer questions when something
interesting happens.)

------

It sounds like the main part of Martin's comments was a mismatched
expectation about what "advanced" meant. Was there a good description
of the course? Did the course match the description?

Did a bunch of students show up who weren't ready for an "advanced"
class? Maybe the instructor dropped back to their level without
noticing that a few people were ready for a tougher course.

--
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my
other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses.
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[Ray Andraka]

Part of the problem is that they hire technical presenters that may or may not
have strong design experience. Obviously, if the presenter hasn't wrestled with
the tools on a real design, he is likely not going to be able to go too much
beyond what is on the slides. There is a good chance that the person teaching
the class learned the tools on the course materials and practiced with some
canned labs. I would want to know who the seminar presenter is and exactly what
his qualifications are before signing up for the course.

Also, Xilinx's idea of advanced design and a true expert's notion of the same
are quite different. Unfortunately much of the expertise carried by the guru is
the result of years of gruelling experience. While that experience can be
highlighted, there is not really any easy way to transfer such depth of
knowledge in a 2 day presentation. Xilinx used to use some of their "Xperts" to
teach these classes, and you got the luck of the draw. Some of these guys are
really good at teaching, some simply aren't. I don't know if they are still
using their XPERTs partners to teach or not, I suspect not since I have not
heard any requests to teach a seminar recently.

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

 

[Vinh Pham]

If I knew enough to ask the right question I could probably find
the answer myself. Or ask here, or ...

That's true Hal, sometimes the problem is we have gaps in our knowledge that
we don't realise...

The main reason I go to a class is to learn something about a topic
when I don't know enough about it to ask the right questions.

....or we don't even know where to start.

In which case asking the instructor questions ahead of time won't be too
helpful, except maybe a good instructor will be able to guage where a
student needs help by the types of questions they ask.

 

[Peter Alfke]

What's so special about FPGAs?

Is there any 2-day course that makes:

a law student into a crack lawyer
a fresh doctor into an expert surgeon,
a newly-married into a gourmet cook (note, I am p.c. and gender-neutral!)
a high-school student into a fluent French speaker ( if not French-born)
an engineer into a good presenter (or writer)
a hardware-guy into a VHDL expert (I wish there was...)

Of course there is not. Learning takes time, effort, patience, and
disappointing detours.

Why does anybody expect to get a chance to soak up relevant wisdom eight
hours a day? What is a revelation to one student is old hat to another
and irrelevant to a third.

Peter Alfke

 

[Vinh Pham]

While you may know enough to ask the right question, getting from there to
an answer might not be all that simple. You can bounce around the online
documentation from manual to manual and not get very far.

Yeah the answer you want can be buried under tons of other answers in the
documentation, and worse yet it might be broken up into pieces and scattered
about. Documentation these days include search functions, but nothing beats
an experienced human who can understand what a person wants even if they
can't articulate it well.

 

[Jonathan Bromley]

"Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in
message news:3F830E67.CF313B57@xilinx.com...

Why does anybody expect to get a chance to soak up relevant wisdom eight
hours a day? What is a revelation to one student is old hat to another
and irrelevant to a third.

As trainers, we have to deal with this fact every working day.

As you hinted, Peter, there is as much specialist expertise in
being a good trainer as there is in being a good engineer. We
try very hard indeed to give each course delegate a happy and
valuable experience; that means carefully tweaking what we say
and how we act, in response to the needs of individuals. That's
why real warm pinkware trainers will go on being valuable for a
while yet, despite distance-learning and web-accessed courses.
It also means that we must continually take active steps to
keep up-to-date and technically aware ourselves.

Our clients (or, at least, their employers) are paying us money
for courses, and expect results. If they're reasonable people,
they don't expect to get *everything* they need to know from a
training course. But they reasonably expect to get enough new
expertise, and enough help in steering around the topic's worst
pitfalls, that when they return to work they will be able to
save at least as much as the course has cost them. Here's my
spin on it - your mileage may vary, but the conclusions are
inescapable:

cost of a course:
around $300-$600 per day
travel and out-of-pocket expenses for the trainee:
around $200/day
total cost to the employer of losing an engineer from his/her desk:
around $300-$500/day (in the US or Europe, anyways)

sheesh... that's big $$$ for a 3 or 5 day course. But wait a
moment... if the course can give the engineer new expertise
that prevents an error, and that error would have cost a few
days to find, and a few days of time-to-market, and a few
days of several other engineers' wasted time hanging around...
perhaps the course isn't such bad value after all. And
that's even before you start to count the downstream
benefits of improved techniques finding their way into
your normal working practices, and the time that other
engineers would have wasted helping you to get up to speed.

The challenge for trainers is to understand what trainees
need, and continually to improve what we deliver to meet
that need better. I'm sad that someone as expert as Mike
Treseler (a couple of posts back, in this sub-thread) has
had such consistently negative experiences. All I can say
is that I hope he fed back his criticisms to the trainers,
and that I hope my outfit's batting average is rather better.
--
Jonathan Bromley, Consultant

DOULOS - Developing Design Know-how
VHDL * Verilog * SystemC * Perl * Tcl/Tk * Verification * Project Services

Doulos Ltd. Church Hatch, 22 Market Place, Ringwood, Hampshire, BH24 1AW, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1425 471223 mail: jonathan.bromley@doulos.com
Fax: +44 (0)1425 471573 Web: http://www.doulos.com

The contents of this message may contain personal views which
are not the views of Doulos Ltd., unless specifically stated.

 

[Martin Euredjian]

"Mike Treseler" wrote:

I'll have to respectfully disagree with some of what you said.

The only reason I might get something out of it will be because I will
pour
over the 500 page book on my own and experiment for many, many hours.

That's where learning happens.

If all learning could happen from books schools and universities, at all
levels, wouldn't have a reason to exist. I think humankind is genetically
wired to very efficiently learn through a tradition of verbal communication
that cannot be ignored. Of course, a lot of real and very significant
in-depth learning happens outside of that context, but one cannot state that
this is the only way learning happens at the exclusion of the verbal
tradition.

Then there's the issue of efficiency. I've taken a few very well taught
courses over the years where, within a few days, you go from a rudimentary
understanding of the subject to having a very clear and organized insight
from which to build. This isn't so much due to the verbal tradition I was
speaking of, but rather because someone who truly understands the subject
AND is a good teacher lays out the subject right there, in front of you, to
assimilate and build from. Good teachers are worth 1000 books. No doubt
about it.

So, if you attend a good course, you can be on your way very quickly. It's
a matter of efficiency. And, while it might be true that all in the
universe could be learned from books and, these days, the Internet, there's
a real imporant factor we must not forget: the business equation. If what
you do is a hobby then, by all means, burn time experimenting and reading
through hundreds of documents, surfing the Web or playing with dev boards.
However, in the context of a business that needs to get product out the
door, it is much more efficient to pay someone to show you the ropes quickly
and then get on with your work.

I took the course because, after a two-year effort --starting from
scratch--
to learn FPGA's,

That's a pretty broad topic.
Consider picking focusing on a more specific goal.

You misunderstood where I was coming from. Having "graduated" after two
years of very hard work in the field I wanted to get an insight into
techniques that would let me squeeze another 5% of perfomance out of a
design. I also wanted to understand if there were better approaches to the
overall subject, at a high level. That's why I went to an "ADVANCED" class,
and not an intro to FPGA's. In my mind, if you say you are teaching an
advanced class there are a few requirements that cannot be violated. One of
them being who teaches that class and what degree of information is
communicated.

Let me ask you this. Do you think that spending 45 minutes listing all of
the I/O out of a DCM block has a place in an advanced class? Or how many
clocks can be distributed in a Virtex II? How about getting into how to
properly start-up a DCM with real-world issues and code?

Well, we didn't do the latter. We did the former. And, when a student
asked about how to use the phase shifter clock input there was no answer.

I don't need to pay $1,000,
travel and burn two days' work to endure that experience.

Learning that was worth the price of admission.

$1,000 is a lot of money for a printed version of PowerPoint slides. I
would gladly pay $5,000 for a class that had the right content. Money is
not the issue here. If you tell me you'll teach an advanced class for $1K,
then do it. If that class requires $10K, then tell me so.



--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

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