Two palm trees

Nearby the North 1st street exit of I-237, there is a huge open area. I heard the land belongs to Cisco. But they never do anything there. The last 6 years, all I see is a wild unused land. There are two long time resident though. A tall palm tree, and a shorter one next by.

There are no other trees in this land, so these two palm trees really stand out. Everyday, they seems to enjoy their quite moment, dancing together under the slow wind, and watching the busy vehicles drive along I-237. In windy days, these two trees hold hands tightly to stay firm. In rainy days, the tall palm tree will be a gentleman and block the rain for his partner. All these days they support each other, living strong in the busy silicon valley. Although they seem to stay there alone, they are not lonely.

Recently, there are some activity starting in this land. Looks like people are going to build some construction. I hope the owner of this land will keep the palm trees there. Because everyday when we drive along I-237, we like to see these two old buddies, waving hands to us.

Housing Mania : taking profits

Recently, two of my friends sold their homes. One sold a 3 bedrooms luxury town house for $759K, which he bought in 1998 with $400K. Another sold his 3 bedrooms single family home for $749K, which he bought in 1999 in $425K. Both make very good profit in 6~7 years. But my observation is, for people who want to live in a decent 3 bedrooms house, they need to pay around $750K in the valley nowadays. It is pretty tough for 1st time home buyer actually.

One of them actually move back to an apartment. He thinks the housing price will go down. And taking his chance to shop for good deal. Well, he sold his house a few months ago. Ever since the housing price starts to go down. Perhaps he is right ...

Top Google search result on "Bay Area Housing"

For EE students

The following is a recent conversation between me and a Electrical Engineering professor in the Silicon Valley:

Professor: P
Sammy Cafe: S

P: Don't do digital/Verilog type of projects, all these jobs are going off-source fast.

S: But Anaolg design company don't hire fresh grad.
P: That's true, you need to be good. They hire good students.

S: No matter how good I'm. Investor won't pay $50K more to train me comparing to outsource.
P: Don't worry about investors. Be good to make a senior enginner wants you.

S: You area a consulant of startups. Does investor expect startups to outsource some jobs.
P: Absolutely.

S: How many EE fresh grad in this school can get into EE industry nowday.
P: Around 20%

S: Thanks professor.

So I think, if you are EE studnets. You have two choices. 1. Be good. 2. chance major.

Getting physical

I started making a living by writing Verilog modules. Shortly after, I moved to physical design, doing Place-and-Route and layout. In the layout domain, it is like playing 2D puzzle. The physic behind it, honestly, I don't need to know much and can still get the job done.

A couple years later, I am doing RC extraction. This requires me to think in cross-section domain. Now I need to think in 3D. And I start to understand how manufacturing affect a chip.

Later on, I moved to work on SPICE level analysis. This time I need to pull back my text book and recall the detail of MOSFET physic. And recently, I am doing DFM and yield analysis. So I deal with the physic on semiconductor process.

Man, it is just getting physical. I wish I had studied harder on physic when I was in high school.

Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics

Blogger Spam

For some reason, my recent new blogs receive SPAM comment almost right away. I sample other people's blog and I don't see this problem. Is there any SPAM filter setting for blogger somewhere. Also, how does people write a script to automaticall upload SPAM comment on new blog!?

I am putting a curse on this particular blog. Anyone who put comment on this blog will have a bad teeth in three months!! Let's see if I will see anymore SPAM comment this time.

Breakthrough on circuit simulation

SPICE simulation is a breakthrough innovation for IC industry in the 70's. This technology enables engineers to simulate circuit behavior on the computer. It accelerates the progress on semiconductor IC chip development for the next several decades. Nowadays people call this technology TRUE SPICE.

As IC chips become larger and more complex. The TRUE SPICE algorithm starts to become incapable. It take very long time (e.g. over 24 hours) for large digital circuit simulation.

In the 90s', there was another breakthrough for circuit simulation. This is the so-call FAST SPICE. Basically it sacrifices some simulation accuracy but enables 10X more run time improvement. This again accelerates the progress on large digital circuits development.

In 2005, there is another breakthrough. There is no proper name for this technology yet. But the company who own this technology is called Xoomsys. It utilizes parallel grid computing, combined with FAST SPICE and TRUE SPICE. The outcome, 10X run time improvement with 100% TRUE SPICE accuracy.

How the Xoomsys technology can help the IC design industry!? It is yet to determine. But for innovation point of view, this technology solves a years long problem and I vote it as a breakthrough on circuit simulation.

Xoomsys