International Conference Call

International conference call (ICC) is a matter of business life in the Valley. Companies have teams or customers in different countries. For direct communication, ICC is often required. I have many ICC experience, some of them were quite memorable.

1. ICC to India
This was a joint project with one member located in India. Due to time zone difference, I need to have conference call with him at 8:30am. This was a weekly meeting through out a six months period. At that time, I was one of the few employees who came to work earliest.

2. ICC from Shanghai
Last year I went to Shanghai office for a week. In one meeting I need to conference call back to the US site. For me, who is a Chinese working in US, then ICC from Shanghai to US and speakings English. I just feel kind of funny.

3. TV ICC to Japan
Two years ago, I have a ICC with a big customer in Japan. They were making a chip for their next generation game console. Perhaps they were big customer, we setup a Video ICC with them. The whole system was provided by Sprint, including a large TV, camera, and software interface that operated by a remote control. The TV resolution was acceptable but and there was half second delay or so. The good thing was people can drawn something on white board and both sites can see.

The art of Emilology

Like most people in the tech industry, I need to read many email at work, usually around 10~30 each day. Reading email requires some skill. For example, some Cc email, most are unrelated to me, but one line could be an action item to myself. It could been easily overlook.

Writing an email is an art. I usually don't write too long of an email, 2~3 paragraph at most. And try to summarize all the important thing in the first paragraph. It is hard to expect people to read the whole email in detail, because I don't.

Sending email is another feat. When to send, who to send, who to Cc, can all produce different outcome. For example, sending a report at 8:30am for an upcoming meeting shows you are a responsible team player. Send a data analysis results at 8:30pm shows you are a hard working employee. When I need to request something from tough-dealing people, I always Cc their boss.

BTW, when people ask you to do something, don't reply too quickly. Because it mean you have nothing to do. :)

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Job market is heating up

Two weeks ago, a head hunter called my office phone. I didn't received these type of phone call for a long time. Does it indicate the job market here is picking up. I think so. Some of my friends just fired their boss recently, of course they already found new boss. And almost all of my friends have a job now.

Although job openings are there, companies are still hiring carefully. They look for very good match for their positions. Unlike the Y2K boom time, now employers won't rush to grab good telnet and then spend a few months to train them. They want good telnet, good experience, and expect people to work on day one.

For the employee, now seems finding a job isn't that difficult. Then we starts to be unsatisfied about what we have earned. One of my co-workers always want to sneak my salary information. He likes to ask somethings like: what is the percentage range of your bonus. Then ask if you ever get bonus more than $10K ... or he will ask how much $$ you put down on your ESPP ... etc. Well, personally I don't mind to reveal how much $$ I made. I don't earn much, barely enough to support my basic living. But there are two reasons I don't want to tell:

1. It is company confidential
2. If turn out I make more than him/her, he/she will be upset. If turn out I make less, then I will be upset. Why do something that surely will make someone unhappy?

Expensive EDA tools

Nowaday, it is difficult to start a fabless IC company, because they need to invest a lot of money to buy enpensive EDA tools up front.

Synthesis, RTL simulator, P&R, layout verification, timing verification, etc. Each of these tools cost around $50~$100K a piece. A big chuck of funding is already burn upon software installation.

It is not EDA companies over charging their customers. It is due to the fact that chip design is getting more complicate, engineers indeed need more tools to solve the problem.

Some argue to build free open source EDA tools. But I doubt if this will work.

EDA tools are complicate software, and it is used to improve productivity. Perhaps someone can write a free EDA tool that works. I doubt it could ever match the accuracy and speed of a commercial tool.

Free EDA Users Group