Last fall I arranged a visit in Tucson, Arizona to visit my brother and his family. My nephew, Sean, would be appearing in his high school’s production of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s “You Can’t Take It With You.” Though he had a small part as one of the G-men, it created a lovely…
The True Nature of I/O Timing Failures: Tales from the Intel I/O Test Road Map
Measurements have errors due to accuracy and precision of the equipment. In semiconductor testing, when setting a pass/fail limit one can set it such that it fails a few good parts–dubbed overkill, or it passes a few bad parts–dubbed underkill (aka escapes.) One errs on the side of protecting one’s customer, i.e. fail good parts…
Girl Scout Leading Mom
In Northport, New York, I joined a Brownie Girl Scout troop. Vague memories float in my mind about meeting at the church after school and doing craft projects. Then we moved to Cherry Hill, New Jersey. This was the fourth move in my eight-year-old life. In my third grade class some kids mercilessly teased me….
Apprenticed to Study Manufacturing Defects–A Graduate School Story
In the Fall of 1988 I started my PhD studies in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Soon, I began to have an inkling of why Professor Wojciech Maly had invited me to be his student. Attending the weekly research group meeting exposed me to the thesis topics of the other students….
Museum Living and Mixed-up Files: Revisiting Books
The title must have captured my nine-year-old imagination as I pulled it from the shelf. What stood out in my memory was solving the puzzle of the mixed-up files, sleeping in the Metropolitan museum, bathing in the fountain. These recollections spoke of adventure that entranced a nine-year-old. “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E….
Don’t Fail Good Cells: Part of the Weak Write Test Mode Saga
Doug, the P54CS memory design manager, stated numerous times to not fail a good cell. My mantra during the design of the very first weak write test mode circuit became “thou shalt not fail a good cell.” To address this requirement, the boundaries between a good and bad cell needed to be determined. Given the…
I Still Have a Landline
The young men looked at me in awe: “You have a landline!” They went on to explain that it had become a status symbol. I had been signing up at a volunteer expo and mentioned I was providing my landline. I smiled at their response; it used to be that having a cell phone signified…
A Reminder that Subroutines Save Time: Tales From the Intel I/O Test Road Map
Programming has never been my favorite task as an engineer. It may relate to the fact that each new project came with learning yet another language. The activation energy to start up always appeared more daunting then it would turn out to be. Ironically, my programming skills helped in getting my summer job at NBS…
Falling in Love with Spanish Guitar Music
“If music be the food of love, play on.” –William Shakespeare Earlier this month I attended a concert of Los Romeros, the “Royal Family of the Guitar.” They played a lovely concert that included Angel Romero as a guest. I first heard them nineteen years ago on what turned out to be my first date…
36 Views of Conversations with my PhD Advisor: View 1–Grad School Story
My graduate school applications resulted in several PhD programs to choose from. Naturally, I visited each school. After an eight-hour drive from Poughkeepsie, NY to Pittsburgh, PA, I found myself across a desk from Wojciech Maly. The acceptance letter indicated he would be my advisor. He took time from teaching his VLSI design project class to…