Pete Magnani managed the technical training classes at IBM’s mid-Hudson Valley sites. He had created the test training class due to lack of teaching on this topic at college. The class lasted ten to twelve weeks, with each class session held for two hours. Each week we had a different IBM employee lecture about equipment,…
Tag: IBM
Work/Life Balance—A Second Lesson at IBM
Bob Farley called me into his office to tell me to go home. ‘Twas Christmas Eve at IBM and the halls were fairly quiet. With few remaining vacation days left, I needed to work on Christmas Eve; I planned to drive down to Maryland the next day. I was working in the lab when he…
Diagnosis–Exactly Where and What is that Needle?
At IBM, I became fascinated with finding defects in semiconductor devices. For most of my professional life I have focused on testing for defects in a manufacturing setting. When in this setting, you want to determine yes or no; often referred to as “no/go” testing. The test is run–and if “no,” you stop, if “yes,”…
Introduction to a Sexy Hard Problem: From the Weak Write Test Mode Saga
Signs the problem is very hard: Before you have worked on it you’re asked a vague question from an IBM engineer during a research review. The solution results in a 10X decrease. The solution can be applied to every single product with that circuitry at your company. Patents are filed. People who can’t make your…
Facing John Waicukauski: From the Weighted Random Pattern Chronicles
Last year my friend Rick and I were talking about a mutual friend, John. Rick mentioned that some people found John intimidating; I stated I did not. Rick stared me in the eyes and stated “Anne, no one intimidates you.” Rick has known me nearly 20 years, mostly via our mutual world of ski instruction….
LOMAC Tester—Knowing Your Measurement Capabilities
Neither Chris nor I knew much about the LOMAC tester; Fred as the equipment owner did. It sure would have saved some work if we had talked with Fred. This is a story of how doing things in an incremental fashion creates more work. Efficiency is one of the E’s of engineering; it often requires…
Comparing Needles in Haystacks: From the Weighted Random Pattern Chronicles
Culling out bad from good parts is a necessary step in any manufacturing process, be it a spark plug for a car, the highchair for your infant child or a computer chip for your mobile device. Semiconductor testing moved from testing explicitly for Good parts to identifying Bad parts decades ago. The exponential growth in…
Enthusiasm and Feedback Leads to a Cool Project: From the Weighted Random Pattern Chronicles
“Frankly Lou, I have had summer jobs that have been much more interesting,” I told my boss. Running enthusiastically into my boss’s boss’s office I blurted out “Bob, I heard this engineer Franco describe a test method called Weighted Random Patterns. I found it so fascinating.” As a young engineer at IBM in the mid-1980’s…
When I Really learned Ohm’s Law
Doc Fry first taught me Ohm’s Law; V=IxR. As a high school senior I joined my younger sister Margaret in Introduction to Electronics. For labs we played with vacuum tubes, voltage sources, resistors. I recall the countless times we had a mess of wires on our breadboard and nothing worked. We quickly learned the first…