On 15 July 2015 I worked a twelve-hour day at Intel, Corporation. No one expected me to do this; especially my management because on 15 June 2015 they informed me that I met a formula– I was to be laid off. There was a lot of emotional and intellectual confusion about this unhappy event. While…
Tag: Intel
Dealing with Bits Flipped- From the Weak Write Test Mode Saga
In Circuits and Systems I, Prof Emad informed the class that sign matters. A student requesting to receive partial credit on an exam question because she only got the sign wrong would receive no mercy. “What’s the difference between + 5 Volts and – 5 Volts?” Prof Emad pointedly stated, “10 Volts.” Ever since Ben…
Three Patents for PLD–That was Good
Let me share my experiences with Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs). Intel had a small group down in Folsom working on this technology. Because of re-orgs, my wife and I moved to Folsom and we lived down for eight years (1988-1994). As part of that team I came up with three patents. And it was just…
Hardware to Bandwidth to Software Flipped Around
So here’s another occasion with a similar scenario where a small kludge solution turns a complicated design into something really easy but it requires a separate perspective on the problem. This is from my work on the CPU debug team at Intel, circa 2007. Engineers in my group were trying to resolve a problem. We…
First Week Impact
My approach to engineering craft has evolved to knowing when the easy solution exists and grabbing that instead of going with a complicated solution. Sometimes that’s a hack or sometimes it’s a different perspective. A newbie’s perspective can often provide that different perspective. Within my first week at Intel I surprisingly contributed immediately to my…
Six Months to Satisfaction- Large Team Frustrations
Q: What’s your most frustrating experiences as an engineer? A: Basically not being listened to. Like most people as an engineer not being listened to ranks up at the top of my frustration. While it’s easy to manage this in a one on one working relationship it becomes much harder in a larger team. Let…
Innovation on I/O Timings, a Precursor—Tales from the Intel I/O Test Road Map
Growing up I heard the story of the Archimedes and his moment of inspiration in the bath. “Eureka” he declared racing to inform the King of his solution. This story propels the myth that great ideas come out of thin air. There is usually a lot more work and time behind an innovative idea. In…
Technical Speak- From the Weak Write Test Mode Saga
“You have excellent PowerPoint skills.” Joe Schutz had requested two slides on Weak Write Test Mode to include in a presentation to his manager. On loan to Joe’s microprocessor design team I reported into him via Doug Guddat who managed the memory design group. Joe had asked me directly for the slides and I delivered….
Innovation on IO Timings with the Test chips—Tales from the Intel I/O Test Road Map
Our investigative work into the true nature of IO timing failures informed us of the current state of the art testing and the likely source of defects. The challenge to test the timings without using the traditional ATE approach was on. We even had an approach- stressing the timings on the die and self-compare. To…
Innovation I/O Timings, a Precursor—Tales from the Intel I/O Test Road Map
Growing up I heard the story of the Archimedes and his moment of inspiration in the bath. “Eureka” he declared racing to inform the King of his solution. This story propels the myth that great ideas come out of thin air. There is usually a lot more work and time behind an innovative idea. In…