In yet another example of the ascendance of analog considerations, simulation of analog behavior – whether in outright analog circuits or in the secret analog life of digital circuits – has risen to the level of problem that needs solving. SPICE is the mother’s milk of analog simulation, but, in the spirit of actually getting things done in a finite amount of time, SPICE has been divided into the “Fast SPICE” side of things, where you trade off some accuracy for the ability to see results sooner, and full SPICE, which takes longer to run … Read More → "Spicing Up Simulation"

The wild wind whistles strange through the bright gloom of eternal daylight in the tightly-sealed semiconductor fab.  In the power-assured place where progress never pauses – where cryptically-coded wafers plod persistently through mysterious machines in the acrid vacuum of the billion-dollar bay-and-chase clean room – where white-suited phantoms pass silicon slices through evil rays and deadly potions and spinning saws… something is amiss.

In the nooks and crannies of nanometer features – in the spaces between the spaces – in the places where the design rule checkers never checked, engineers never engineered, and vectors never … Read More → "The Haunting of Fab 51"

Passing beyond a looking glass has been a useful metaphor for any topsy-turvy, head-spinning, when-will-this-trip-be-over, bizarro-world experience ever since Lewis Carroll bestowed it upon us. It’s that feeling that you’re stuck in a strange dream somewhere, where croquet balls unroll and run away, queens chop heads off willy-nilly (OK, to be fair, she didn’t chop them off… she had people that were supposed to do that), where what should make sense doesn’t and what shouldn’t does.

The looking-glass concept can be applied on three levels within … Read More → "Through the Looking Glass"

Man at the head of the line: Table for three please?

Maitre D’: Bien sur. Ees your party all ‘ere?

Man: Yup.

Maitre D’: Alors, we are full now, so I put your name on ze leest. I cannot say whahn your name weell be call; it dehpond on the size of your partee, available tehbell, ‘ow many tehbell are full at each stehshahn, etceterah. I … Read More → "Reservations Required"