Gabriel Sechan wrote:
In retrospect I wish I had learned more in the course (I do at least know how to make simple not, nand, and nor gates from pure silicon) but don't regret dropping it- my mind just phases out when capacitance and inductance come into play, I always hated my analog courses.
The problem with this is that the secondary effects for digital are all analog.
If you aren't willing to look at transistors, you don't understand why your beautiful Verilog/VHDL microprocessor burns 5W running and 4.9W in standby. This was a real problem at a real company with whom I interviewed.
You don't understand how to create a source synchronous/clock forwarded bus interface and you lose 4 clocks on every memory access going through synchronizers to avoid metastability.
I can go on and on. A lot of our current problems with chips are due to poor design, not weak technology. However, there is not yet any market punishment for poor design. By the time there is, the designers who know how to do that stuff will be dead, retired, or in management and unable/unwilling to teach the new generation.
-a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
