:: The Ruminant ::

The Ruminant's first visitor, amayamaya, left a nice comment requesting more posts. Just as retailers often display their first dollar, I am going to display this first comment for a while. Rest assured, amayamaya, when I get my thirty minutes of fame, you will have your fifteen. I hope I'm not too selfish to keep some of the fame for myself.

:: Saturday, July 19, 2003 ::

A Milestone

The core circuit of my new chip has passed its final verification tests (we call them LVS and DRC, meaning "layout vs schematic" and "design rule check"). That means that what I have drawn will be physically fabricated. Over the next few days I will pencil in the minor interface connections and bonding pads, and then the chip will be "taped out" (which in these modern times probably means emailed) to the fabrication service provider. Then I wait about four months for the design to work its way through the process. During this time I will perhaps learn juggling, or tightrope walking, or maybe write my thesis or something. I kind of like the pattern of doing two years worth of work in about five months, and then screwing around for the remaining seven months (if only it were true!!!!). Here are some photos of the physical design, with various stages of zoom:



In case anyone is interested, this circuit is an analog implementation of a Turbo Product Decoder for error-control applications (error-control decoders are used to protect information stored on hard disks, CD ROM drives, etc, and information transmitted through noisy channels as in telephone modems, digital cell phones, IR transcievers and so on). This particular decoder is built from 32 simpler decoders. They are all joined together in a scheme in which each decoder cross-checks the results from the other decoders. By exchanging information between the component decoders, the performance is vastly improved (performance is measured by how much signal power you need in order to acheive a specified bit error rate). My designs use a specialized form of analog computation which is very efficient in its needs for silicon space and power consumption. The circuit is very slow overall because of its ultra low power operation, but attains high speed per bit because it can process many bits simultaneously. The size of the circuit shown here is about 1.8mm by 1.6mm.



:: Chris 2:45 PM [+] ::
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How GW Bush will help me learn Japanese

While wandering around Yokohama, I found myself most drawn to bookstores. Something about all those titles -- most of which I couldn't read -- kept me absorbed for hours. I found some good Japanese language materials, and some dual language books. I also found a book which was apparently designed to teach Japanese men how to talk to English-speaking prostitutes. Another book was filled with Japanese interpretations of American slang (including "hillbilly English" and "black English"). By far the most entertaining book was this one:



The book is filled with the verbal bumblings of GW, in Japanese! It contains the original statement, in English, followed by a Japanese translation in which a comparable error is made. The opposite page contains the corrections:



Yeee hoowee! I'm'll learn me up some Jap'nese!


:: Chris 6:08 PM [+] ::
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Ooops...

I just got back from Japan... the other day. I've been mostly asleep since I got home. Japan was fantastic. I have a lot of crazy crap to post about. The trip was too short and too much of it was spent conferencing. I definitely plan to go back, after I've gained some proficiency with the language. I at least want to be able to read Japanese books. Nothing fascinates me more than a book I can't read. I spent hours in bookstores while I was there.

I also left a bunch of electronics in the drawer in my hotel room. Oops. I tried calling the hotel today, but I have the feeling that it will be more economical for me to just buy replacements. I think I can replace it all for under $200, and I could easily spend more than $200 just on the phone trying to communicate with them. I'm just worried that I left something important in the drawer... perhaps a book or some notes or something. I definitely left one of my learning-Japanese CDs there. Thank God for the Miracle of MP3's: I copied the CD onto my computer, which I did not leave in Japan.

In other overly personal news: I injured my ass yet again on this trip. I'm going in a few minutes to waddle my crackety ass down to the chiropractor's office. May God have Mercy on my Sacrum.


:: Chris 10:16 AM [+] ::
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Runch

I just came from our complimentary awards lunch, and I'm about to go look for more lunch. They served a small piece of chicken, much of which was bone, and roughly one leaf of lettuce. For dessert, there was some sort of non-vegetarian mango custard with solid globs of something in it. I asked some Japanese people sitting next to me what the globs were, and they said "fish eggs." That surprised me. So I went and asked a guy I knew who had lived in Japan for a while. He said the globs were actually a rice-noodle product, and that the Japanese guys were just fucking with me. Hooday!


:: Chris 12:02 AM [+] ::
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