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Common definitions in chip design and production
- netgusto 10y ago"Given how important chips are to modern society EVERYONE should understand and appreciate how they are made" Everyone ? Maybe everyone in the field of chip making ? How does the knowledge of these definitions impacts the life of those not in this field (not being sarcastic, this is an actual question) ?
- wmonk 10y agoHow can you fix your home electronics if you do not know all 200 chip designs??
- ducttapecrown 10y agoI believe the article was satire. I believe it was intended to mock developers evangelical quests to educate the public on programming languages/frameworks/methodologies/etc.
- logicallee 10y agoSorry - there is no way this article is satire. Can you quote anything outright satirical other than the eagerness of the very first sentence? I reread it carefully in response to your comment but concluded there is nothing satirical about this article - on the contrary, it's a useful resource.
- unit91 10y agoAgreed. Part of the problem is there's virtually no limit to the application of sentences like this. For example, "Given how important the Sun is for our survival, here's a list of 200 terms everyone should know about nuclear fusion."
- unwind 10y agoCool list(s), but I think the title is misleading. It should be something like "200-word chip design glossary", or "Chip design terminology: list of 200 definitions". Now it sounds as if there are 200 actual chip definitions, whatever that would mean, since it doesn't say its (just) about words and jargon used in the field of chip design. I confuse easily.
- ducttapecrown 10y agoI believe it's a joke about programming language names/framework names/etc.
- Chris2048 10y agoYou're right - I though there where going to be circuit diagrams, or possibly pin-outs...
- ricksplat 10y agoCommon chip-design paradigms? Architecture patterns? I was expecting things like "TTL", "Discrete Logic", "Von Neumann", "Microcontroller" etc. etc. Interesting nonetheless.
- logicallee 10y agoI believe you're meant to click on the links to learn more. The links are more than just a definition - they're the Wikipedia article. Going through this list will end up amazingly useful for anyone who requires this level of glossary.
- robert_tweed 10y agoI assumed it was going to be snippets of VHDL, which is on my to-learn list.
- choosername 10y agolooking at parts and datasheets to build a smps (switch mode power supply) and trying to figure out the networks that are rather complex from my point of view, I was expecting a list of 200 famous ICs like the lm317 or ne555 and when that seemed implausible, becuase there aren't that many iconic ones, I thought of insights into cmos design, which this hardly adresses and where 200 items would be a short list.
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoI'm not surprised they think everybody should understand how chips are made. Using their documentation last year was a nightmare with errata in archived forum posts. I also found the community response quite hostile to simple outsider questions. Then again, when we finally completed our testing of their chips we found the memory transfer overhead killed any benefit for us.
- _pmf_ 10y agoOut of interest: what was your intended purpose and what alternative did you decide on?
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoSome real time image convolutions with histeresis. We ended up switching to a Xeon Phi and abandoning the portable version.
- smoyer 10y agoIt's a bit sloppy - the most egregious are: Audio codec - compression is now common but only coding/decoding is required (hence the name). GPIO - General Purpose Input Output. Schmidt trigger - I have no idea what they wer trying to type but my cats do the same thing. A device with a Schmidt trigger input provides hysterysis for noise rejection?
- neoeldex 10y agoI don't understand your sentiment, how are those egregious? The referenced wiki article on audio codecs also talks about compression, in audio the two on very similar. GPIO is GPIO, but an engineer should know what they are and do. Schmitt triggers are really spelled like that, not with ..dt. Schmitt triggers are used for generating a stable block signal out of an analog signal, in order to decrease ripples and glitches
- quesera 10y agoThe copy is egregiously sloppy in places. The title is surely the most problematic, but the entry for Schmitt Trigger might be the worst: Schmitt Trigger: Comparitor circuit wityh The list is decent, and intentionally superficial -- it's a list, not a textbook. The guy seems to know his material, but English might not be his first language, and I don't think proofreading happened. I would guess that the list grew out of years of conversations and exposed gaps of shared knowledge. It's a good list of things that establish a common vocabulary in a specific industry.
- Artlav 10y agoHm. What is the point? If you are in the field, you'll know most of these terms naturally. If you aren't, then you'll just forget them after passing the exam, or whatever. Sounds like extra-thick satire to me.
- rjsw 10y agoIf you want to get into the field then the Parallella board is good value, the Verilog and build scripts for the default configuration are on Github.
- nobodyshere 10y agoI kind of don't like them since they failed to deliver on their 64 core board.
- kriro 10y agoQuite the contrast to the little piece of paper I have sitting on my shelve that reads one and one zero everything else is one make a computer ;)
- AstroJetson 10y agoIf it was going to be real satire, they would have stuck at least one reference to a unique chip, say the Lays Wavy with Old Bay Spice. I'm going with it was a chip glossary that the author thought important. Not the best title. I was also thinking it was the top 200 chips like the basic 7400 family, 6502, 8051, 555, etc.
- a_imho 10y agoICs are one of the most important and impressive achievements of humankind imo. Taking a handful of Si atoms to form a transistor then carefully arranging a billion of them to make an x64 processor, just so Randall can watch a cat jumping into a box and make a webcomic of it. Making useful things at those scales amazes me everytime.
- turnip1979 10y agoI'm impressed too but also dismayed by how little the average person (or even the average CS person) understands about the low level stuff. I had a top notch CS undergrad degree, but I'm only truly able to grok some of the finer points 15 years out. And that's because I'm learning to use FPGAs as a hobby. The Internet is truly marvelous in this regard. I'm using free tutorials, documentaries and videos to satisfy my curiosity and pretty much getting an EE education. Ignoring the car pictures, the Internet gives me much hope.
- libc 10y agoI'm in a similar boat. I have a CS background but only took one "Computer Organization" class which wasn't even that good but it gave me a starting point. I wish I'd at least minored in EE. What resources have you found especially useful? I'm using All About Circuits[1] to learn fundamentals of electricity in addition to whatever tutorials I read for particular projects. [1]: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/
- joezydeco 10y agoThe Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill is indispensable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics
- Emunt 10y agoDo you have any hardware you would recommend?
- pif 10y agoReplace "everyone should know" with "someone may be curious to know", and the title will start to make sense.
- kabes 10y agoAnd yet, somehow my grandmother managed to pull through without knowing about Amdahl’s law and wafer thinning
- peter303 10y agoLista are not that pedagogical. "Heres a French-English dictionary. start speaking French."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- FuNe 10y agoOriginal title is: "200 chip definitions everyone should know" OP had the good sense to change and strip it off the of self-importance and self-righteousness (although the writer probably meant to say 'everyone in IT business). Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be stupidly pedantic but no I do not think that social worker next door needs to know what ADC means. IT-wise, yes younger generations seem to be in total loss with ICs and I believe the simple reason is that there are no jobs there anymore so there isn't a motivation to learn more about it. Virtual everything (as started off with JVM) has contributed too there. Not sure though that they are missing out that much.
- Kinnard 10y agoAnyone ever consider creating an IC bootcamp?