But the real perks are in other jobs where the legislature has caved in to
the unions. Prison guards etc. A while ago the news reported the staggering
number of applications sent in. It may not be a fun job but it sure must
have become a plum job.

That does sound specific to one particular tool (vendors's software).

On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:47:57 -0400, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

In article <PLsOj.7522$GE1.332@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net says...
Joel Koltner wrote:
"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:tq7Oj.1556$FF6.588@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling...
Well, it's entirely reasonable to have retirement benefits for public
employees be comparable to what private companies offer... I just hope that
public employee salaries will then become comparable as well (which implies a
pay raise), since otherwise I don't see how the gov't. expects they'll get
comparable quality out of their workers.

Private companies generally offer zilch in retirement benefits. Those
days are long gone.
I don't know about "gone". The age of the "defined benefit" is
pretty much gone in private industry but several still have "defined
contribution" plans. Now, 401Ks make up for a lot of what's been
lost and are portable.

One problem with the government seems to be that they don't expect their
employees to be agile over time. See this article:
http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37174-1.html -- Someone the government ends up
with a bunch of 70 year old programmers and therefore has to hire IBM to build
them the modernized e-filing systems? Surely there must be some new hires in
the past, say, 40 years who could have been working on this and hence, on
average, would only be middle-aged today!?

A 70 year old programmer can be better than a 40 year old. At least
that's my impression when I see all the "modern" bloatware
Maybe. There are better things to do at 70, though.
Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit tied to the last work
year.
I expect that was implemented to help people who were *forced* to move?

It seems like it needs reworking to differentiate between cases where the
government wants to move you vs. you just voluntarily wanting to do so.

Or you just have to have the right connections to make that happen ...

Anyhow, why should retirement checks be based on the last year of
service? IMHO that's wrong. For everyone else it sure doesn't work that way.
The last years' is indicative of the final salary. Most "defined
benefit" plans do take the last year, or last couple of years into
account. What most private pensions *don't* do, that public plans
do is include overtime in the formula. It's not hard to double
one's income for a couple of years. There is no way the tax payer
should pay that forever.

So you say. While there are classes where that is easily done it is
usually in the mid range hourly and low range salaried that it is
reasonably possible. But how may 50+ year olds do you know that can
and will work significant overtime?

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:13:27 -0400, "Steve" <sjburke1@comcast.net
wrote:

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:U5MNj.6956$GE1.6193@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...
qrk wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:43:09 -0700 (PDT), Dave <dhschetz@gmail.com
wrote:

Does anybody out there have a good methodology for determining your
optimal FPGA pinouts, for making PCB layouts nice, pretty, and clean?
The brute force method is fairly maddening. I'd be curious to hear if
anybody has any 'tricks of the trade' here.

Also, just out of curiosity, how many of you do your own PCB layout,
versus farming it out? It would certainly save us a lot of money to
buy the tools and do it ourselves, but it seems like laying out a
board out well requires quite a bit of experience, especially a 6-8
layer board with high pin count FPGA's.

We're just setting up a hardware shop here, and although I've been
doing FPGA and board schematics design for a while, it's always been
at a larger company with resources to farm the layout out, and we
never did anything high-speed to really worry about the board layout
too much. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Dave
Sure wish there was a slick way of doing FPGA pinouts. I usually use
graph paper and figure out the FPGA pinout to other parts to minimize
routing snarls.

I do pcb layouts on my own and other folks designs. Our boards have
high-speed routing, switching power supplies, and high-gain analog
stuff; sometimes all on the same board. Unless the service bureau has
someone who understands how to lay out such circuitry and place
sensitive analog stuff near digital junk, it is more trouble to farm
out than do it yourself if you want the board to work on the first
cut.

Or find a good layouter and develop a long-term business relationship. My
layouter knows just from looking at a schematic which areas are critical.
He's a lot older than I am and that is probably one of the reasons why his
stuff works without much assistance from me. Nothing can replace a few
decades of experience.


Doing your own layout will take a lot of learning to master the PCB
layout program and what your board vendor can handle. It will take 5
to 10 complicated boards to become mildly proficient at layout. I
don't know about saving cost. Your time may be better spent doing
other activities rather than learning about layout and doing the
layouts. ...

Yep, that's why I usually do not do my own layouts. Occassionally I route
a small portion of a circuit and send that to my layouter. No DRC or
anything, just to show him how I'd like it done.


... The upside to doing your own layout - you control the whole
design from start to finish. If you have a challenging layout, you'll
have a much higher probability of having a working board on the first
try which has hidden savings (getting to market earlier <- less
troubleshooting + less respins).

---
Mark

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
I agree with Joerg. Good high speed or mixed signal PCB layout is a career
choice, and we electrical engineers already chose our career. A good layout
requires someone who understands not just the software package, but the
details of how the manufacturing operation is going to proceed, what the
limits of the processes are, what the assembly operations require of the
board, and is anal about things like footprint libraries and solder mask
clearances and a thousand other details that I'm only partially aware of.
The more complex your design, the more critical these things become.

I have two good local outfits for farming out boards. For complex stuff,
they know I'll come to their place and sit next to the designer for a good
bit of the initial placement. While we are doing placement, we are also
discussing critical nets, routing paths, layer usage, etc. That gives us
direct face to face communication and avoids spending lots of time trying to
write/draw everything in gory detail (which gets ignored or misunderstood a
lot of the time). That investment pays big dividends in schedule and board
performance.

Don't be fooled by the relatively low cost of the software. That's not where
the big costs are.

I once laid off my entire PCB layout department and sent all the work
outside, because although my employees all knew how to use the software,
none of them could tell me what their completion date would be, or how many
hours it would take, and they certainly weren't interested in meeting
schedules. The outside sources would commit to a cost and a delivery date.
And we already knew they could meet our performance objectives. Fixed price
contracts are great motivators. Missing an engineering test window, or
slipping a production schedule because of a layout delay can be enormously
expensive.

Of course, if I had let my engineers do their own layouts, the motivation
would have been present, but the technical proficiency would not. How
proficient can anyone become if they only do layout a few times a year?
Also, on many projects engineers use the layout period for other important
things like documentation, test procedures, writing test code, etc. Doing
your own layout serializes these tasks and will stretch your schedule.

So my advice is to keep doing what you have been doing. Its far more likely
that its the cheapest approach, even though you occasionally have to write a
big check.

Steve


Pretty much honest responses. Almost all of good value.

Mark hinted and Joerg mentioned one of the foremost subjects,
floorplanning. This will impact everything you do. From the original
schematic drawing to the FPGA VHDL/Verilog coding and optimizing to
PWB layout , documentation, and testing. Each of these activities
requires floorplanning to get good results. To achieve the best PWD
layout results make several different versions for your first few
boards and route them all to completion. It will make huge
improvements in your understanding.

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:09:02 -0700 (PDT), "David L. Jones"



altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 18, 8:15 am, Dave <dhsch...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 17, 5:13 pm, "Steve" <sjbur...@comcast.net> wrote:

"Joerg" <notthisjoerg...@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message

news:U5MNj.6956$GE1.6193@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...

qrk wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:43:09 -0700 (PDT), Dave <dhsch...@gmail.com
wrote:

Does anybody out there have a good methodology for determining your
optimal FPGA pinouts, for making PCB layouts nice, pretty, and clean?
The brute force method is fairly maddening. I'd be curious to hear if
anybody has any 'tricks of the trade' here.

Also, just out of curiosity, how many of you do your own PCB layout,
versus farming it out? It would certainly save us a lot of money to
buy the tools and do it ourselves, but it seems like laying out a
board out well requires quite a bit of experience, especially a 6-8
layer board with high pin count FPGA's.

We're just setting up a hardware shop here, and although I've been
doing FPGA and board schematics design for a while, it's always been
at a larger company with resources to farm the layout out, and we
never did anything high-speed to really worry about the board layout
too much. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Dave

Sure wish there was a slick way of doing FPGA pinouts. I usually use
graph paper and figure out the FPGA pinout to other parts to minimize
routing snarls.

I do pcb layouts on my own and other folks designs. Our boards have
high-speed routing, switching power supplies, and high-gain analog
stuff; sometimes all on the same board. Unless the service bureau has
someone who understands how to lay out such circuitry and place
sensitive analog stuff near digital junk, it is more trouble to farm
out than do it yourself if you want the board to work on the first
cut.

Or find a good layouter and develop a long-term business relationship. My
layouter knows just from looking at a schematic which areas are critical.
He's a lot older than I am and that is probably one of the reasons why his
stuff works without much assistance from me. Nothing can replace a few
decades of experience.

Doing your own layout will take a lot of learning to master the PCB
layout program and what your board vendor can handle. It will take 5
to 10 complicated boards to become mildly proficient at layout. I
don't know about saving cost. Your time may be better spent doing
other activities rather than learning about layout and doing the
layouts. ...

Yep, that's why I usually do not do my own layouts. Occassionally I route
a small portion of a circuit and send that to my layouter. No DRC or
anything, just to show him how I'd like it done.

... The upside to doing your own layout - you control the whole
design from start to finish. If you have a challenging layout, you'll
have a much higher probability of having a working board on the first
try which has hidden savings (getting to market earlier <- less
troubleshooting + less respins).

---
Mark

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

I agree with Joerg. Good high speed or mixed signal PCB layout is a career
choice, and we electrical engineers already chose our career. A good layout
requires someone who understands not just the software package, but the
details of how the manufacturing operation is going to proceed, what the
limits of the processes are, what the assembly operations require of the
board, and is anal about things like footprint libraries and solder mask
clearances and a thousand other details that I'm only partially aware of.
The more complex your design, the more critical these things become.

I have two good local outfits for farming out boards. For complex stuff,
they know I'll come to their place and sit next to the designer for a good
bit of the initial placement. While we are doing placement, we are also
discussing critical nets, routing paths, layer usage, etc. That gives us
direct face to face communication and avoids spending lots of time trying to
write/draw everything in gory detail (which gets ignored or misunderstood a
lot of the time). That investment pays big dividends in schedule and board
performance.

Don't be fooled by the relatively low cost of the software. That's not where
the big costs are.

I once laid off my entire PCB layout department and sent all the work
outside, because although my employees all knew how to use the software,
none of them could tell me what their completion date would be, or how many
hours it would take, and they certainly weren't interested in meeting
schedules. The outside sources would commit to a cost and a delivery date.
And we already knew they could meet our performance objectives. Fixed price
contracts are great motivators. Missing an engineering test window, or
slipping a production schedule because of a layout delay can be enormously
expensive.

Of course, if I had let my engineers do their own layouts, the motivation
would have been present, but the technical proficiency would not. How
proficient can anyone become if they only do layout a few times a year?
Also, on many projects engineers use the layout period for other important
things like documentation, test procedures, writing test code, etc. Doing
your own layout serializes these tasks and will stretch your schedule.

So my advice is to keep doing what you have been doing. Its far more likely
that its the cheapest approach, even though you occasionally have to write a
big check.

Steve

I tend to agree with the 'farm-it-out' crowd. Unfortunately, my
current employer doesn't want to work with my previous layout people,
so I've been trying to search for a new partner. I've found plenty of
board fab and assembly places, but not so much on the layout. It made
me think that the rest of the world did their own layout. The opinions
look pretty split from the replies here, maybe it comes down to how
many times you do a layout each year, and how much you enjoy that sort
of work. I definitely think it's something you have to do fairly often
to keep your chops up.

Andy, I'd also like to hear more about your pin-swap FPGA design flow
- what tools do that? Also curious about any timing issues that have
been caught after the pin-swap.

In Altium Designer I use the incredibly useful "subnet jumper" feature
for BGA's.
The procedure goes something like this:
1) Fan out all the required FPGA pins first (automatically or
manually) to just outside the chip boundry. (leave several diagonal
entry paths for core and other power flood fills to get in)
2) Fully route all non-pin-swappable pins and other critical lines.
3) Ensure any other parts placements are near any required FPGA pins
or block features you think you might need.
4) Route every track just short of the fanout tracks
5) Hit the "add subnet jumper" feature and it finishes the tracks and
does all the pin swaps for you and updates the schematic.

Probably needs a picture or two to explain it best though...

The great part about subnet jumpers is if there are timing or other
problems you can just remove the subnet jumpers and add/edit tracks
and pins as needed and then replace the subnet jumpers. Only takes a
minute or two.

Dave.

That does sound specific to one particular tool (vendors's software).

On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:47:57 -0400, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

In article <PLsOj.7522$GE1.332@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net says...
Joel Koltner wrote:
"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:tq7Oj.1556$FF6.588@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling...

Well, it's entirely reasonable to have retirement benefits for public
employees be comparable to what private companies offer... I just hope that
public employee salaries will then become comparable as well (which implies a
pay raise), since otherwise I don't see how the gov't. expects they'll get
comparable quality out of their workers.


Private companies generally offer zilch in retirement benefits. Those
days are long gone.

I don't know about "gone". The age of the "defined benefit" is
pretty much gone in private industry but several still have "defined
contribution" plans. Now, 401Ks make up for a lot of what's been
lost and are portable.

One problem with the government seems to be that they don't expect their
employees to be agile over time. See this article:
http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37174-1.html -- Someone the government ends up
with a bunch of 70 year old programmers and therefore has to hire IBM to build
them the modernized e-filing systems? Surely there must be some new hires in
the past, say, 40 years who could have been working on this and hence, on
average, would only be middle-aged today!?


A 70 year old programmer can be better than a 40 year old. At least
that's my impression when I see all the "modern" bloatware ;-)

Maybe. There are better things to do at 70, though. ;-)

Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit tied to the last work
year.

I expect that was implemented to help people who were *forced* to move?

It seems like it needs reworking to differentiate between cases where the
government wants to move you vs. you just voluntarily wanting to do so.


Or you just have to have the right connections to make that happen ...

Anyhow, why should retirement checks be based on the last year of
service? IMHO that's wrong. For everyone else it sure doesn't work that way.

The last years' is indicative of the final salary. Most "defined
benefit" plans do take the last year, or last couple of years into
account. What most private pensions *don't* do, that public plans
do is include overtime in the formula. It's not hard to double
one's income for a couple of years. There is no way the tax payer
should pay that forever.

So you say. While there are classes where that is easily done it is
usually in the mid range hourly and low range salaried that it is
reasonably possible. But how may 50+ year olds do you know that can
and will work significant overtime?

In article <k4t21496ku8p7hs9vm2t00254ov2q6udc0@4ax.com>,
quiettechblue@yahoo.com says...
On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:47:57 -0400, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

In article <PLsOj.7522$GE1.332@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net says...
Joel Koltner wrote:
"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:tq7Oj.1556$FF6.588@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling...
Well, it's entirely reasonable to have retirement benefits for public
employees be comparable to what private companies offer... I just hope that
public employee salaries will then become comparable as well (which implies a
pay raise), since otherwise I don't see how the gov't. expects they'll get
comparable quality out of their workers.

Private companies generally offer zilch in retirement benefits. Those
days are long gone.
I don't know about "gone". The age of the "defined benefit" is
pretty much gone in private industry but several still have "defined
contribution" plans. Now, 401Ks make up for a lot of what's been
lost and are portable.

One problem with the government seems to be that they don't expect their
employees to be agile over time. See this article:
http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37174-1.html -- Someone the government ends up
with a bunch of 70 year old programmers and therefore has to hire IBM to build
them the modernized e-filing systems? Surely there must be some new hires in
the past, say, 40 years who could have been working on this and hence, on
average, would only be middle-aged today!?

A 70 year old programmer can be better than a 40 year old. At least
that's my impression when I see all the "modern" bloatware
Maybe. There are better things to do at 70, though.
Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit tied to the last work
year.
I expect that was implemented to help people who were *forced* to move?

It seems like it needs reworking to differentiate between cases where the
government wants to move you vs. you just voluntarily wanting to do so.

Or you just have to have the right connections to make that happen ...

Anyhow, why should retirement checks be based on the last year of
service? IMHO that's wrong. For everyone else it sure doesn't work that way.
The last years' is indicative of the final salary. Most "defined
benefit" plans do take the last year, or last couple of years into
account. What most private pensions *don't* do, that public plans
do is include overtime in the formula. It's not hard to double
one's income for a couple of years. There is no way the tax payer
should pay that forever.
So you say. While there are classes where that is easily done it is
usually in the mid range hourly and low range salaried that it is
reasonably possible. But how may 50+ year olds do you know that can
and will work significant overtime?

Overtime should never be needed in a well run company. That said,
I've been averaging 60hr weeks (some 70+ and a few weeks with
holidays, less) since August and have at least a few more months of
work left on the pile, if I want it. There is no reason a 50s can't
work overtime but there is also no reason to need, want, or expect
it. BTW, I certainly wouldn't be working the overtime were I
salaried.

The latter is a concern in my field (medical). We need to be able to
inspect.

Joerg wrote:
The latter is a concern in my field (medical). We need to be able to
inspect.

For medical devices/equipment, I'd be concerned with getting an RoHS
waiver and non-green parts and solder, so that the device/equipment
isn't likely to fail in a few years due to tin wiskers and harm the
patient.

krw wrote:
In article <k4t21496ku8p7hs9vm2t00254ov2q6udc0@4ax.com>,
quiettechblue@yahoo.com says...
On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:47:57 -0400, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

In article <PLsOj.7522$GE1.332@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com>,
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net says...
Joel Koltner wrote:
"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:tq7Oj.1556$FF6.588@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling...
Well, it's entirely reasonable to have retirement benefits for public
employees be comparable to what private companies offer... I just hope that
public employee salaries will then become comparable as well (which implies a
pay raise), since otherwise I don't see how the gov't. expects they'll get
comparable quality out of their workers.

Private companies generally offer zilch in retirement benefits. Those
days are long gone.
I don't know about "gone". The age of the "defined benefit" is
pretty much gone in private industry but several still have "defined
contribution" plans. Now, 401Ks make up for a lot of what's been
lost and are portable.

One problem with the government seems to be that they don't expect their
employees to be agile over time. See this article:
http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37174-1.html -- Someone the government ends up
with a bunch of 70 year old programmers and therefore has to hire IBM to build
them the modernized e-filing systems? Surely there must be some new hires in
the past, say, 40 years who could have been working on this and hence, on
average, would only be middle-aged today!?

A 70 year old programmer can be better than a 40 year old. At least
that's my impression when I see all the "modern" bloatware
Maybe. There are better things to do at 70, though.
Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit tied to the last work
year.
I expect that was implemented to help people who were *forced* to move?

It seems like it needs reworking to differentiate between cases where the
government wants to move you vs. you just voluntarily wanting to do so.

Or you just have to have the right connections to make that happen ...

Anyhow, why should retirement checks be based on the last year of
service? IMHO that's wrong. For everyone else it sure doesn't work that way.
The last years' is indicative of the final salary. Most "defined
benefit" plans do take the last year, or last couple of years into
account. What most private pensions *don't* do, that public plans
do is include overtime in the formula. It's not hard to double
one's income for a couple of years. There is no way the tax payer
should pay that forever.
So you say. While there are classes where that is easily done it is
usually in the mid range hourly and low range salaried that it is
reasonably possible. But how may 50+ year olds do you know that can
and will work significant overtime?

Overtime should never be needed in a well run company. That said,
I've been averaging 60hr weeks (some 70+ and a few weeks with
holidays, less) since August and have at least a few more months of
work left on the pile, if I want it. There is no reason a 50s can't
work overtime but there is also no reason to need, want, or expect
it. BTW, I certainly wouldn't be working the overtime were I
salaried.


So what do you do at the end of this gig? Maybe buy Adnan Kashoggi's
yacht

Every hour I work now is at least two I don't have to later.
As they say, "you gotta make hay while the sun is shining".

JosephKK wrote:
On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:56:41 GMT, Joerg
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote:

Joel Koltner wrote:
Hi Joerg,

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:PLsOj.7522$GE1.332@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...
Private companies generally offer zilch in retirement benefits. Those days
are long gone.
Actually I think a very significant fraction of companies (at least those
hiring EEs) offer some sort of contribution to 401k plans, sometimes profit
sharing, sometimes stock options, etc... but I concur that the old days of
"company pensions" is pretty much gone.

Mostly it's a mere pittance. And that's ok, I am a strong believer that
everyone should pull their own weight. Except disabled people, of course.
Actually i have found an amazing amount of them that can do just that.
I expect you have heard of Steven Hawking?


Yes, a remarkable guy. I didn't mean folks who develop Lou Gehrig's
although they will also need support once it has progresed to a point. I
mean people like the guy with Down syndrome we sometimes visit. He's on
disability and that is really the only way for him to live.


A 70 year old programmer can be better than a 40 year old.
Absolutely, but if you're an employer it's definitely a legitimate
consideration that starting a bunch of 70-year-olds on a, say, decade-long
"modernization" project is rather riskier than if you toss a few 50- or
30-year-olds into the mix as well.
Correct.

True. However, we should embrace the Japanese concept of letting older
folks teach the young ones, not lay them off.
There is a trade off there. You need to limit that to the most
flexible and brightest old personnel.


That would be no problem.


Anyhow, why should retirement checks be based on the last year of service?
IMHO that's wrong.
I agree that one year seems too short, but trying to figure out how many years
should be taken into consideration (which is effectively what happens in
private companies if the company is contributing to your 401k) is not going to
be easy either.

Just make it the same as with 401(k), IRA, old style pension funds,
social security etc. What counts is what you pay in over your whole career.
Heavily weighted by the early amounts because of compound interest.
Check it out. Moreover, no matter what the contributions were there
should come a point where the interest on the early contributions
outweigh the current contributions. Do the arithmetic. A spreadsheet
program makes this relatively painless.


I don't think we'll see the interest rates of yesteryear anytime soon.
But the point is there should not be preferential treatment of public
service employees on the shoulders of the taxpayer.

We can read such stories almost daily, just an example from this morning:
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/876845.html

Guess who gets to pay the tab for the agency's legal defense?

JosephKK wrote:
On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:22:49 GMT, Joerg
notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote:

Joel Koltner wrote:
"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:KD6Oj.9778$2g1.2542@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com...
That is strange. Normally they should have known this guy inside out before
even offering tenure if that's what his new position entails.
I believe they did know him inside and out, were happy with his performance,
and that's why it happened: They had already decided they were going to offer
him the promotion, but some standard procedure required getting a student
evaluation as well... so they had to find someone who was willing to write up
a positive one. I just think it's strange that they bother getting a student
evaluation when their minds are already made up... since it then puts them in
the rather awkward position of having to say, "Please write us a good
evaluation, or if you don't feel you can, that's OK, we'll find someone
else..." Weird.

Perhaps they'd do better to ask a handful of students to write up objective
evaluations without the pressure of "...but, um, it has to be positive?" --
and then culling any that were negative? I suppose they're stuck in a
way... being tied to the government (they're a land-grant university) means
they have to follow lots of procedures that regular businesses don't.

Regarding the nice retirement packages... my understanding was that state
workers ended up with rather cushy retirement packages in exchange for having
to accept noticeably below-average salaries (relative to private industry)
during their working years. In Oreogn we have the PERS (Public Employee
Retirement System) which used to work this way, but the "cushy" benefits were
signifcantly reduced via the ballot box when some interested parties pointed
out how much better PERS was than what those folks in private industry get.
Hence you now have a system where public employee pay still isn't competitive
with private industry and now the retirement isn't either! This was a common
topic of complaint by the professors (that you'd get to know well enough) when
I was in grad school; a significant number left for private industry during
that time, and I certainly coudn't blame them.

That being said, I don't know enough to evaluate whether or not public jobs
are still attractive when you look at the total package -- some people would
argue they are and that PERS benefit reductions were just "corrections" to a
system that had become too "generous" in its compensation.

All I know from here (CA) is that their benefits are mind-boggling.
OK lets get to that.

Paid sick leave,
Not particularly uncommon until you get to low end hourly. Standard
for engineers since WWII.


Most people I know don't.


fat disability payments where lots of people tried and
succeeded to be declared "disabled",
Yes there has been abuses.


Big time. I've seen lots of it. People who collected fat checks because
of back injuries and then personally erecting retaining walls and stuff.
IMHO there is an utter lack of enforcement.

Hey, didn't even Spike Helmick try to collect a fat pension "upgrade"
claiming he fell off his armchair?


cradle-to-grave medical with hardly any co-pay.
When i worked for private as an engineer it was $5 for office visit,
$20 for lab, $5 per prescription. Today with State of CA it is $10 or
more for office visit, $0 for lab, $5 to $25 per prescription. It
increases in retirement. Then Medicare is supposed to kick in and
relieve much of the State burden. If you are 65 or older and don't
like what you have try Medicare and see how well you like that.


I must pay $65 for an office visit. Plus the first $2700 (per person!)
per year out of pocket, else the premiums become unbearable. A lot of
engineers I know how no health insurance at all because they can't
afford it any longer.


The latter alone will saddle our communities with previously
unheard of debt.
Oh, and then lots of jobs have the retirement benefit
tied to the last work year. So, folks have themselves transferred into
high-cost areas such as the Bay Area for 13 months or so, then move
back. That ratchets their monthly checks up substantially, until their
dying day. That ain't right.
It has been changed to the highest paid three years average in the
last ten. And it now takes ten years to become "vested", instead of
five.


That's good but still not fair compared to people in non-gvt jobs.


Now, you have been reading my stuff for some years now, do you think i
am a doofus parading as an engineer? When i was hired some 15 years
ago a PE could only expect about $5000 a month in State service. What
was your monthly average then. What was it 5 years ago? What is it
today. CA State pay rates for engineers and almost all others is a
matter of public record. Try looking them up for yourself. You would
do well to start with www.spb.ca.gov. Better still, compare them to
County and City rates for the last 20 years. And finally note that
for most cases the State does not give you a better paycheck based on
where the job is, let alone where you live.

80 percent to 90 percent of half to two thirds of what a private
engineer can make ain't all that much. You may get a lower top
percentage, but it is / was based on a much better salary.


Half? $5k/mo is about what engineers in industry made 15 years ago.

But the real perks are in other jobs where the legislature has caved in
to the unions. Prison guards etc. A while ago the news reported the
staggering number of applications sent in. It may not be a fun job but
it sure must have become a plum job.

JosephKK wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:13:27 -0400, "Steve" <sjburke1@comcast.net
wrote:

"Joerg" <notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote in message
news:U5MNj.6956$GE1.6193@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...
qrk wrote:
On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:43:09 -0700 (PDT), Dave <dhschetz@gmail.com
wrote:

Does anybody out there have a good methodology for determining your
optimal FPGA pinouts, for making PCB layouts nice, pretty, and clean?
The brute force method is fairly maddening. I'd be curious to hear if
anybody has any 'tricks of the trade' here.

Also, just out of curiosity, how many of you do your own PCB layout,
versus farming it out? It would certainly save us a lot of money to
buy the tools and do it ourselves, but it seems like laying out a
board out well requires quite a bit of experience, especially a 6-8
layer board with high pin count FPGA's.

We're just setting up a hardware shop here, and although I've been
doing FPGA and board schematics design for a while, it's always been
at a larger company with resources to farm the layout out, and we
never did anything high-speed to really worry about the board layout
too much. Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Dave
Sure wish there was a slick way of doing FPGA pinouts. I usually use
graph paper and figure out the FPGA pinout to other parts to minimize
routing snarls.

I do pcb layouts on my own and other folks designs. Our boards have
high-speed routing, switching power supplies, and high-gain analog
stuff; sometimes all on the same board. Unless the service bureau has
someone who understands how to lay out such circuitry and place
sensitive analog stuff near digital junk, it is more trouble to farm
out than do it yourself if you want the board to work on the first
cut.

Or find a good layouter and develop a long-term business relationship. My
layouter knows just from looking at a schematic which areas are critical.
He's a lot older than I am and that is probably one of the reasons why his
stuff works without much assistance from me. Nothing can replace a few
decades of experience.


Doing your own layout will take a lot of learning to master the PCB
layout program and what your board vendor can handle. It will take 5
to 10 complicated boards to become mildly proficient at layout. I
don't know about saving cost. Your time may be better spent doing
other activities rather than learning about layout and doing the
layouts. ...

Yep, that's why I usually do not do my own layouts. Occassionally I route
a small portion of a circuit and send that to my layouter. No DRC or
anything, just to show him how I'd like it done.


... The upside to doing your own layout - you control the whole
design from start to finish. If you have a challenging layout, you'll
have a much higher probability of having a working board on the first
try which has hidden savings (getting to market earlier <- less
troubleshooting + less respins).

---
Mark

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
I agree with Joerg. Good high speed or mixed signal PCB layout is a career
choice, and we electrical engineers already chose our career. A good layout
requires someone who understands not just the software package, but the
details of how the manufacturing operation is going to proceed, what the
limits of the processes are, what the assembly operations require of the
board, and is anal about things like footprint libraries and solder mask
clearances and a thousand other details that I'm only partially aware of.
The more complex your design, the more critical these things become.

I have two good local outfits for farming out boards. For complex stuff,
they know I'll come to their place and sit next to the designer for a good
bit of the initial placement. While we are doing placement, we are also
discussing critical nets, routing paths, layer usage, etc. That gives us
direct face to face communication and avoids spending lots of time trying to
write/draw everything in gory detail (which gets ignored or misunderstood a
lot of the time). That investment pays big dividends in schedule and board
performance.

Don't be fooled by the relatively low cost of the software. That's not where
the big costs are.

I once laid off my entire PCB layout department and sent all the work
outside, because although my employees all knew how to use the software,
none of them could tell me what their completion date would be, or how many
hours it would take, and they certainly weren't interested in meeting
schedules. The outside sources would commit to a cost and a delivery date.
And we already knew they could meet our performance objectives. Fixed price
contracts are great motivators. Missing an engineering test window, or
slipping a production schedule because of a layout delay can be enormously
expensive.

Of course, if I had let my engineers do their own layouts, the motivation
would have been present, but the technical proficiency would not. How
proficient can anyone become if they only do layout a few times a year?
Also, on many projects engineers use the layout period for other important
things like documentation, test procedures, writing test code, etc. Doing
your own layout serializes these tasks and will stretch your schedule.

So my advice is to keep doing what you have been doing. Its far more likely
that its the cheapest approach, even though you occasionally have to write a
big check.

Steve


Pretty much honest responses. Almost all of good value.

Mark hinted and Joerg mentioned one of the foremost subjects,
floorplanning. This will impact everything you do. From the original
schematic drawing to the FPGA VHDL/Verilog coding and optimizing to
PWB layout , documentation, and testing. Each of these activities
requires floorplanning to get good results. To achieve the best PWD
layout results make several different versions for your first few
boards and route them all to completion. It will make huge
improvements in your understanding.


Right. The same goes for code, especially micro controllers. Without
spending a lot of time on a floor plan chances are it won't fit in or
it'll become a hodge-podge of code snippets somehow stitched together.
Seen a lot of that :-(

There seems to be a huge software company up north that has in part lost
the art of good floorplanning ...

Eric Smith wrote:
Joerg wrote:
The latter is a concern in my field (medical). We need to be able to
inspect.

For medical devices/equipment, I'd be concerned with getting an RoHS
waiver and non-green parts and solder, so that the device/equipment
isn't likely to fail in a few years due to tin wiskers and harm the
patient.


Sure. However, about a year ago we learned that we better brace
ourselves for not so good things to come:

http://www.greensupplyline.com/howto/192300282