We’re all connected - now let’s talk…
Some days I wonder where I’d be without the internet. I know that sounds pathetic, but hear me out. But for the shear amount of trash winding its way through the internet, there’s a also a massive wealth of information available on any given subject. Being an old-timer that started my career when Compuserve was cool, I marvel some days at the ease by which I can get to a reasonably accurate answer to the questions that come to my mind as I’m working. The books on my bookshelf gather dust…
Even so, with all that’s available, it’s sometimes still difficult to find specific information in the documents found on the internet (how many searches turn up the same document in hundreds of places?). And in an ever-changing world like that of electronics design, much of the available information is dated. And by dated, I mean more than a few years old.
So how’s one to get up-to-date information? Well you could buy all the latest books or travel the world attending every applicable conference… but most of us work for bosses who actually demand productivity (instead of “publish or perish”, it’s “publish on your own time”). There is an alternative. Let the internet fulfill its promise by connecting us all.
I hope engineers realize that it’s not always the EDA vendors who will make them experts. In some cases, its not possible to get help from the FAEs in the trenches beyond basic and intermediate issues. They only experience a subset of the hurdles encountered while using the tools. The users who hack at it day after day end up with the expertise. And unless that expertise is communicated, we’re all asking the same questions and solving the same problems over and over again - you know, re-inventing the wheel.
So how can we help each other out? Well, John Cooley of DeepChip had the right idea when he started ESNUG. It was he and a handful of Synopsys users sharing info. Then it became a mailing list, distributed to the ESNUG community as a whole. But my take is that there are two problems with that model. First is that it’s e-mail, and there are thousands of them going to one guy (this equates to a longer than desirable turnaround time - whatever happened to good ol’ instant gratification?). The other is that ESNUG material today is less about engineer helping engineer, and more about EDA market issues in general.
Two innovations of web 2.0 that have come to the masses are the blog and the forum (OK, so bulletin boards have been around forever). These are ideal venues to share helpful insights on how to get one’s job done. It’s the goal of DFT Digest, DFT Forum, and the growing number of individual electronics design-related sites popping up everywhere. Some of them are listed in my blogroll over there in the sidebar. I think it would be powerful if at some point these types of websites became a more cohesive entity, a community of practitioners sharing the knowledge that will help us all keep up with the pace of the industry.
What do you say?
Stumble It!
John,
..Its also very difficult to get a “good FAE” though
It was a nice post overall. I have one comment though on the FAE part. A good FAE will be like a extension to the design team itself and is not limited to tool issues itself
Of course, you are right - a good FAE is worth his/her weight in gold, and will go a long way towards keeping the customer’s business. I work for a small company, and we use EDA vendor personnel extensively during crunch time (and pay dearly for them). But there are some vendors who see us as too small to be important, and when there are tool issues, we don’t get access to the R&D group at all. And there are issues that the FAE will need to take to R&D from time to time.
You’ve worked (or are working) as an AE - have you ever seen issues that could not get solved in a timely manner because the priority for the particular customer you were serving was lower? Am I wrong in assuming this happens?
John,
I worked as Design engineer and working as FAE.
Yes they are and will be at times when business takes priority and your issue might not be highest priority for R&D.
But in general, an FAE plays dual role .When he is with R&D, he has to fight “for” the customer and get the issue fixed.It depends on FAE’s tech capabilties to explain to R&D why fixing that particualr tool issue can help others in general. Yet times, unfortunately, same principle applies for customer too. If the customer gives him a list of 10-15 issues, FAE has to priortize and present only top 3 issues to R&D else no one is going to look at it :)..its a hard reality…but if the customer is dis-satisfied, it not only hurts the small company, but also the vendor
..vendors loose business and as you know EDA market cap is only 5.4 billion dollars and it only grows abt 4-5% avg at the max..so loosing a customer whether big or small is not affordable ..
Hi John,
Although CAD vendors dont want to lose customer’s, it is hard for them to keep everyone happy with limited R&D and AE resources. So some are happy and some are not so happy CAD users.
If you’re an important customer (paying customer, lots of liceses, millions of dollars), you’re happy because you get a lot of R&D and AE attention.
An AE according to me is a design engineer + a talking parrot. There’s not much an AE can do with a binary if it refuses to work (assuming the design engineer is knowledgable, has exercised the tool enough 1-2 years). It is with those in-experienced user’s of the tool that I see an AE add value.
Most hands on physical designer’s and consultants worth their salt are capable of working on tools with minimal AE support. This is all the more easier with tools that dont crash/give segmentation faults so often.
It is in those crunch situations before tapeout’s that we try to push issues to the CAD guys (because sometimes it works just like an insurance policy :)) which I can sell to my manager and his manager and save my own skin for the delays and put some AE/CAD necks on the chopping board instead!
Nikhil
You guys make good points - about the value of the AE. I obviously touched on a aspect of our jobs that inspires discussion. Keep it coming!
However, the point I wanted to emphasize was that for those of us that either don’t have access to, or don’t need significant amounts of support - there are still times when it would be good to share and/or benefit from another user sharing bits of arcane knowledge that will get someone else over a hurdle. And this blog, and DFT Forum are places where that can happen.
I’d like to see other focused forums spring up and possibly form a coalition-type association; a community, if you will, with a significant number of electronics design professionals participating. There a
You guys make good points - about the value of the AE. I obviously touched on a aspect of our jobs that inspires discussion. Keep it coming!
However, the point I wanted to emphasize was that for those of us that either don’t have access to, or don’t need significant amounts of support - there are still times when it would be good to share and/or benefit from another user sharing bits of arcane knowledge that will get someone else over a hurdle. And this blog, and DFT Forum are places where that can happen.
I’d like to see other focused forums spring up and possibly form a coalition-type association; a community, if you will, with a significant number of electronics design professionals participating. There are sites like this, like EDAboard - but it seems that there are too many people trolling for someone to tell them how to do everything, seemingly without doing the basic research. Without trying to sound elitist, I’m hoping for a higher level of discourse - mid- to advanced-level concepts.
That said, I would never discourage good questions from those new to DFT. I want to help, as much as I want help from those who know more than I.
John