Life of a PD Engineer
Hello
hello hello
Yes,
the problem with PD folks is, they don’t say know…I mean they want to say know
but they cannot say no. So when there was a call for talent show, I gave my
name. But later I realized I cant dance, I can sing but ppl cannot handle and
only instrument I know is an EDA tool. But PD folks are good at magic…jugaad.
They make things happen. So I thought I will do a comedy show on…what else…PD…Life
of PD…
Its
all Fate. I joined my first company on June 7th 99. I asked for a
week off but if I had joined a week earlier, I would have been in frontend team.
People who joined on 1st June got PD training but moved to Frontend.
We got Verilog training and put in PD.
Since
then it has been 21 years of career. Instead of career, lets say, its 21 years
of loop within a loop within a loop of fixing timing, congestion, drcs, status
meetings
If
you attend any status meeting, the RTL, verification, dfx guys have very good
charts. Its almost like a linear curve. How many planned, how many done. May be
delayed but the curve is linear. They have very good charts showing
convergence. PD schedule plan itself is not linear. Not even non linear. It’s a
spiral like that doordarshan logo. Then u add actual status on that, it becomes
and n dimensional polynomial equation. You feel embarrassed to show the
convergence status after all the other status. Its like a seismograph.
Status
is like this but the expectation is different. Manager expects you to give the
exact week, day and even time when you can tapein. To balance our status and
the expectations is like 100 times of balancing wife and mother.
So,
what is left? Weekend. PD guys look forward to weekends so they can peacefully
work. They have lots of hopes on weekends.. Friday evening, sat morning, sat
evening, sun morning, sun evening. It’s a big Doordarshan loop and we r back to
where we started. Its as if Friday evening and Monday morning are shorted like
vdd-vss short
But
there is a lot of effort. Back at home parents, family think this guy will soon
become a CEO of his company looking at him working continuously. Kshanam
teerika ledu, dammidee aadaayam ledu
But
there is one thing a PD engineer gains and that is weight. Am sure every PD
engineer gains at least 1KG per year. People do lot of running to lose weight
and a PD Engineer gives a lot of runs and gains weight
Actually
we owe a lot of our career to EDA tools. Almost every manager I worked with
tried to automate the entire PD flow so they can get rid of PD folks. But
because of these EDA tools, and because they never work the way they are
intended to, we are needed. So when ppl say what after 90nm, what after 5nm,
don’t worry, we have our EDA tools. They invent new aspects every time. Xtalk,
ocv, pocv, pba and all. Everything else goes into uncertainty. We have
uncertainty as a very ood number. Like 37ps.
It shows as if we did lot of research to arrive at that number. Ocv
derating 13.3%
A
PD Engineer finds peace in Music. Yes, not the music from the manager but normal
music. We used to have hundreds of cassettes. We used to put headphones normal
day time and then switch on speakers all night.
o
Now, there is a big research done on
song synchronization. For drc fixing, you don’t need to think, you play
‘rockon’ songs. Heavy metal, ‘who let the dogs out’, ‘Engima’, hotel California
or AR rahman’s dubbing songs like pettarap song and all. We don’t understand
more than 5% of the words but they work beautifully for drc fixes. But most of
the time its Kishore-da’s tragedy songs or Abhinandana ‘prema ledani’ songs
directly showing the status. Zindagee kaa safar..when u have no clue. ‘kuch too
loog kahenge’ managers shout at u. ‘ye Jeevan hai…’ you explain to them.
o
And then when you tried all and
nothing is working out, you eventually turn to devotional songs…paahi raama
prabhu, paahi rama prabhu.. Jagjith sings Ghazals when you r debugging LVS or
fixing timing violations in the last few ps. Now there is a special mention on
Ilayaraja songs. Ilayaraja songs are like always-on songs. They work for most
of the violations. My manager Sujeeth used to do night outs with me working and
he knows the status just by listening what songs am playing.
-
Me, Myself and Tools n Servers
o
EDA tools and servers are like the
real, genuine friends of a PD Engineer. Like Tom Hanks talk to that football as
a friend in Castaway, a PD Engineer eventually makes friends with the tools and
servers. They develop an emotional connect. They have that spark when they
invoke a tool and fire a run. They feel genuine pain when a session crashes as
if someone died. He talks to them, cajoles them, requests them to run properly
when he gives a run. The bond is so high that one of my long time friend
Suneel, in his appraisal every year, he doesn’t ask for hike or stocks or
bonus…he just asks for better servers and more licenses.
-
The Eternal Pirates
o
Most of you might have watched the
Pirates of Carrebean. There, there are pirates who r cursed…cursed that there is
no death for them. They r eternal…they fight, loot, kill, shoot..on the
seas…they have their hands broken, skulls visible but they r alive…they keep
doing that they do…well, PD Engineers, I call them the pirates of PD….in the
middle of the sea…in the middle of huge waves, fire, shooting, storm, they keep
going…they keep trying…doesn’t matter if there is no result to show…they just
work..work and work…weekdays, weekends, for eternity…
-
PD and Siva Bhakti
o
They say Siva Bhakti is a great
thing. A true devotee of Lord Shiva sees Siva in everything. Once you connect
to Lord Siva, you are in a different world. PD is like Siva bhakthi. Once you
connect, you are in a different world. You see a traffic jam and you think of
congestion and how to fix it. You see a nice view, you think of a floorplan and
how you can improve it. You see colours, you see layers…you miss a bus or
flight, you think you violated setup/hold. you say social distance, they hear
drc spacing, NDR…you see trees, you think of clock trees…you r addicted…you
like it..u r happy there in that world…you r connected…
-
Marriage n PD
o
We all know the most difficult thing
to handle in ones life is marriage. Even Rajinikanth finds it difficult to
handle itPD Engineers have a distinct advantage of it. They r the best prepared
species for handling a marriage. They would have already seen the ups n downs,
the deep disappointments and the sheer happiness when the status takes a roller
coaster rides. they would have faced all the issues one would face in marriage
already and r best prepared for it..
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