On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:> On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs > <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: > > >JL wrote an interesting post in the depths of the "better > >microelectronics from coal" thread that I thought was worth pulling out > >on its own. > > > >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote:> > > > >"...what IS electronic > > > design, and what's the best way to do it? <snip> > > > > > > Short answer, cobbling. When presented with a problem or an > > > opportunity to design electronics, the most efficient way to do that > > > is to grab a piece of paper and immediately sketch a circuit or an > > > assembly. Sometimes one can do that instantly, without thinking, or > > > sometimes one can ignore the issue for a few days and then the design > > > pops up. Sometimes brainstorming and whiteboarding help. Sometimes > > > fiddling with Spice helps. > > > > > > All that literature research and math analysis and simulation and > > > breadboarding and prototyping are just slow and expensive follow-up > > > chores for people who don't have 100% confidence in their instincts. > > > Analysis, sometimes prudent to do, but not design. > > > > > > Design is subconsious and instinctive. And it's free! And to some > > > extent, it can be taught, but seldom is. > > > > > > Most of us design things to sell, so do whatever works. We're selling > > > stuff, not publishing papers. > > > > > > >Hmm. I don't think that I agree in general, because you make it sound > >as though the process were just intuitively plucking one idea out of > >somewhere-or-other and cranking it out. > If an idea is new, where else would come from?Within 5 years, all this manual fiddling, and so-called brainstorming, will be reduced to an AI-app resident on a $ phone. It may not be optimum, but it will work.> > > >You've often argued in favor of brainstorming, where you get a few smart > >people in front of a white board and try out ideas to find the best one > >and flesh it out. We've done that together, very fruitfully. > > > >It's possible to do more or less the same thing by oneself, but it > >requires the ability to tolerate uncertainty for extended periods. > >(That's a skill well worth developing, which most people are really, > >really bad at, IME.) > The uncertainty period is probably necessary, to let ones neurons > prowl the noisy solution space. The period is usually a day or two, > but can be years. > > Some engineers are uncomfortable with uncertainty, and want to lock > down a design as soon as possible, preferably something sanctioned by > some authority. I like to stay confused for a while. > > > >I sometimes need to do a family of designs, rather than just one. > >Recently I've been working on some very fast, very cheap SPAD preamps, > >intended to go in the guts of positron-emission scanners. > > > >Designs with lots of real-world constraints are often the most fun, and > >this one's specs include: 300-ps edges with 100-ps timing repeatability > >from unit to unit; no magnetics allowed; and a BOM cost of $1 or less. > >(You need a whole lot of channels, and PET and MRI machines are often > >combined.) > > > >I do a fair amount of analysis of circuits of that sort, to figure out > >what actually limits their performance. It isn't super detailed--in > >this case, just enough to figure out whether it'll be the base-emitter > >time constant, the Miller effect, or the SPAD's series resistance that > >will be the limiting factor. > Certainly quantitative reality should filter the solution space. But > even that can be mostly intuitive. I was talking about that with C on > Friday, about how some people have good quantitative intuition and > some don't. She can look at soup in a round pot and know if it will > fit into a square plastic container, to about 10%. I can do that. > Neither of our spouses can. > > > >Miller, I can deal with using circuit hacks. The BE time constant is > >Rbb' * Cbe, which gets slightly worse at high current, but is mainly a > >device parameter--to get a big improvement you have to change > >transistors. The SPAD can be negotiable depending on whose process > >you're making them on--when each machine needs thousands of them, > >vendors tend to listen. > > > >Eventually, of course, you have to pick one and go with it, but picking > >a topology usually takes me an iteration or two. > Sometimes a circuit takes me dozens, lots of sheets in the trash can. > I think it's important to give as many ideas as possible a chance. > > See Barrie Gilbert's essay "Where do little circuits come from?" > > "Prod and poke" and "doodling" are suggested. > > > > > >Cheers > > > >Phil Hobbs
Electronic design
Started by ●January 21, 2024
Reply by ●January 22, 20242024-01-22
Reply by ●January 22, 20242024-01-22
On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 11:47:54 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:>On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote: >> On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs >> <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: >> >> >JL wrote an interesting post in the depths of the "better >> >microelectronics from coal" thread that I thought was worth pulling out >> >on its own. >> > >> >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote:> >> > >> >"...what IS electronic >> > > design, and what's the best way to do it? <snip> >> > > >> > > Short answer, cobbling. When presented with a problem or an >> > > opportunity to design electronics, the most efficient way to do that >> > > is to grab a piece of paper and immediately sketch a circuit or an >> > > assembly. Sometimes one can do that instantly, without thinking, or >> > > sometimes one can ignore the issue for a few days and then the design >> > > pops up. Sometimes brainstorming and whiteboarding help. Sometimes >> > > fiddling with Spice helps. >> > > >> > > All that literature research and math analysis and simulation and >> > > breadboarding and prototyping are just slow and expensive follow-up >> > > chores for people who don't have 100% confidence in their instincts. >> > > Analysis, sometimes prudent to do, but not design. >> > > >> > > Design is subconsious and instinctive. And it's free! And to some >> > > extent, it can be taught, but seldom is. >> > > >> > > Most of us design things to sell, so do whatever works. We're selling >> > > stuff, not publishing papers. >> > > >> > >> >Hmm. I don't think that I agree in general, because you make it sound >> >as though the process were just intuitively plucking one idea out of >> >somewhere-or-other and cranking it out. >> If an idea is new, where else would come from? > >Within 5 years, all this manual fiddling, and so-called brainstorming, will be reduced to an AI-app resident on a $ phone. It may not be optimum, but it will work. > >I don't think so. Just a few words are not enough to specify and generate a specific, reliable design. There's not much I in AI. It's mostly a silly fad. But brainstorming isn't so-called. Done right, it really works.
Reply by ●January 22, 20242024-01-22
On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 6:47:59 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:> On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote: > > On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: > > >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote:><snip>> > >Hmm. I don't think that I agree in general, because you make it sound > > >as though the process were just intuitively plucking one idea out of > > >somewhere-or-other and cranking it out. > > > > If an idea is new, where else would come from?New inventions tend to show up in several different places at much the same time. New ideas spread around, and turn into patentable innovations in different people's brains. I have had original ideas that stayed original for nearly twenty years, but most of them turned out to have shown up elsewhere earlier, even if they weren't put into practice all that well, if at all.> Within 5 years, all this manual fiddling, and so-called brainstorming, will be reduced to an AI-app resident on a $ phone. It may not be optimum, but it will work.Probably not. The trick is finding the right point of view, and software is written around a particular point of view. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●January 22, 20242024-01-22
On 2024-01-21, Phil Hobbs wrote:> JL wrote an interesting post in the depths of the "better > microelectronics from coal" thread that I thought was worth pulling out > on its own. > > On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote:> > > "...what IS electronic > > design, and what's the best way to do it? <snip> > > > > Short answer, cobbling. When presented with a problem or an > > opportunity to design electronics, the most efficient way to do that > > is to grab a piece of paper and immediately sketch a circuit or an > > assembly. Sometimes one can do that instantly, without thinking, or > > sometimes one can ignore the issue for a few days and then the design > > pops up. Sometimes brainstorming and whiteboarding help. Sometimes > > fiddling with Spice helps. > > > > All that literature research and math analysis and simulation and > > breadboarding and prototyping are just slow and expensive follow-up > > chores for people who don't have 100% confidence in their instincts. > > Analysis, sometimes prudent to do, but not design. > > > > Design is subconsious and instinctive. And it's free! And to some > > extent, it can be taught, but seldom is. > > > > Most of us design things to sell, so do whatever works. We're selling > > stuff, not publishing papers. > > > > Hmm. I don't think that I agree in general, because you make it sound > as though the process were just intuitively plucking one idea out of > somewhere-or-other and cranking it out. > > You've often argued in favor of brainstorming, where you get a few smart > people in front of a white board and try out ideas to find the best one > and flesh it out. We've done that together, very fruitfully. > > It's possible to do more or less the same thing by oneself, but it > requires the ability to tolerate uncertainty for extended periods. > (That's a skill well worth developing, which most people are really, > really bad at, IME.)It helps if one has a rubber duckie (or maybe I'm just that bad at it!) -- |_|O|_| |_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert |O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860
Reply by ●January 22, 20242024-01-22
On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 7:43:34 AM UTC+11, john larkin wrote:> On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 11:47:54 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote: > >On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote: > >> On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: > >> >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote:> I don't think so. Just a few words are not enough to specify and generate a specific, reliable design.They are enough to specify a patentable idea. Reducing it to practice takes a lot more work, and documenting a complete system takes a lot of words (and pictures). Oddly enough, software can do a lot of the documentation.> There's not much I in AI. It's mostly a silly fad.For particular problems it can already find solutions that humans can't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding AlphaFold is well ahead of any expert, and some theorem-proving programs operate without making mistakes to a degree that allows them to outperform human mathematicians on specific complex problems. It really isn't any kid of silly fad.> But brainstorming isn't so-called. Done right, it really works.Mainly by discouraging status-seeking creeps from insisting on concentrating on their own ideas. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●January 24, 20242024-01-24
On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 6:29:33 PM UTC-5, Anthony William Sloman wrote:> On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 7:43:34 AM UTC+11, john larkin wrote: > > On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 11:47:54 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote: > > >> On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: > > >> >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote: > > > I don't think so. Just a few words are not enough to specify and generate a specific, reliable design. > They are enough to specify a patentable idea. Reducing it to practice takes a lot more work, and documenting a complete system takes a lot of words (and pictures). Oddly enough, software can do a lot of the documentation. > > There's not much I in AI. It's mostly a silly fad. > For particular problems it can already find solutions that humans can't > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding > > AlphaFold is well ahead of any expert, and some theorem-proving programs operate without making mistakes to a degree that allows them to outperform human mathematicians on specific complex problems. It really isn't any kid of silly fad. > > But brainstorming isn't so-called. Done right, it really works. > Mainly by discouraging status-seeking creeps from insisting on concentrating on their own ideas.To be replaced by group concentration on no ideas at all. https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2022-the-role-of-machine-learning-in-analog-circuit-design https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/chip-design/ai-analog-design-migration-samsung-safe-forum-2023.html https://www.planetanalog.com/what-can-ai-do-for-analog-design/ https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded/article/21272567/electronic-design-ai-lends-a-helping-hand-with-analog-and-custom-ic-design https://semiengineering.com/ai-for-circuit-design-quality-productivity-and-advanced-node-mapping/ http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/31523/ The list is endless. Humans are not as unique and special as they make themselves out to be. They'll all be replaced by AI before long.> > -- > Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●January 24, 20242024-01-24
On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 08:00:15 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:>On Monday, January 22, 2024 at 6:29:33?PM UTC-5, Anthony William Sloman wrote: >> On Tuesday, January 23, 2024 at 7:43:34?AM UTC+11, john larkin wrote: >> > On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 11:47:54 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 7:06:28?PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote: >> > >> On Sun, 21 Jan 2024 18:16:01 -0500, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote: >> > >> >On 2024-01-21 10:12, John Larkin wrote: >> >> > I don't think so. Just a few words are not enough to specify and generate a specific, reliable design. >> They are enough to specify a patentable idea. Reducing it to practice takes a lot more work, and documenting a complete system takes a lot of words (and pictures). Oddly enough, software can do a lot of the documentation. >> > There's not much I in AI. It's mostly a silly fad. >> For particular problems it can already find solutions that humans can't >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_folding >> >> AlphaFold is well ahead of any expert, and some theorem-proving programs operate without making mistakes to a degree that allows them to outperform human mathematicians on specific complex problems. It really isn't any kid of silly fad. >> > But brainstorming isn't so-called. Done right, it really works. >> Mainly by discouraging status-seeking creeps from insisting on concentrating on their own ideas. > >To be replaced by group concentration on no ideas at all.The people have to be right for the process to be productive of ideas. Some people will poison a brainstorming session, and too much general sociability in the room will reinforce conventional thinking.> >https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2022-the-role-of-machine-learning-in-analog-circuit-designThat's absurd. Sounds like they are trying to sell cad options to beginners.> >https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/chip-design/ai-analog-design-migration-samsung-safe-forum-2023.htmlCertainly a lot of computing helps design digital ICs, but I wouldn't call that intelligence. Smart people wrote very specialized software. I sometimes write software to solve circuit problems, but the software just does what I told it to do.> >https://www.planetanalog.com/what-can-ai-do-for-analog-design/I'd love to have a good component selection tool. The intelligence would be in inferring things from bad data sheets that have no standards. It would of course have to read and understand application schematics and mechanical drawings and find gotchas buried in footnotes and graphs. Find me a right-angle Gbit PoE compatible RJ45 jack that has multiple drop-in sources, two LEDs on the high side, lots of stock from non-Chinese sources, at a good price. They have to mount on my PCB and ground to a cutout in my panel. That's an easy one.> >https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded/article/21272567/electronic-design-ai-lends-a-helping-hand-with-analog-and-custom-ic-design > >https://semiengineering.com/ai-for-circuit-design-quality-productivity-and-advanced-node-mapping/ > >http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/31523/ > >The list is endless. Humans are not as unique and special as they make themselves out to be. They'll all be replaced by AI before long.Has AI ever invented anything?> >I check up on Flux.ai now and then. I wonder when they will run out of money.
