by Charles Purdy, Monster+HotJobs senior editor
Career experts are unanimous on the importance of customizing our resumes for each new job we apply for. But for many of us, when it comes to revising our resumes, the first question is "How?"
It's easy to get stuck in rut when you're working with material you know so well. So here are some ways to take a fresh look at revising your resume.
1. Analyze the job post's wording.
An easy way to make sure your resume gets you in the door for an interview is to echo the language in the job post. Look for ways to use the words in the post; a resume reader--human or software--may be screening for them. (If there is no job post, check the company's website--especially the About Us page and any corporate mission statements--for language you might adopt.)
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If your resume says "supervise," but the job post says "manage," change it. If your last job title was "Social Media Ninja," and you're applying for a "Social Media Marketing Specialist" position, include the term "Marketing Specialist" in parentheses after your Ninja title (as long as you feel that this term could describe your past role).
Of course, don't stretch the truth!
2. Weed out fibs.
It's all too easy for little fibs to make their way into a resume. Several years ago, you added an unearned certification to your resume, just to get your foot in the door at a new company. Or you claimed competence in a software program you figured you could learn on-the-fly.
Then, as the years went on, those temporary resume fibs somehow became set in stone. Now's the time to chisel them out. Any lie--even a seemingly inconsequential one--can put your job search and your future job security in jeopardy.
Replace lies with truths--or set about making them true. It could be as simple as putting the word "pursuing" before that imaginary degree on your resume.
3. Get rid of the "objective statement."
Beginning a resume with an objective statement (a phrase that starts with something like "Seeking a challenging position ...") is out. As Lauren Milligan, resume expert at ResuMAYDAY.com, says, "Employers already know that your objective is to get a job, after all." She suggests, instead, creating a personal summary statement that "illustrates how you are better than other candidates for the job." She adds, "Identify a few areas in your profession that you excel at ... and that you really enjoy doing."
Tell the hiring manager who you are and how you can solve her or his company's problems, not what you want.
4. Get rid of redundancies.
Don't waste time telling hiring managers what they already know. Many people do this in their descriptions of past jobs. For instance, if your last job was as a copywriter for an online rug retailer, saying something like "wrote marketing copy for a wide variety of rugs" is unnecessary. Instead of taking up space with definitions no one needs, describe specific achievements. Did your work improve sales, get praise from management, or improve SEO rankings? Use job highlights, not job descriptions.
5. Cut unnecessary resume "stories."
Work Coach Cafe's Ronnie Ann advises removing things that are not directly related to the story you're telling about yourself and the job you're applying for. She says, "I have an abundantly varied job history--better than 'job hopper,' huh?--and remember back to resumes where I just wanted to make each job so full-bodied and rich that I was sure the employer would want to meet me. But as interesting as we may be as human beings, employers just want to know if we're right for their company--and specifically the job in question."
For instance, if you're both a professional accountant and a certified dog groomer, you might want to play down your dog-grooming experience when you apply for jobs in finance.
6. Look for ways to use exciting language.
Check your resume's verbs, and use strong verbs to make your resume more vibrant. For instance, "responsible for daily bank deposits" (no verb) could easily be "oversaw daily bank deposits" (strong verb). And as you find each verb, look at its subject--is it you? If not, should it be? For instance, in "duties included writing press releases," the subject is "duties." It'd be much better to say something like "Wrote all company press releases."
7. Turn your resume upside-down.
I'm serious. Turn your resume upside-down and look at it from a distance. This will help you analyze its appearance separately from its content. Does it look too dense? Is it heavier on the top or bottom? Emily Bennington, a coauthor of "Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job," says, "Sometimes a resume will catch my eye simply because it's formatted beautifully. I know the most important component is the content on the page, but you should also pay attention to the packaging. Trust me, hiring managers notice!"
8. Write a draft in a different format.
In his book "The Overnight Resume: The Fastest Way to Your Next Job," career expert Donald Asher suggests writing a letter to a family member about your job accomplishments as a way to rethink your resume. (Go ahead, brag a little.) Then he says you can start turning this into a resume draft by removing most personal pronouns ("I" and "we"), taking out articles ("a," "an," and "the"), and cutting transition words like "and" (unless doing so would distort meaning).
Thinking of your resume as a letter or a story (in which you're the hero), or some other medium, is a great way to start making it fresher, more personal, and more effective.
(For more on keywords and how to format resumes for online posting, read "Resumes for the Digital Age." And for a few resume-proofreading tips, check out "The Well-Punctuated Resume" on the Monster.com blog.)
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-creative_ways_to_improve_your_resume-1442
Sunday, October 3, 2010
probe the signal at the nodes of sub-cells in post layout simulation
In top level post layout simulation with cadence's ADE, there are two ways of probing the signals at the nodes of sub-cells:
1. Decend to extracted view, and zoom in to the connection of the nodes and select the parasitic components, decend one level again, and select the nodes of the parasitic components and save to output;
2. Save all outputs, simulate, and then open results browser and select the nodes. Remember to choose schematic names during assura extraction (Name space under extraction tab), it makes the nodes name readable. This method takes a lot of disk space and is slow.
1. Decend to extracted view, and zoom in to the connection of the nodes and select the parasitic components, decend one level again, and select the nodes of the parasitic components and save to output;
2. Save all outputs, simulate, and then open results browser and select the nodes. Remember to choose schematic names during assura extraction (Name space under extraction tab), it makes the nodes name readable. This method takes a lot of disk space and is slow.
Friday, August 6, 2010
How to manage time efficiently and multi-task effectively?
10 tips for time management in a multitasking world
Posted to: Time management
December 10th, 2006
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Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you can't organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn't matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.
Younger workers understand this, and time management is becoming a topic of hipsters. One of the most popular blogs in the world is Lifehacker, edited by productivity guru Gina Trapani, and her forthcoming book by the same name is a bestseller on Amazon based so far on pre-orders.
In today's workplace, you can differentiate yourself by your ability to handle information and manage your time. "Careers are made or broken by the soft skills that make you able to hand a very large workload," says Merlin Mann, editor of the productivity blog 43 Folders.
So here are 10 tips to make you better at managing your work:
1. Don't leave email sitting in your in box.
"The ability to quickly process and synthesize information and turn it into actions is one of the most emergent skills of the professional world today," says Mann. Organize email in file folders. If the message needs more thought, move it to your to-do list. If it's for reference, print it out. If it's a meeting, move it to your calendar.
"One thing young people are really good at is only touching things once. You don't see young people scrolling up and down their email pretending to work," says Mann. Take action on an email as soon as you read it.
2. Admit multitasking is bad.
For people who didn't grow up watching TV, typing out instant messages and doing homework all at the same time, multitasking is deadly. But it decreases everyone's productivity, no matter who they are. "A 20-year-old is less likely to feel overwhelmed by demands to multitask, but young people still have a loss of productivity from multitasking," says Trapani.
So try to limit it. Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users suggests practicing mindfulness as a way to break the multitasking habit.
3. Do the most important thing first.
Trapani calls this "running a morning dash". When she sits down to work in the morning, before she checks any email, she spends an hour on the most important thing on her to-do list. This is a great idea because even if you can't get the whole thing done in an hour, you'll be much more likely to go back to it once you've gotten it started. She points out that this dash works best if you organize the night before so when you sit down to work you already know what your most important task of the day is.
4. Check your email on a schedule.
"It's not effective to read and answer every email as it arrives. Just because someone can contact you immediately does not mean that you have to respond to them immediately," says Dan Markovitz, president of the productivity consulting firm TimeBack Management, "People want a predictable response, not an immediate response." So as long as people know how long to expect an answer to take, and they know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer most types of email just a few times a day.
5. Keep web site addresses organized.
Use book marking services like del.icio.us to keep track of web sites. Instead of having random notes about places you want to check out, places you want to keep as a reference, etc., you can save them all in one place, and you can search and share your list easily.
6. Know when you work best.
Industrial designer Jeff Beene does consulting work, so he can do it any time of day. But, he says, "I try to schedule things so that I work in the morning, when I am the most productive." Each person has a best time. You can discover yours by monitoring your productivity over a period of time. Then you need to manage your schedule to keep your best time free for your most important work.
7. Think about keystrokes.
If you're on a computer all day, keystrokes matter because efficiency matters. "On any given day, an information worker will do a dozen Google searchers," says Trapani. "How many keystrokes does it take? Can you reduce it to three? You might save 10 seconds, but over time, that builds up."
8. Make it easy to get started.
We don't have problems finishing projects, we have problems starting them," says Mann. He recommends you "make a shallow on-ramp." Beene knows the key creating this on ramp: "I try to break own my projects into chunks, so I am not overwhelmed by them."
9. Organize your to-do list every day.
If you don't know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done. Other people like software that can slice and dice their to-do list into manageable, relevant chunks. For example, Beene uses tasktoy because when he goes to a client site tasktoy shows him only his to do items for that client, and not all his other projects. (Get tasktoy here.)
10. Dare to be slow.
Remember that a good time manager actually responds to some things more slowly than a bad time manager would. For example, someone who is doing the highest priority task is probably not answering incoming email while they're doing it. As Markovitz writes: "Obviously there are more important tasks than processing email. Intuitively, we all know this. What we need to do now is recognize that processing one's work (evaluating what's come in and how to handle it) and planning one's work are also mission-critical tasks."
To successfully manage your time you have to get organized both in your professional and personal life. Getting organized in an efficient way is a skill that not all people posses. To manage your life and work you first have to be able to manage your time. In our days people spend most of their time working. There are times that they feel that they will never manage to escape from the four walls of the office and are lost in the various projects and tasks they have to finish.
Their personal life has become an old memory, which has been «locked in the drawer». The solution to this vicious circle is one: get organized and start managing your time. This article outlines 14 ways that can help you manage your time successfully and efficiently.
1. Make a list of what should be done
Make a list of what to do and try to constantly renew the list and keep it up to date. Include in this list both urgent and non-urgent things so as never forget or ignore something again. Keep the list all the time with you in your briefcase or in your daily agenda.
2. Allocate your time correctly
Include an estimated time frame for each action and the date by which each task must be completed. If the order that each task must be completed does not matter it may be possible to complete something during an unexpected free time. For example, you can look for information on the Internet while you wait in your office to start a meeting.
manage your time by glasbergen
3. Set your own deadlines and meet them
Be realistic about the deadlines you set and try to meet them. It is true that any work gets exactly the time allocated for it. Have you ever noticed how quickly you can finish something you have to write, give assignments and take decisions on the last day before your vacation? Although we tend to complete many things when we are under pressure, is less stressful and much more professional to establish and follow an action plan.
4. Use your time intelligently
Consider the case to check your e-mail only certain times of the day and let the answering machine respond to your calls so as not to interrupt your work for a couple of hours. If possible, avoid dealing with the same job or the same e-mail again. Never open e-mail address if you do not have time to read and edit, that is, to answer it, send, or delete it.
5. Organize your desktop
Organize your desktop; manage the copies of your files, your computer folders and e-mail folders so that you can easily find what you want. Minimize the time you spend when searching for information. Benjamin Franklin once said: «A place for everything, everything in place».
6. Insist in your targets
You should have an "in tray" in your office so that others can give you what they want to give you and not just leave it on your desk. Have you ever come back from a meeting and find additional records, letters and documents all over your office? Rather than follow your own program, you are "forced" to follow someone else’s priorities.
7. Do not distract your attention
If you have a door, you need to close it occasionally. If you have an open door policy that must always be open for your employees but you do not have time to really listen to their questions and concerns, then you will not manage to keep your promise. If a colleague comes to your office when you have a job and cannot discuss, seek to find another time to meet.
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8. Co-operate with your colleagues
Colleagues will expect you to finish the job on time, so make sure to avoid any delay. You would expect the same from them. To avoid any delays, give more time to the project so as to be able to handle unexpected complications, misunderstandings or missed deadlines. If the date of presentation is the 25th of the month, be sure to plan to finish everything by 23.
9. Avoid unnecessary Supervisions
If you authorize someone else for a job or a contract, do not deal any more with this, unless you have a specific responsibility to monitor. Many people spend precious time to listen or read reports of other projects. If the investigation of your colleagues or their professional responsibilities does not affect your daily work, your performance at work or objectives of your career, you could simply express an interest just to encourage them.
10. Cancel routine meetings
Decide if the meeting is absolutely necessary. If, you have to attend, set an agenda and make sure that you follow it - start the meeting and finish it on time. If your presence is not necessary for the entire meeting then leave earlier.
11. Be constantly busy
Keep your skills in shape by having at least one project to be involved. Two or more (projects) would be even better because you are given the opportunity to «change speed» and to focus on something else for variety. To deal simultaneously with different project assures that you will always have something on which to work. Also, it keeps your mind alert and renews your prospects.
12. Choose carefully your projects
Make sure that your work has some value for the company and that it raises your skills better. There are many good reasons why you cannot accept to take part in a meeting and refuse to take an additional project. Successful entrepreneurs know how to say «no». Ask yourself, «this will promote my career?» and «Can I give the necessary time to this assignment?” You will win more respect by working with a colleague, whose expertise and skills complements your own, rather than getting an extra work on your own and overloading yourself.
13. Do not waste your time
It is an integral part of human nature to postpone unpleasant tasks. Plan some of the more pleasant tasks of the project to be made after any unpleasant tasks. If you do not like to work with numbers, plan to do the accounts in the morning when you are still fresh and there are not so many things to distract your attention.
14. Reward yourself
To manage your time efficiently does not have to do only with your job. You should also include in your schedule time where you stop everything, relax and recharge your batteries. Thing of a reward to give yourself when you finish your work. This may mean to make a break for coffee once finished reading a long report or to leave for vacation just after the promotion of the new product.
You must give greater attention to how you spend your time. Watch how successful businessmen allocate their time and emulate some of their time management practices.
How to Multi-task?
1 Establish your goals. The old saying, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" is just as true even if you are following multiple tasks.
2 Schedule a time to give intense or complex tasks your full focus. Let it be known that you prefer to have time to yourself for an hour or two each day, and use that time for intense tasks that require your full concentration.
3 Work on one thing at a time, but alternate. A juggler may have many objects in the air, but she usually manipulates only one at a time.
4 Eliminate unnecessary tasks. If you're multitasking to be more efficient, don't spend time doing extra things. The exception is a background activity to help pass the time. For instance, if listening to the radio or a book on tape helps with the tedium of painting a wall, go for it.
5 Choose compatible tasks. For instance, you may find that reading and listening to speech both use the same type of focus. Instead, try pairing a physical task, such as ironing clothes, with a mental task, such as listening to the radio.
6 Choose interruptible tasks. Especially if the multitasking consists of dealing with frequent interruptions (such as a ringing telephone), choose tasks that can be easily paused to do concurrently.
7 Keep a selection of smaller projects or simpler tasks around to fill gaps in a larger project. That is, do the larger project as a priority, but do basic, filler tasks any time you find yourself waiting for information or inspiration on a larger project.
8 Use wait time efficiently. Have something with you to do, especially in places you anticipate waiting (the airport, post office, or dentist's office). Reading is an easy, portable task. Carrying note cards or a notebook to jot ideas is also a good idea.
Posted to: Time management
December 10th, 2006
Del.icio.us Digg Reddit StumbleUpon Tweet This Facebook
Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you can't organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn't matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.
Younger workers understand this, and time management is becoming a topic of hipsters. One of the most popular blogs in the world is Lifehacker, edited by productivity guru Gina Trapani, and her forthcoming book by the same name is a bestseller on Amazon based so far on pre-orders.
In today's workplace, you can differentiate yourself by your ability to handle information and manage your time. "Careers are made or broken by the soft skills that make you able to hand a very large workload," says Merlin Mann, editor of the productivity blog 43 Folders.
So here are 10 tips to make you better at managing your work:
1. Don't leave email sitting in your in box.
"The ability to quickly process and synthesize information and turn it into actions is one of the most emergent skills of the professional world today," says Mann. Organize email in file folders. If the message needs more thought, move it to your to-do list. If it's for reference, print it out. If it's a meeting, move it to your calendar.
"One thing young people are really good at is only touching things once. You don't see young people scrolling up and down their email pretending to work," says Mann. Take action on an email as soon as you read it.
2. Admit multitasking is bad.
For people who didn't grow up watching TV, typing out instant messages and doing homework all at the same time, multitasking is deadly. But it decreases everyone's productivity, no matter who they are. "A 20-year-old is less likely to feel overwhelmed by demands to multitask, but young people still have a loss of productivity from multitasking," says Trapani.
So try to limit it. Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users suggests practicing mindfulness as a way to break the multitasking habit.
3. Do the most important thing first.
Trapani calls this "running a morning dash". When she sits down to work in the morning, before she checks any email, she spends an hour on the most important thing on her to-do list. This is a great idea because even if you can't get the whole thing done in an hour, you'll be much more likely to go back to it once you've gotten it started. She points out that this dash works best if you organize the night before so when you sit down to work you already know what your most important task of the day is.
4. Check your email on a schedule.
"It's not effective to read and answer every email as it arrives. Just because someone can contact you immediately does not mean that you have to respond to them immediately," says Dan Markovitz, president of the productivity consulting firm TimeBack Management, "People want a predictable response, not an immediate response." So as long as people know how long to expect an answer to take, and they know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer most types of email just a few times a day.
5. Keep web site addresses organized.
Use book marking services like del.icio.us to keep track of web sites. Instead of having random notes about places you want to check out, places you want to keep as a reference, etc., you can save them all in one place, and you can search and share your list easily.
6. Know when you work best.
Industrial designer Jeff Beene does consulting work, so he can do it any time of day. But, he says, "I try to schedule things so that I work in the morning, when I am the most productive." Each person has a best time. You can discover yours by monitoring your productivity over a period of time. Then you need to manage your schedule to keep your best time free for your most important work.
7. Think about keystrokes.
If you're on a computer all day, keystrokes matter because efficiency matters. "On any given day, an information worker will do a dozen Google searchers," says Trapani. "How many keystrokes does it take? Can you reduce it to three? You might save 10 seconds, but over time, that builds up."
8. Make it easy to get started.
We don't have problems finishing projects, we have problems starting them," says Mann. He recommends you "make a shallow on-ramp." Beene knows the key creating this on ramp: "I try to break own my projects into chunks, so I am not overwhelmed by them."
9. Organize your to-do list every day.
If you don't know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done. Other people like software that can slice and dice their to-do list into manageable, relevant chunks. For example, Beene uses tasktoy because when he goes to a client site tasktoy shows him only his to do items for that client, and not all his other projects. (Get tasktoy here.)
10. Dare to be slow.
Remember that a good time manager actually responds to some things more slowly than a bad time manager would. For example, someone who is doing the highest priority task is probably not answering incoming email while they're doing it. As Markovitz writes: "Obviously there are more important tasks than processing email. Intuitively, we all know this. What we need to do now is recognize that processing one's work (evaluating what's come in and how to handle it) and planning one's work are also mission-critical tasks."
To successfully manage your time you have to get organized both in your professional and personal life. Getting organized in an efficient way is a skill that not all people posses. To manage your life and work you first have to be able to manage your time. In our days people spend most of their time working. There are times that they feel that they will never manage to escape from the four walls of the office and are lost in the various projects and tasks they have to finish.
Their personal life has become an old memory, which has been «locked in the drawer». The solution to this vicious circle is one: get organized and start managing your time. This article outlines 14 ways that can help you manage your time successfully and efficiently.
1. Make a list of what should be done
Make a list of what to do and try to constantly renew the list and keep it up to date. Include in this list both urgent and non-urgent things so as never forget or ignore something again. Keep the list all the time with you in your briefcase or in your daily agenda.
2. Allocate your time correctly
Include an estimated time frame for each action and the date by which each task must be completed. If the order that each task must be completed does not matter it may be possible to complete something during an unexpected free time. For example, you can look for information on the Internet while you wait in your office to start a meeting.
manage your time by glasbergen
3. Set your own deadlines and meet them
Be realistic about the deadlines you set and try to meet them. It is true that any work gets exactly the time allocated for it. Have you ever noticed how quickly you can finish something you have to write, give assignments and take decisions on the last day before your vacation? Although we tend to complete many things when we are under pressure, is less stressful and much more professional to establish and follow an action plan.
4. Use your time intelligently
Consider the case to check your e-mail only certain times of the day and let the answering machine respond to your calls so as not to interrupt your work for a couple of hours. If possible, avoid dealing with the same job or the same e-mail again. Never open e-mail address if you do not have time to read and edit, that is, to answer it, send, or delete it.
5. Organize your desktop
Organize your desktop; manage the copies of your files, your computer folders and e-mail folders so that you can easily find what you want. Minimize the time you spend when searching for information. Benjamin Franklin once said: «A place for everything, everything in place».
6. Insist in your targets
You should have an "in tray" in your office so that others can give you what they want to give you and not just leave it on your desk. Have you ever come back from a meeting and find additional records, letters and documents all over your office? Rather than follow your own program, you are "forced" to follow someone else’s priorities.
7. Do not distract your attention
If you have a door, you need to close it occasionally. If you have an open door policy that must always be open for your employees but you do not have time to really listen to their questions and concerns, then you will not manage to keep your promise. If a colleague comes to your office when you have a job and cannot discuss, seek to find another time to meet.
Subscribe to our RSS Feed or EMAIL to get new articles delivered to you
8. Co-operate with your colleagues
Colleagues will expect you to finish the job on time, so make sure to avoid any delay. You would expect the same from them. To avoid any delays, give more time to the project so as to be able to handle unexpected complications, misunderstandings or missed deadlines. If the date of presentation is the 25th of the month, be sure to plan to finish everything by 23.
9. Avoid unnecessary Supervisions
If you authorize someone else for a job or a contract, do not deal any more with this, unless you have a specific responsibility to monitor. Many people spend precious time to listen or read reports of other projects. If the investigation of your colleagues or their professional responsibilities does not affect your daily work, your performance at work or objectives of your career, you could simply express an interest just to encourage them.
10. Cancel routine meetings
Decide if the meeting is absolutely necessary. If, you have to attend, set an agenda and make sure that you follow it - start the meeting and finish it on time. If your presence is not necessary for the entire meeting then leave earlier.
11. Be constantly busy
Keep your skills in shape by having at least one project to be involved. Two or more (projects) would be even better because you are given the opportunity to «change speed» and to focus on something else for variety. To deal simultaneously with different project assures that you will always have something on which to work. Also, it keeps your mind alert and renews your prospects.
12. Choose carefully your projects
Make sure that your work has some value for the company and that it raises your skills better. There are many good reasons why you cannot accept to take part in a meeting and refuse to take an additional project. Successful entrepreneurs know how to say «no». Ask yourself, «this will promote my career?» and «Can I give the necessary time to this assignment?” You will win more respect by working with a colleague, whose expertise and skills complements your own, rather than getting an extra work on your own and overloading yourself.
13. Do not waste your time
It is an integral part of human nature to postpone unpleasant tasks. Plan some of the more pleasant tasks of the project to be made after any unpleasant tasks. If you do not like to work with numbers, plan to do the accounts in the morning when you are still fresh and there are not so many things to distract your attention.
14. Reward yourself
To manage your time efficiently does not have to do only with your job. You should also include in your schedule time where you stop everything, relax and recharge your batteries. Thing of a reward to give yourself when you finish your work. This may mean to make a break for coffee once finished reading a long report or to leave for vacation just after the promotion of the new product.
You must give greater attention to how you spend your time. Watch how successful businessmen allocate their time and emulate some of their time management practices.
How to Multi-task?
1 Establish your goals. The old saying, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" is just as true even if you are following multiple tasks.
2 Schedule a time to give intense or complex tasks your full focus. Let it be known that you prefer to have time to yourself for an hour or two each day, and use that time for intense tasks that require your full concentration.
3 Work on one thing at a time, but alternate. A juggler may have many objects in the air, but she usually manipulates only one at a time.
4 Eliminate unnecessary tasks. If you're multitasking to be more efficient, don't spend time doing extra things. The exception is a background activity to help pass the time. For instance, if listening to the radio or a book on tape helps with the tedium of painting a wall, go for it.
5 Choose compatible tasks. For instance, you may find that reading and listening to speech both use the same type of focus. Instead, try pairing a physical task, such as ironing clothes, with a mental task, such as listening to the radio.
6 Choose interruptible tasks. Especially if the multitasking consists of dealing with frequent interruptions (such as a ringing telephone), choose tasks that can be easily paused to do concurrently.
7 Keep a selection of smaller projects or simpler tasks around to fill gaps in a larger project. That is, do the larger project as a priority, but do basic, filler tasks any time you find yourself waiting for information or inspiration on a larger project.
8 Use wait time efficiently. Have something with you to do, especially in places you anticipate waiting (the airport, post office, or dentist's office). Reading is an easy, portable task. Carrying note cards or a notebook to jot ideas is also a good idea.
Monday, July 19, 2010
IC operating temperature range
There are four classes of devices to choose from, as it applies to operational temperature range.
The Military family of parts offer the widest range possible for temperature extremes.
The Extended range family is not available for most devices.
Military -55oC to +125oC
Extended -40oC to +125oC
Industrial -40oC to +85oC
Commercial 0oC to +70oC
The Military family of parts offer the widest range possible for temperature extremes.
The Extended range family is not available for most devices.
Military -55oC to +125oC
Extended -40oC to +125oC
Industrial -40oC to +85oC
Commercial 0oC to +70oC
Sunday, June 6, 2010
A look back at the last 10 years of chip design
By Lauro Rizzatti
The world of integrated circuit (IC) design looks very different than it did 10 years ago, when EVE incorporated and started building its first hardware emulator. In 2000, the semiconductor industry was still reveling in the new millennium and the economy was going strong.
Back then, the process technology node was 180-nanometer (nm) and the average number of transistors in a design was 20 million. The average design size was one-million application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) gates, with large designs coming in at around 10-million ASIC gates and the largest designs at about 100-million ASIC gates. Only a small fraction of the design functionality is derived from the embedded software.
Verification took 70 percent of the project cycle and emulation was used almost exclusively on the large CPU and graphics chip design. EVE’s emulation system in 2000 was able to handle 600,000-ASIC gates and seemed impossibly cutting edge.
In 2010, the economy is in a slow recovery, and 32nm is the current process technology node. The average number of transistors has climbed to 200 million, while the average design size — not the largest — is about 10-million gates. Large designs are now about 100-million ASIC gates, with the largest reaching or exceeding one-billion ASIC gates.
Software now accounts for two-thirds of the chip’s functionality and verification still takes up 70 percent of the project cycle. Emulation is used now on CPU, graphics, wireless, digital television, set-top box, digital selective calling, camcorder, multifunction printer designs and many, many more. One emulator can handle one-billion ASIC gates, beating Moore’s Law since the emulator’s capacity has doubled each year, not every 18 months or two years.
Moving into this new decade, we see further trends in System-on-Chip (SoC) hardware designs that range from graphics and video to processors, networking and wireless. For the foreseeable future, verification will consume 70 percent of the project schedule.
In today’s chip design environment, emulation must be useable for a variety of applications. For video processing, it must be able to process anywhere from one to 15 high-definition frames per second and verify digital image stabilization. Embedded CPU design demands the ability to boot Linux in a minute and have capabilities for pre-silicon validation.
Wireless and mobile applications have their own set of requirements. Emulation should enable a design team to create a virtual prototyping environment for early software development. And, the peripheral/storage application requires an ability to print 1,200 dots per inch (dpi) images and being able to quickly verify intellectual property (IP) block with pseudo-random tests.
Unmistakably, growing design sizes drive the need for very long verification sequences of clock cycles to dig out deeply buried bugs. Added software content makes hardware/software co-verification a critical component of the verification process. Emulation is needed to trace the source of software bugs that show up in hardware misbehavior and hardware bugs that exhibit malicious effects in the embedded software. Software validation has to be done well ahead of tapeout.
These trends and others will continue to drive the need for fast emulation that offers billions of verification cycles and help move chip design ahead over the next 10 years.
The world of integrated circuit (IC) design looks very different than it did 10 years ago, when EVE incorporated and started building its first hardware emulator. In 2000, the semiconductor industry was still reveling in the new millennium and the economy was going strong.
Back then, the process technology node was 180-nanometer (nm) and the average number of transistors in a design was 20 million. The average design size was one-million application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) gates, with large designs coming in at around 10-million ASIC gates and the largest designs at about 100-million ASIC gates. Only a small fraction of the design functionality is derived from the embedded software.
Verification took 70 percent of the project cycle and emulation was used almost exclusively on the large CPU and graphics chip design. EVE’s emulation system in 2000 was able to handle 600,000-ASIC gates and seemed impossibly cutting edge.
In 2010, the economy is in a slow recovery, and 32nm is the current process technology node. The average number of transistors has climbed to 200 million, while the average design size — not the largest — is about 10-million gates. Large designs are now about 100-million ASIC gates, with the largest reaching or exceeding one-billion ASIC gates.
Software now accounts for two-thirds of the chip’s functionality and verification still takes up 70 percent of the project cycle. Emulation is used now on CPU, graphics, wireless, digital television, set-top box, digital selective calling, camcorder, multifunction printer designs and many, many more. One emulator can handle one-billion ASIC gates, beating Moore’s Law since the emulator’s capacity has doubled each year, not every 18 months or two years.
Moving into this new decade, we see further trends in System-on-Chip (SoC) hardware designs that range from graphics and video to processors, networking and wireless. For the foreseeable future, verification will consume 70 percent of the project schedule.
In today’s chip design environment, emulation must be useable for a variety of applications. For video processing, it must be able to process anywhere from one to 15 high-definition frames per second and verify digital image stabilization. Embedded CPU design demands the ability to boot Linux in a minute and have capabilities for pre-silicon validation.
Wireless and mobile applications have their own set of requirements. Emulation should enable a design team to create a virtual prototyping environment for early software development. And, the peripheral/storage application requires an ability to print 1,200 dots per inch (dpi) images and being able to quickly verify intellectual property (IP) block with pseudo-random tests.
Unmistakably, growing design sizes drive the need for very long verification sequences of clock cycles to dig out deeply buried bugs. Added software content makes hardware/software co-verification a critical component of the verification process. Emulation is needed to trace the source of software bugs that show up in hardware misbehavior and hardware bugs that exhibit malicious effects in the embedded software. Software validation has to be done well ahead of tapeout.
These trends and others will continue to drive the need for fast emulation that offers billions of verification cycles and help move chip design ahead over the next 10 years.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Tips and tricks for working in and customizing the Cadence environment
1. Modifying your .cdsinit file
The .cdsinit file is an initialization file that runs when Cadence is starting. This section describes some useful additions to your .cdsinit file that you can add. The .cdsinit file is a hidden file and is often located in the directory where you start Cadence. This is not always the case and you may have to search for it. All these scripts can also be entered in the command line once cadence starts.
2. Changing the default text editor
When working with AHDL or VerilogA it is nice to have a choice of different text editors to use. To change the default text editor in Cadence, add the following to your .cdsinit file:
editor = "TEXT_EDITOR_NAME"
Where TEXT_EDITOR_NAME is an editor such as nedit, gedit, vim, ect. For a complete list of Linux text editors see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_text_editors
3. Close the "What's new" window
ddsNewsClose()
4. Resize the Command Interface Window (CIW)
hiResizeWindow(window(1) list(1:25 800:200))
The CIW is the command line window. The window size and position is set by defining the pixel positions of the bottom-left (BL) and top-right (TR) location of the window. The bottom-left corner of the screen is the origin. The syntax is
list([BL_horizontal_position]:[BL_vertical_position] [TR_horizontal_position]:[TR_vertical_position])
list(1:25 800:200) sets it up in the bottom left part of the screen.
5. Open the library manager window
ddsOpenLibManager()
6. Load bindkeys
Bindkeys are keyboard button definitions for commonly used functions. The following two commands set the bindkeys to those that are used by the AMS groups.
loadi "~cdsmgr/common/schBindKeys.il"
loadi "~cdsmgr/common/leBindKeys.il"
The first file is for schematic bindkeys and the second is for layout bind keys. If you would like to change the bindkeys, you can copy these files to your home directory, edit them, and load them by changing the path in the commands above.
If you would like to create your own bindkey, you must first know the SKILL function of the command you are trying to bind. If you don't know the SKILL function you can find it by having cadence print all input activity in the command window. In the ICFB command window select Options->Log Filter...->Show Input->menu commands. Now when you activate a command through a menu or the mouse, its SKILL function will be displayed in the command window. Just copy this function into your bindkeys file with the same syntax as the other bind keys.
Note : The above command does not work on Cadence 6 if your .cdsinit file contains the following:
let( (bindKeyFileList file path saveSkillPath)
bindKeyFileList = '(
"common_bindkeys.il" ; JTS, from Cadence
)
An easy fix if you have this script is to simply repalce the above with this:
let( (bindKeyFileList file path saveSkillPath)
bindKeyFileList = '(
"leBindKeys.il"
"schBindKeys.il"
)
Note 2: If you are using IBM processes, the "IBM_PDK" customization setup automatically adds the "IBM" Bindkeys. To replace them, just replace this path
loadi(strcat( ibmPdkPath "cms9flp/V1.5.0.0IBM/cdslib/Skill/ibmPdkBindkeys.il")))
with your path like this:
JonPath="/nfs/spectre/u9/guerberj/Cadence/90nm/IBM_90"
loadi(strcat( JonPath "leBindkeys.il")))
loadi(strcat( JonPath "schBindkeys.il")))
7. Changing the default simulation directory
envSetVal("asimenv.startup" "projectDir" 'string strcat("/scratch/" getShellEnvVar("USER")))
This sets the default simulation directory to /scratch/user_name where user_name is your login name. Adding the user name directory is a precaution so that other people will not over write your data. Storing data on scratch keeps your account space from filling up. Note that this is not backed up.
Another method would be to delete the default simulation directory for your process and replace it with a link to a scratch directory folder.
8. Set the undo limit to 10
hiSetUndoLimit(10)
9. Add a model files path
asiSetEnvOptionVal( asiGetTool('spectre) 'modelFiles '(("/model_file_path" "")) )
10. Unlock your files
Sometimes if your computer crashes or looses power while Cadence is open, many of your folders will have a file in them that ends in .cdslck. This file is created when you open a schematic for edit and prevents anyone from altering the file while you have it open. There are several ways to fix this problem:
Use the clsAdminTool
The path for this tool is: /nfs/guille/a2/rh80apps/cadence/current/tools/bin/clsAdminTool
Run clsAdminTool in a directory above your locked files.
Type ale . to list locked files below the current directory.
Type are . to unlock files below the current directory.
If you only had one or two windows open at the time of the crash, then just browse to the folder and delete the .cdslck file.
If you had many files open...
Open a terminal and type cd ~ to return to your home directory
Type find . -name "*.cdslck" This will find all the cdslck files.
If you want to delete all of these files type find . -name "*.cdslck" -exec rm -f {} \; This will delete all files containing .cdslock in the filename.
You can make people very mad at you if you run this command in a group directory
11. Cadence Segmentation Faults
One of the Most annoying things is when cadence crashes. Here are some things that will cause Cadence to crash:
In Virtuoso 6 do not hit the "Results > Print" Command while the simulation is running or else a crash is eminent
The .cdsinit file is an initialization file that runs when Cadence is starting. This section describes some useful additions to your .cdsinit file that you can add. The .cdsinit file is a hidden file and is often located in the directory where you start Cadence. This is not always the case and you may have to search for it. All these scripts can also be entered in the command line once cadence starts.
2. Changing the default text editor
When working with AHDL or VerilogA it is nice to have a choice of different text editors to use. To change the default text editor in Cadence, add the following to your .cdsinit file:
editor = "TEXT_EDITOR_NAME"
Where TEXT_EDITOR_NAME is an editor such as nedit, gedit, vim, ect. For a complete list of Linux text editors see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_text_editors
3. Close the "What's new" window
ddsNewsClose()
4. Resize the Command Interface Window (CIW)
hiResizeWindow(window(1) list(1:25 800:200))
The CIW is the command line window. The window size and position is set by defining the pixel positions of the bottom-left (BL) and top-right (TR) location of the window. The bottom-left corner of the screen is the origin. The syntax is
list([BL_horizontal_position]:[BL_vertical_position] [TR_horizontal_position]:[TR_vertical_position])
list(1:25 800:200) sets it up in the bottom left part of the screen.
5. Open the library manager window
ddsOpenLibManager()
6. Load bindkeys
Bindkeys are keyboard button definitions for commonly used functions. The following two commands set the bindkeys to those that are used by the AMS groups.
loadi "~cdsmgr/common/schBindKeys.il"
loadi "~cdsmgr/common/leBindKeys.il"
The first file is for schematic bindkeys and the second is for layout bind keys. If you would like to change the bindkeys, you can copy these files to your home directory, edit them, and load them by changing the path in the commands above.
If you would like to create your own bindkey, you must first know the SKILL function of the command you are trying to bind. If you don't know the SKILL function you can find it by having cadence print all input activity in the command window. In the ICFB command window select Options->Log Filter...->Show Input->menu commands. Now when you activate a command through a menu or the mouse, its SKILL function will be displayed in the command window. Just copy this function into your bindkeys file with the same syntax as the other bind keys.
Note : The above command does not work on Cadence 6 if your .cdsinit file contains the following:
let( (bindKeyFileList file path saveSkillPath)
bindKeyFileList = '(
"common_bindkeys.il" ; JTS, from Cadence
)
An easy fix if you have this script is to simply repalce the above with this:
let( (bindKeyFileList file path saveSkillPath)
bindKeyFileList = '(
"leBindKeys.il"
"schBindKeys.il"
)
Note 2: If you are using IBM processes, the "IBM_PDK" customization setup automatically adds the "IBM" Bindkeys. To replace them, just replace this path
loadi(strcat( ibmPdkPath "cms9flp/V1.5.0.0IBM/cdslib/Skill/ibmPdkBindkeys.il")))
with your path like this:
JonPath="/nfs/spectre/u9/guerberj/Cadence/90nm/IBM_90"
loadi(strcat( JonPath "leBindkeys.il")))
loadi(strcat( JonPath "schBindkeys.il")))
7. Changing the default simulation directory
envSetVal("asimenv.startup" "projectDir" 'string strcat("/scratch/" getShellEnvVar("USER")))
This sets the default simulation directory to /scratch/user_name where user_name is your login name. Adding the user name directory is a precaution so that other people will not over write your data. Storing data on scratch keeps your account space from filling up. Note that this is not backed up.
Another method would be to delete the default simulation directory for your process and replace it with a link to a scratch directory folder.
8. Set the undo limit to 10
hiSetUndoLimit(10)
9. Add a model files path
asiSetEnvOptionVal( asiGetTool('spectre) 'modelFiles '(("/model_file_path" "")) )
10. Unlock your files
Sometimes if your computer crashes or looses power while Cadence is open, many of your folders will have a file in them that ends in .cdslck. This file is created when you open a schematic for edit and prevents anyone from altering the file while you have it open. There are several ways to fix this problem:
Use the clsAdminTool
The path for this tool is: /nfs/guille/a2/rh80apps/cadence/current/tools/bin/clsAdminTool
Run clsAdminTool in a directory above your locked files.
Type ale . to list locked files below the current directory.
Type are . to unlock files below the current directory.
If you only had one or two windows open at the time of the crash, then just browse to the folder and delete the .cdslck file.
If you had many files open...
Open a terminal and type cd ~ to return to your home directory
Type find . -name "*.cdslck" This will find all the cdslck files.
If you want to delete all of these files type find . -name "*.cdslck" -exec rm -f {} \; This will delete all files containing .cdslock in the filename.
You can make people very mad at you if you run this command in a group directory
11. Cadence Segmentation Faults
One of the Most annoying things is when cadence crashes. Here are some things that will cause Cadence to crash:
In Virtuoso 6 do not hit the "Results > Print" Command while the simulation is running or else a crash is eminent
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Short Range Wireless and Semiconductors
Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4 And Wi-Fi ICs Expected To Exceed Two Billion Units In 2010
March 1, 2010
Global shipments of short range wireless ICs (Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4, Wi-Fi) are expected to surpass two billion units this year, increasing approximately 20% compared to 2009. Shipments are forecast to total five billion in 2014, according to new market data from ABI Research.
"Bluetooth ICs made up a significant part of the total short range wireless ICs shipments," says industry analyst Celia Bo. "Bluetooth took more than 55%, following by Wi-Fi at around 35%; the rest of the shipments were made up of NFC, UWB and 802.15.4 ICs."
Mobile handsets maintain the highest adoption rate for Bluetooth ICs. In addition to data transmission between mobile handset and Bluetooth headset, the application of Bluetooth technology is gradually moving into computers and consumer electronics products such as laptops, UMDs, and the wireless remote pole of game consoles.
Low power consumption and short range transmission are two key technical features of Bluetooth technology. Furthermore, in December 2009 the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the adoption of Bluetooth low energy (BLE) which opens an absolutely new market for products and devices needing low cost and low power wireless connectivity. Likely vertical markets include healthcare, security, and home entertainment.
Chip manufacturing technology migration is driving down chip cost too, and as Bluetooth chip ASPs continue to decline, new business opportunities will be created.
Combination chips, integrating two or more short range wireless technologies to deliver further cost reduction and chip size decreases, are paving the way for another trend in short range wireless IC market development. The three major integration solutions — Bluetooth+FM radio, Bluetooth+Wi-Fi+FM, and Bluetooth+FM+GPS — are forecast to account for more than 30% of all Bluetooth combination chip shipments in 2010. The combination chip using BLE is expected to make up 50% of total Bluetooth combo IC shipments in 2014.
ABI Research's "Short Range Wireless ICs Market Forecast Data" provides market and technical analysis of Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4, Wi-Fi and combination wireless connectivity ICs. The forecast information is broken down by application, including computers, communication devices and consumer electronic products.
The study is included in two of the firm's Research Services: Short Range Wireless and Semiconductors.
SOURCE: ABI Research
March 1, 2010
Global shipments of short range wireless ICs (Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4, Wi-Fi) are expected to surpass two billion units this year, increasing approximately 20% compared to 2009. Shipments are forecast to total five billion in 2014, according to new market data from ABI Research.
"Bluetooth ICs made up a significant part of the total short range wireless ICs shipments," says industry analyst Celia Bo. "Bluetooth took more than 55%, following by Wi-Fi at around 35%; the rest of the shipments were made up of NFC, UWB and 802.15.4 ICs."
Mobile handsets maintain the highest adoption rate for Bluetooth ICs. In addition to data transmission between mobile handset and Bluetooth headset, the application of Bluetooth technology is gradually moving into computers and consumer electronics products such as laptops, UMDs, and the wireless remote pole of game consoles.
Low power consumption and short range transmission are two key technical features of Bluetooth technology. Furthermore, in December 2009 the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the adoption of Bluetooth low energy (BLE) which opens an absolutely new market for products and devices needing low cost and low power wireless connectivity. Likely vertical markets include healthcare, security, and home entertainment.
Chip manufacturing technology migration is driving down chip cost too, and as Bluetooth chip ASPs continue to decline, new business opportunities will be created.
Combination chips, integrating two or more short range wireless technologies to deliver further cost reduction and chip size decreases, are paving the way for another trend in short range wireless IC market development. The three major integration solutions — Bluetooth+FM radio, Bluetooth+Wi-Fi+FM, and Bluetooth+FM+GPS — are forecast to account for more than 30% of all Bluetooth combination chip shipments in 2010. The combination chip using BLE is expected to make up 50% of total Bluetooth combo IC shipments in 2014.
ABI Research's "Short Range Wireless ICs Market Forecast Data" provides market and technical analysis of Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, 802.15.4, Wi-Fi and combination wireless connectivity ICs. The forecast information is broken down by application, including computers, communication devices and consumer electronic products.
The study is included in two of the firm's Research Services: Short Range Wireless and Semiconductors.
SOURCE: ABI Research
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