Subject: comment on signal integrity

From: [email-masked] (Robert Canright)
Date: Fri, 13 May 94 9:32:16 CDT

Greg,

On the ibis reflector you posted email with the subject:
Including Vt, Cref, Rref & Vref in IBIS models.

You made a comment: 
"As a result of this, system designers see the signal 
integrity tools as satisfying two needs.  One is to 
give the circuit designer a toy to play with.  The 
second is to get the circuit designer to get accurate 
delay values back into a system timing simulation."

From your comment it sounds like in your opinion the only
thing you can count on a circuit designer to acheive with a
signal integrity tool is to get delay.  Anything else he might
achieve is a roll of the dice.  And mostly the circuit designer
uses the signal integrity tool to teach himself transmission
line behavior empirically: by playing with it.

This means that the circuit designer does not know enough about
transmission line theory to be an effective user of signal integrity
tools.  So for signal integrity tools to be effective, a company
needs at least 1 signal integrity specialist that is an effective
user of the tools.  The 1 specialist can tell the many circuit designers
how to most effectively use the tools.

I believe that the poor sales of signal integrity tools is related
to the lack of specialists in the companies to use them.  I'm
sure the companies will resist having a specialist, but they
need at least one expert-- and I don't mean a talented amateur
who dabbles in signal integrity.  I've seen lots of amateurs that
empress other circuit designers with their knowledge, but that
actually do as much harm as good because their knowledge is shallow.

When have you ever seen an advertisement saying a company wanted
to hire a signal integrity specialist?  When Convex advertised for
the position I now have, they advertised for a high performance packaging
engineer.  I don't do any packaging.  I do signal integrity.

If the signal integrity tools are not used, then the IBIS models
will not be used.  You have to sell more that IBIS models or
CAD tools.  You have to sell the need for an entirely "new" 
profession: signal integrity.

-- 
Bob Canright		Convex Computer Corp.	Richardson, Texas
214-497-4474 (desk)	[email-masked]	214-497-4500 (FAX)
disclaimer:
It's not my typing, the Sun keyboard repeeeatsss.