Pete's Log: VLSI
Entry #1188, (School)(posted when I was 23 years old.)
Yesterday I was playing around with QuarkXPress. I found myself very amused when I wanted to zoom in on a particular area of the screen. My instinct had been to use the middle mouse button to perform a mentor style stroke to zoom in. Unfortunately, the mouse had no middle mouse button and Quark had no concept of these sort of strokes.
VLSI was the only course I ended up completing this past semester (the 600 level math course I signed up for proved too time consuming to be worth my while). I really enjoyed VLSI. Or at least, I really enjoyed the final project. The class itself was somewhat slow at times, and the final project may have worked out a little better had we been given more advance knowledge of what we were to do. But such complaints achieve little. All I know is I became addicted to playing with adk_ic.
The interaction between the digital logic design, the analog circuit issues, and the cmos layout rules made for a very interesting puzzle that I really enjoyed solving. A common feature of ADD, I'm told, is the ability to hyperfocus on certain things. VLSI, I discovered, is one of the things I am able to hyperfocus on. I fully intend to put more time into our design when I return from break in order to ensure it is functional when we put it on that rocket. I will be content with nothing less.
I guess I also did well enough in the class to get an A, preserving my 4.0 GPA as a graduate student. I'm happy about that. Additionally, as Arun pointed out to me, VLSI was a 4 credit hour class. This means I only need 2 more credit hours for my masters. Which means I can take the I/O class offered next semester. I'd wanted to take it, but was informed it is only 2 credit hours. I'd assumed VLSI was only 3, and thus thought the I/O course was not an option if I wanted my masters by May. But now it seems I can get away with taking only one course, which meets only once a week, and still have a chance for a masters by May. I'm psyched.