Behind The Moore’s Law

January 6, 2010 in embedded with 1 Comment
Tags: embedded

What every electronic / embedded engineer should know…

It was 1965 when Intel’s co-founder Gordon E Moore predicted that the number of transistors in electronic design would be doubled every 18-months, while the cost of making the design reduced to half.

This caused a known electronic inventory problem: newer electronic stuff is getting cheaper and better compared to the old one, but we cannot sell older model higher than newer one. Hence, the electronic industry has evolve to produce just enough to fill the market demand, with minimum inventory (If you’ve seen newer iPhone, most probably the older one has been scrapped from manufacturing floor and nobody left with inventory to sell it to you). To suit this economic model, outsourcing companies are used (Foxconn producing Apple’s stuff, Flextronic produce Dell’s and HP’s stuff, etc).

For electronic / embedded engineers this also means that you wouldn’t last that long in your career. Unlike engineers in civil engineering, or lawyers, or doctors, or pharmacist that get more appreciation while they’re getting older, we are getting less and less appreciation if we are getting more and more experience.

To understand the logic, here’s a simple illustration. The next upcoming technology wouldn’t be that much different from the current one, but it’ll take time to understand it. Let’s just say that it takes 6-months to understand the new technology. Would you rather hiring 5-years experienced engineer to learn the new technology, or is it better to hire the freshmen with much lower salary and yet the same zero knowledge about the technology ?

I have a lot of colleagues who are switching the engineer job into managerial area. The one who hasn’t, started to get MBA degree to be able to apply for manager position. The one who still persisted to be an engineer complains at lunch..everyday =)

Anyway, for myself, I think after almost 6-years in service, I really think that being engineer is the call of my life. Therefore, I still reminded myself not to stop learning, coz when I stop, I’d fall. I wish God can read this one and blessed me so I can have 10-years experience as embedded system engineer =P

Who’s The Greatest In Heaven

November 29, 2009 in Catholic with Leave a Comment
Tags: Catholic

I found it very funny if people start comparing who’s their favorite saint / holy patron. There’s God the Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Divine Mercy, Mother Mary, Saint Jude, and a whole bunch of known and unknown saints that receive prayer daily asking for mediation to the Lord. Some people really think that life on heaven is somewhat similar to our life on earth: there are famous people (politician, movie actress/actor, singer, TV host, etc) who’s looking for public support as much as possible. Hence, as loyal supporters, we must show the public that our idol is the best compare to the other idol.

When I was a kid, my parents always asked stupid question: whom I love most, mom or dad ? I usually answered: my mom, then my dad just laugh. He wasn’t angry or upset. He just knew that if I loved my mom, it means that I loved him too, coz we are, after all, a family, an undivided body. In the same way, I think people in heaven and the Holy Trinity, would feel if we said that we love this saint more than the others or we love God more than Jesus or Holy Spirit (or Jesus more than Holy Spirit, etc). After all, they and us are one body with Christ as our head. Nobody says that I love my hand most, but I hate my feet so I can afford to lose it. We love them all. Take a look at 1 Cor 12:12-31, One Body with Many Parts.

I think if we truly love Mary (or any of our favorite saint) and ask her nicely what she would like us to do, she would probably look at her son and told us “Do whatever he tells you” (The Wedding in Cana John 2:1-12)

Seeing Other’s Image on Mirror

August 27, 2009 in Catholic with Leave a Comment

I finally understand the message today’s group reading (Mark 7:1-8;14-15;21-23)

There are times, when I look at my self at the mirror, I wish I looked at a different person: a PhD holder, micro-electronics patent holder, and founder of the next ‘google’, not a technical support guy who got scolded by customers nearly everyday. I wish I were that guy.

It takes other’s eyes to see

August 27, 2009 in me and my life with 1 Comment

True. I guess there are things that we cannot see using our own eyes.

Few days ago, I went to visit a customer with colleague from distributor, promoting NXP’s LPC313x, our latest ARM926EJ-S series (ok..I’m alike a marketing sales guy now..talking my own product every time everywhere..). During lunch time, we’re talking a lot of things, specially politics. Well, being older means you have to talk a lot about politics.