We all have to get started somewhere.

I learned principles of CMOS layout design and applied what I learned with pencils on mylar for 7 months to be certified to look for a layout job. I think there are some benefits to learning on MYLAR, I may get into that in some future blogpost.

My start in the IC Layout industry occurred in 1990 with my first job at Integrated Device Technology in Santa Clara, California. At the time they were transitioning from the GE CALMA systems to Sun Micro workstations using Cadence EDGE.

The CALMA system was a single purpose layout machine that allowed a draftsman to completely focus on his work. As a transition, the Cadence EDGE tool was fantastic. In its base form it was a stand alone layout window that was not yet hinged to the future industry standard of using X-Windows.

Although I adopted using Cadence OPUS with its X-Window base in parallel, EDGE was a beautiful environment for creating custom layout and was available for me to use the first 12 years of my career.

It was my fortune to be hired into a group whose main focus was developing high performance 8-bit color video RAMDAC. That experience introduced me to a few excellent analog circuit engineers who taught me many of the essential principles to apply to CMOS layout.

Since that time, I have experienced producing a wide variety of layout products and technology nodes from 0.25um to FinFET, stand alone packaged products to embedded IP, test chips and test structures, commodity memory, hi performance and leading edge memory development, power supplies to precise timing circuits, analog and mixed-signal support, analog circuits for RF applications, IO and ESD, standard cells and complier leaf cells, to BSI (back side illuminated) imaging chips involving sensors and logic processors.

On top of all of that I supported the companies I worked for having worn several hats and have been flexible to meet the needs of the position whether as a solo designer, a contractor, a staff member, supervisor or manager.

Being a colleague in a design group, one of the benefits is being in a position to help others, being supportive, which may include mentoring and training. As a team member, you want to see everyone do the best they can and encourage them to take on greater challenges if they are willing and able. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of being kind or, perhaps, sharing lessons from mistakes.

The purpose of this blog is to share with you who are IC Layout Designers to create better layout for your various applications. My suggestions may involve all that is related, hard and soft skills, to “push some polygons” in effort to create some better layout.

What I hope to share are generic concepts that may be considered applicable to layout in general but there may be limitations how they may be applied based on any specific technology.

I may share some fun stories along the way.

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Q: How did you get your start in the industry?

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CKY

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