It’s only been a week since I started this blog that focuses on a small part of the Semiconductor Industry known as Integrated Circuit (IC) Layout Design, but I feel time for me to further expand on my perspective. It’s a bit of a questions and answers, laying it out a bit more than this very spartan blogsite may suggest.

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Who would blog daily on layout?

I’ve decided for future posts on my blog, I will consolidate one week’s worth (M-F) into one blog post for LinkedIN Layout groups. If you want real time, you can go to https://iclayout.blog and hit the “Follow” button on the bottom, or if you’d rather, follow my personal LinkedIN account for real time updates.

One of my favorite past times is to write and I happen to have some time to rap about my observations and experiences with layout. I happen to find blogging a fun way to express myself. I’ve had a passion for writing since I was in middle school (that’s in the 1970’s) when I started writing about adventures driving fast muscle cars and meeting girls.

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How did I pick my blog format?

I wanted to pick something that was about as somber as a 1x inverter on a schematic. You do not need the over stimulation you get everywhere else.

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Do I write using AI? “I don’t need no stinking AI.” (spin off from a quote in the movie Blazing Saddles– source video from 01Minimalist: https://youtu.be/PI9jFp0cnig?si=FBBDQnDy5L-2DpAe)

I deplore it and treat it like a cockroach running across the kitchen floor when it comes to what I author. All of my writing is created without AI assistance.

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How I got into Layout?

My brother, “Nick” Yee, a veteran layout designer who started in the industry in the mid 1970s at GTE Lenkurt, San Carlos, CA., he suggested getting into layout. He started drafting back in those days when layout data still was entered as points into punch cards – yes that is old. What I remember most from his stories of layout was how much FUN they had back then (well, maybe it wasn’t all related to technical drawing).

I had started looking for a new careers in 1989 and almost became a California Highway Patrol Officer, like my other brother Jon. When Nick talked to me, I thought the career prospects in layout seemed encouraging enough that I’d be willing to sit in an office all day working.

So, no, layout was not my first choice at the time. Yet with a background in electronics from the Navy, plus working on industrial electric cars for a few years, and a previous intent to pursue mechanical drawing from when I was in high school, I figured my big brother’s suggestion wasn’t completely out in left field.

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Regarding my views on layout

They come from my very hard earned experiences working in the industry since 1990. If I credit anyone, I credit some of the excellent design engineers I’ve worked with, from my early experiences: Fu-Chieh Hsu, Wing Leung, Dave Campbell, Michael Ang, Winston Lee, and KimFung Chan. There are many circuit designers and technologists I’ve worked with, each of whom I have appreciated working with.

I do want to give credit to my teachers in layout school, good people, Dan Asunción and Wu-Ping Lai for having established the layout course at Institute for Business and Technology (IBT), in Santa Clara, California, back in the day when we had to draw everything out on MYLAR. I used to do my homework, on those special days, across lacquered wood tables with a pint (or two) of beer at either the London Tea House in Palo Alto or the Duke of Edinburgh in Cupertino.

After IBT, I’ve not really studied layout in a formal sense or by reading about it, much like my experiences serving in the Navy on submarines, I had zero interest in reading about the Navy or submarines until long after I had left the service. Although IC layout is mainly technical and learned on the job, I have some interest in reading about the exciting industrial developments happening now. Quite dramatic things are happening from a design and manufacturing point of view.

I’ve worked and collaborated with a fair amount of Layout Designers, many I’ve had the privilege of mentoring or teaching, some have become close friends.

Design Engineers: Many disciplines are required for good layout and they have often developed from those times of massaging layout in collaboration with design engineers. There is usually (and there should be) a free flow of information exchanged between circuit engineers and layout. Within a company, there should also be a free flow of intelligence between layout designers to help quality and consistency.

What I am sharing on this blog are generic concepts that can be applied to any design, though there may be limits to their application in particular technologies.

Some views about where to work

I used to think that the best way to get into a company was to know someone that you were going to work with. For the first many years in my career, that seemed to be the mode of operation, being solicited by former colleagues to move to their company. The opportunities were many and potentially lucrative. I passed on almost all of them, though back in the 1990’s in Silicon Valley, it was more like the wild west with companies demanding more layout resources locally.

I made a decision once, to go from a decent company with a good manager (Anna) and good learning opportunities where I had no prior working relationships with, to another company where I knew several people. While I cannot complain about the decisions I made and what I’ve learned, now I see more value in the opportunities like the one company where I had no prior working relationships.

You never know what can happen in a new opportunity after so many years, like at my last company. I did not know anyone personally beforehand and it turned out to resound with really great working relationships.

As peers in a two person layout team, Richard “Rick” Cullen and I collaborated and picked each other up in ways I have never experienced in my career. Rick’s work discipline in layout really helped me focus on areas that I tended to be lax on, especially in a fast paced environment. Through our men-in-the-foxhole fights to the finish, we’ve gotten to know each other from both a technical and human perspective and that is a blessing that cannot be measured.

In fact, the whole team I worked with recently are great people from the VP on down, Peter Lim, Joe Clark, David Boisvert, Valentin Abramzom, and Le Huang. It’s impressive how much responsibility each person can take (in many ways like a start up) and still follow the rule of not “losing it” while getting the job done. As a group, it was impressive how each person’s calm and good intentions resonated in the group. Yes, it was technically stimulating also.

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Technical Details in a Human World

I think the layout tool product developers have actually given up on replacing custom layout designers. Is anyone still being so bold to say that the custom layout designer can be replaced by software products? We, primarily custom layout designers, used to be called “polygon pushers” like we were some kind of Neanderthals. Wear that moniker with pride — you have survived.

“Me Polygon Pusher, who are you?”

Maybe there is still talk in replacing IC Layout Designers with software, I just haven’t heard that lately like I used to hear in when I started in the industry. I think they are actually doing it by proliferating the title of Engineer.

I’ve learned how to work with others, no matter what level they are at, and those lessons are much greater than anything technical.

Looking further back, there have been some bad moments when the pressure gets to you. There’s nothing quite like getting angry at someone for what you think is justifiable at that moment, and having to deal with the repercussion (the figurative EGG on FACE)- the immediate personal injury that occurs and the regret in the hurt it causes to the human relationship. It takes a divine dose of humility to heal and forgiveness from the other person.

Yeh, maybe iconic guys like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have sort of “earned” the privilege in a historical sense to drive the way only they did or can, to be who they are – but in the layout department, we have a different dynamic to get the work done.

As a former manager, one of the sage advice I received was from my dear friend, Rock Woo, who was my go-to IT guy for many many years, he confided to me, “Stay calm in front of your people.” I had the largest group in the company at the time and it reminds me of how one person can affect the stability of not only a group but of a company. Except for a few unfortunate instances in my career, I have worked to model that calm behavior.

And so?

In regards to the layout industry, I know we are now part of a uber large international community connecting into many facets of the industry. It is a big world out there and I’m just one person, a grain of sand on a beach — with a blog. I’ve got a some stuff to share as if we were sitting at the pub with a drink, but who really cares or who really needs to hear it?

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Some questions for You

Since I’ve started work in the industry, there has been such a big movement to go international, and I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with layout designers in other states and countries through the internet.

Where did you learn layout design?

What do you wish you learned before you began working?

What opportunities do you wish to have and which skills do you want to develop?

How did you get attracted to doing IC layout design for a career?

What is your background?

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CKY

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