1. DFT is not Discrete Fourier Transform, but Design for Test.
However, it is often disliked because of its increased area and complexity; the larger the chip, the more complex the DFT design becomes.
Please see the following engineer conversation:
DFT engineer: Without me, how would you know the chip is good? Design engineer: Without you, my chip wouldn't break in the first place!
If done well, it's called "Design for Test"; if done poorly, it will be criticized by backend engineers as "Design From Trouble".
Because the timing is difficult to converge, backend engineers have used Jira more than once or twice.
2. Timing closure is a perpetual nightmare for many engineers.
Engineers spend a significant portion of their time battling timing issues; a single 1ps violation can keep them debugging until the early hours of the morning.
"The timing isn't converging? It must be a module from the next group slowing down the global clock!" "We spent three days fixing the timing, and finally found out the constraint file was written incorrectly... (A deafening silence)"
I'm not kidding, this kind of basic question happens all the time.
3. Chip engineers often refer to themselves as "silicon farmers," essentially the coders in the chip industry.
It alludes to the hard work of a farmer (designing transistors), but the harvest (chip performance) still depends on the weather (process technology, EDA tools, luck). Once you enter the world of physics, weekends become a distant memory.
However, the composition of silicon farmers is not quite the same; only those agricultural enterprises operating bulldozers (structures) are the purest.
By the way, agricultural enterprises also have another name: massage parlors.
4. ADC is not a marksman.
Simulation engineers dread being asked when they get home: "You're researching ADCs? Besides Hou Yi and Lu Ban, can you play any heroes with mobility skills?"
5. PR is not public relations.
My colleagues in PR (Place & Route) are asked every day, "Your company must be really good at crisis management, right?"
6. There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
7. Software is fixed by restarting, hardware by unplugging and replugging.
A bug has appeared? The software team should restart the service, and the hardware team should unplug and replug the board. The most effective solution often comes from the simplest method.
8. Zeng Yi Variable Amplifier
Variable gain amplifier... Huh? When did singers start using amplifiers? What a piece of junk??? I love listening to Leo and The Most Angelic; does that mean I'm getting old?
9. Neither DC nor Marvell has heroes.
A colleague who does general work complained: "You can never find 'superheroes' in DC (Design Compiler), you only ever see Setup/Hold Violation."
10. IC Design Engineer - Fried Rice Noodles and Fried Noodles
By day he draws blueprints, and by night he stir-fries noodles. His IC design career has become a side business in the catering industry, mainly to earn money from his colleagues.
11. Tape-out holiday
Ideal scenario: Working through the night for 48 hours before tape-out, followed by two weeks of paid leave for everyone after tape-out, with the boss tacitly approving of lateness, early departure, working from home, and taking leave without a reason.
The reality: After tape-out, there were a bunch of bugs. I worked on it until 4 a.m. every day, but in the end, it was still just a brick.
12. Chips from the perspectives of front-end design engineers and back-end engineers
Of course, behind these jokes lies the humorous way chip engineers defuse the challenges of high pressure, long development cycles, and complex technologies. Each joke is a mark on a wafer, recording countless breakdowns and reconstructions before the chip's birth.
