A friend of mine has been getting worked to death doing EE-type product development. He was all psyched to have a weekend to himself (after busting ass until 9pm on Friday to make sure everything was done) and one of his managers decides to pull a power-play and tell him to come in over the weekend. My friend decides to declare himself "out of town" for the weekend and ignore the pointless request. Manager-goon decides to yell at all the other manager-goons and executives about this which results in my friends recieving phone call from 8, count 'em 8 different people at the company yelling at him. Needless to say, my friend does not appreciate being harassed when a) he works like 60+ hours per week with no O/T and b) he had no reason to be in on the weekend other than his manager-goon decreeing that he needed to be there. Trust me, this guy works hard as hell, if he says stuff is done...stuff is done. Anyway, here's the email he fired off this morning to all those who were up his ass over the weekend (names omitted or changed to protect the innocent). It's kinda long and techy, but I'm sure some of you will appreciate it.
P***,
Please forward this to M**** and O****.
If B**** was informed of this copy him too.
This might be a bit long but please read through.
I hate to sound like a broken record but I can only respond to the same question in so many ways. Yes, A**** has been briefed on ULR calibration. He also knows how to calibrate Raystar MOLDs, AOLDs, and Rayexpress rev 6 LR OSC cards.
The calibration process is uniform (and simple) across all Raystar and Rayexpress Optical Line Driver cards through no one elses doing but my own. I was asked to manage this and I have.
The calibration consists of three commands sent from the shelf processor
command prompt.
-> precal(in power, out power) calibrates the preamp EDFA
-> oscTxCal(out power) calibrates the OSC transmit power
-> oscRxCal(in power) calibrates the OSC receive power
Thats it.
I can swap 1310nm and 1510nm sources and have one of these cards calibrated in under 5 minutes. A**** has been informed that he needs to acquire an Express SP backplane for his own use. J**** L**** has the SP load and D**** E**** can flash it. A**** also needs known working hardware to verify his process. (Not one of the cards coming down the pipe.). There is known working hardware in the the verification lab in the form of 3 2520 ULRs and 4 2020 ULRs. A**** needs to ask verification if he can borrow one of these. Using the Atmel STK500 board he can grab the latest firmware rev 5 and eeprom.
The firmware is identical across all ULRs. (How? Ancient Chinese secret.)
The eeprom loads are board specific.
I have already coordinated with B**** N**** to roll ULR into his MALP eeprom editing program.
Done deal. A**** has the latest copy. MALP 1.25.
So, can we safely say that card calibration is free to walk as the
scapegoat for card yield?
Yes.
M**** P**** (as calibration guy) you may sit down.
M**** P**** (now representing firmware development), would you
please approach the bench.
How many times has your firmware changed?
Well your honor, I released rev2 with the rev2 hardware. Then I released rev3 with the rev3 hardware. Then something unexpected happened. We integrated the card into the system and I had to change something and rev 4 was born. The SP developers and I agreed on a eeprom PM bounds change so I bumped the rev to 5 for tracability even though it wasn't formally a firmware change. When did all of this transpire? I think it was somewhere between GA star lineup rev 1,234
and rev 1,562.
On a more serious note. I don't wan't to be scoffed at by management when firmware bumps a rev.
It can be due to a hardware change, it could be something that surfaces at integration, or it could be that
that powers that oversee the EDFA design change something. I will make the call and handle it.
Did I leave anybody hanging this weekend? No.
I made it a point before going home Friday at 9pm ensure that every operational card was in verification.
And they were. All issues regarding these cards were addressed. R**** S**** was happy, M**** W**** and M**** in verification were happy. TeamTrack fault tracking Inbox for M**** P**** was squeaky clean.
One of the 8 M**** calls I received alluded to 8 cards awaiting calibration. If 8 are truly awaiting they go to B**** T**** for OSC calibration first for visual inspection and electronic checkout.
They then go to A****.
Lastly before I go to bed. The incident last weekend where cries of "ULR failed verification!!!!" could be heard for miles were due to the fact that the card was physically dropped and broken in
verification.:Q
I can tell you why a card is not working. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily responsible for the failure.
We're trying to turn engineering into operations. Expect some growing pains.
P.S. I was not in Atlanta to field the 8 phone calls received from every
level of Company X management
and yes, I am guilty of picking up a scope probe.
Regards,
M****
P***,
Please forward this to M**** and O****.
If B**** was informed of this copy him too.
This might be a bit long but please read through.
I hate to sound like a broken record but I can only respond to the same question in so many ways. Yes, A**** has been briefed on ULR calibration. He also knows how to calibrate Raystar MOLDs, AOLDs, and Rayexpress rev 6 LR OSC cards.
The calibration process is uniform (and simple) across all Raystar and Rayexpress Optical Line Driver cards through no one elses doing but my own. I was asked to manage this and I have.
The calibration consists of three commands sent from the shelf processor
command prompt.
-> precal(in power, out power) calibrates the preamp EDFA
-> oscTxCal(out power) calibrates the OSC transmit power
-> oscRxCal(in power) calibrates the OSC receive power
Thats it.
I can swap 1310nm and 1510nm sources and have one of these cards calibrated in under 5 minutes. A**** has been informed that he needs to acquire an Express SP backplane for his own use. J**** L**** has the SP load and D**** E**** can flash it. A**** also needs known working hardware to verify his process. (Not one of the cards coming down the pipe.). There is known working hardware in the the verification lab in the form of 3 2520 ULRs and 4 2020 ULRs. A**** needs to ask verification if he can borrow one of these. Using the Atmel STK500 board he can grab the latest firmware rev 5 and eeprom.
The firmware is identical across all ULRs. (How? Ancient Chinese secret.)
The eeprom loads are board specific.
I have already coordinated with B**** N**** to roll ULR into his MALP eeprom editing program.
Done deal. A**** has the latest copy. MALP 1.25.
So, can we safely say that card calibration is free to walk as the
scapegoat for card yield?
Yes.
M**** P**** (as calibration guy) you may sit down.
M**** P**** (now representing firmware development), would you
please approach the bench.
How many times has your firmware changed?
Well your honor, I released rev2 with the rev2 hardware. Then I released rev3 with the rev3 hardware. Then something unexpected happened. We integrated the card into the system and I had to change something and rev 4 was born. The SP developers and I agreed on a eeprom PM bounds change so I bumped the rev to 5 for tracability even though it wasn't formally a firmware change. When did all of this transpire? I think it was somewhere between GA star lineup rev 1,234
and rev 1,562.
On a more serious note. I don't wan't to be scoffed at by management when firmware bumps a rev.
It can be due to a hardware change, it could be something that surfaces at integration, or it could be that
that powers that oversee the EDFA design change something. I will make the call and handle it.
Did I leave anybody hanging this weekend? No.
I made it a point before going home Friday at 9pm ensure that every operational card was in verification.
And they were. All issues regarding these cards were addressed. R**** S**** was happy, M**** W**** and M**** in verification were happy. TeamTrack fault tracking Inbox for M**** P**** was squeaky clean.
One of the 8 M**** calls I received alluded to 8 cards awaiting calibration. If 8 are truly awaiting they go to B**** T**** for OSC calibration first for visual inspection and electronic checkout.
They then go to A****.
Lastly before I go to bed. The incident last weekend where cries of "ULR failed verification!!!!" could be heard for miles were due to the fact that the card was physically dropped and broken in
verification.:Q
I can tell you why a card is not working. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily responsible for the failure.
We're trying to turn engineering into operations. Expect some growing pains.
P.S. I was not in Atlanta to field the 8 phone calls received from every
level of Company X management
and yes, I am guilty of picking up a scope probe.
Regards,
M****
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