X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-TCPREMOTEIP: 207.224.51.38 X-Authenticated-UID: jpd AT noqsi DOT com Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Apple-Mail=_7220D447-67CC-426A-A7B4-AE6161CBCA64"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha512 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 7.3 $1878.6$) Subject: [geda-user] The nature of gEDA users X-Pgp-Agent: GPGMail 2.5.2 From: John Doty In-Reply-To: <201601261804.u0QI4KEQ009550@envy.delorie.com> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 12:53:45 -0700 Message-Id: References: <56A751EC DOT 8030402 AT iae DOT nl> <20160126124701 DOT 0d061912c7e078ced9d4e6cb AT gmail DOT com> <201601261804 DOT u0QI4KEQ009550 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com> To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1878.6) Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk --Apple-Mail=_7220D447-67CC-426A-A7B4-AE6161CBCA64 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 On Jan 26, 2016, at 11:04 AM, DJ Delorie wrote: >=20 >> In this day and age to say blind/buried vias are not needed is = ridiculous. >> The fact is ANY design that requires even one FPGA, custom ASIC or >> medium to large BGA needs blind/buried vias. >>=20 >> This is factual and is easy vetted. >=20 > If you can afford a custom ASIC, you can afford a top-end EDA package, > and a FAB that supports high-end features. Not true. In my world, I have to do much of the EDA work in the the = proposal and feasibility study phases. Shoestring budgets, or no budget = at all. A big company covers this by having lots going at once, but = Noqsi Aerospace is a tiny company (3 people at the moment, the largest = we=92ve ever been). For our current biggest project, we went through two = years of doing a lot of work for zero pay (but now it=92s paying off). = We couldn=92t have afforded a top-end package during those years. We = worked with a board designer who used Osmond PCB: not high-end, but it = has blind and buried vias. He was much faster and more accurate than the = big-$$ contractors who use the high-end software. > Frankly, PCB is not a > high-end package and custom ASIC users are not our target audience. But gschem can do schematic capture for ASIC even though that=92s not = its target. The difference is that gschem doesn=92t limit what you can = draw. It=92s quirky and limits *how* you can express what you need, but = I=92ve never found it incapable of expressing a circuit. It gives you a = few crude primitives and a few ways to compose more complex objects from = simple objects. A few layers of that, and you have a 6000 component = mixed-signal ASIC. Pcb says to the user =93my way or the highway=94. Gschem says =93live = with my quirks, and I=92ll help you do anything=94. >=20 > I can't afford any of that tech. Heck, I can barely afford 4-layer > boards with 6/6 rules. There's a huge community of designers that > can't (or won't) afford high tech features in their boards. I never thought I=92d do ASIC design until a customer asked me to try = it. Yogi Berra =97 'It's tough to make predictions, especially about the = future.=92 >=20 > So you can say "this is factual" but it's not. It may be a > requirement for a subset of our potential user base, but it's not > ridiculous to assume that many people just aren't going to use them. > Until we decide to support that tech, we're simply targetting the > "many people" who don't need them. >=20 John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ jpd AT noqsi DOT com --Apple-Mail=_7220D447-67CC-426A-A7B4-AE6161CBCA64 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: GPGTools - https://gpgtools.org iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJWp87KAAoJEF1Aj/0UKykRUjcP/2LH0vE1N8Pgoim1bPxvyKRa RPdq3N46wmRxglW33sPlItSDaFQrjbK841PFIzB5wb7MmDWMJOUSqLq5wzrLE3t2 uaAb8CQ2eeY2pT/1U+lJd/9rxOTPS8vy0wO8D/8Fa6BX/Xmq2duIpN4BN6tDmSIX vMs20HXV8ujNz/Y8qeiA48pfkYnH0gEzoqrB9NAFzvbBBapjr0xLaBiKTert+w5n i4wuOKHMTVPpPSu6H4tSbjls3WPjodyAAzyAxzRsqu07T1l1b9RyTcI03bFJeAUU HoDnbe7VhqS982KZ+MRX6jlAs7XlujNhDh7RShr0QbO/Z2jzPpaWIpX4dPq8U1O0 nTm3nLlGWkHNs6cYRekK0RjzTNZZylKadAoKjrN4BhgUtuHDqpNKyjLASZkuTU4A Fx/IDCOAT450O1Xs/N8V2iqjSol+V4zu/Vh/UEPjzJndu4neb6iIhJbSwGLJDpsh itXWmnq9xwI0oIJTrGraIJji2PkqrhS2PUqBhk5ZUBh4LMhv0OpZ+T4K+yGzRed9 34jncfgfR4YmJZF0PDzV2kRpGA2WpvDL+vHBwmM7QpUbUsJpys4D1CvfORRyw1GC bGpquFunhQA648U52cxhEqwjhULL/WfnHiDsMWsQ5MEsYvR8T/9TCcTiby7Es5Qo MlqKpkS/72Bc7iZlGbCa =lfZh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Apple-Mail=_7220D447-67CC-426A-A7B4-AE6161CBCA64--