Hello Readers,

I’m Sethupathi Balakrishnan. I’ve worked for Qualcomm. I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts about the research culture and the rigour in Taiwanese Universities. I’m from Semiconductors domain (specifically Physical Design & EDA). Hence, my ideas/thoughts would be around it.

The Taiwanese are probably the best in Asia in semiconductors research. They are just a tiny bit behind the US. Why do I think so?

Here are some of the reasons.

1. The academic/research culture is very strong and so are the incentives to innovation/research. NTU-Taiwan has produced so many engineers and given to TSMC/UMC/Synopsys etc. Their academic standards are insanely high and would beat even US standards at times. For eg. I did my post grad from VIT in VLSI Design. I just had one small course on “CAD for VLSI” where they teach the working of various algorithms that are being used in placement/routing etc. But, when I saw the course catalog of NTU, I was shocked and intimidated TBH. The MS students are asked to design Placement/Routing Engines and not only that, they are also asked to improve the existing methodologies, participate in very high quality contests like ISPD Routing Contest , ICCAD Routing Contest, Tau Timing Contest and publish papers. VLSI-EDA is probably the hardest of all the domains in CS/VLSI. It took me about 3–4 years of experience in the VLSI industry to get to this level of understanding.
2. Close to the Industry — All activities in the academia are strongly correlated to Industry problems. In-fact it’s so close that gap between the academia and the industry is almost NILL.
3. A lot of smart people pursuing their MS/PhD’s in the US and coming back and settling down in Taiwan thereby transferring huge value.

Dr. Yao-Wen Chang is a classic example. I have a strong feeling that this gentleman is single handedly responsible for increasing Taiwan’s GDP and economic strength.

Home Page of Yao-Wen Chang

Yao-Wen has contributed immensely not only to Taiwan’s development but to the entire EDA community. He is the president of IEEE-CEDA. He has trained numerous of students who have later become Managers/Section Head’s at TSMC/UMC/Synopsys/Cadence etc and academic heads in Taiwanese institutions. I’ll cite a few of them

1. Tsung-Yi Ho (Heads the THETA Lab at NTHU)

Tsung-Yi Ho

2. Iris Hui-Rui Jiang (Heads Iris Lab at NTU)

江蕙如 Iris Hui-Ru Jiang

3. Huang-Yu Chen (Manager at TSMC)

Huang-Yu Chen

4. H.C Ou (Manager at TSMC — Heads the Digital Design Flow Team)

and many more.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

4. Strong Mathematical/Physics/Biology Foundations and the research institutions promoting/nurturing research in basic sciences and technology. For eg.

1. Academia Sinica

中央研究院網站

2. ITRI

Industrial Technology Research Institute

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

5. Finally — Smaller Country. Taiwan is very small, in-fact it would be smaller than some states in India. It’s a known matter of fact that smaller the country, easier it is to excel. eg. Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore etc.

Con — The barrier to entry is relatively lower when compared to the US.

I am sure there are many other reasons why Taiwan is so good at Semiconductors. I have just listed some of my key observations.

— Sethupathi Balakrishnan

Hi Medium Readers,

I would be sharing some of my thoughts on “Imposter Syndrome” and how it can hit anyone.

I used to have this feeling a lot during my junior years (I have it even now). I used to think whatever I have is based on luck and I probably don't deserve it. I have had so much negative experiences in my life that at times I start believing that I am nobody.

I always assume that everybody is better than me and I am the dumbest. (I’ve been judged a lot in the past). At times I also have this feeling “People are trash”. These two thoughts are counter intuitive. This always happens to me.

I hate myself while hating others even more.

So I had an interview recently and I happened to have nailed it mainly because I prepared really hard and I was consistent with my efforts. The interviewer asked about Timing Analysis and I gave answers that even the interviewer himself felt new. Prior to the interview, I used to assume that I do not know anything and I will totally bomb the interview. However, things went exceedingly well. I also used to feel that whatever I have done is easy and anyone can do it with ease. That is almost always not the case. The image given below exactly describes how I felt →

I am a very emotional and sensitive person. At times I feel “Is everything okay with me?”, when things are going really well in my life. I am very used to people bashing me and I have given strong comebacks in the past.

<Random Quote Incoming :P>

I am a big fan of Asim Quershi. He says

If you run behind passion, you’ll get passion, If you run behind knowledge, you’ll get knowledge, If you run behind money, you’ll get money.

Blindly following passion will probably consume us completely and we may or may not be able to make the money that we wanted. It is better to

Take the passion along with you rather than following it blindly.

Money solves almost all the problems in life. If you are earning handsomely, you know that throwing the money will fix any problem. People say

Money is the byproduct of your work and you probably shouldn't focus on it at the early stages of the career.

I have mixed feelings with this idea. Everybody in the world knows people pursue MBA’s for fat paycheques and every single guy in the MBA panel interview will say this →

I want to expand my knowledge and explore the field of Consulting/Marketing etc.

Deep down everyone is running after IB/Consult jobs mainly because they pay well . Life is in-fact a race and everyone is fighting their own battle and not many acknowledge this. In India at-least, we have attached a negative emotion to this feeling of running after money.

There is this famous saying that I read on Quora and I want to end my article on this note →

Not everything in life is money, but we need money to get anything in life.

— Sethupathi Balakrishnan

This article of mine will highlight some of the most coveted VLSI-CAD Research Competitions. It’s an attempt to spread awareness among Indian students and semiconductor professionals. I’m mostly interested in the Physical Design and CAD side of VLSI. Hence, I’ll be covering them.

I have worked for QCOM’s GPU’s. The BDC team seems to much ahead than the San-Diego team in terms of execution. The team members were at-least 10 years experienced in SoC design. I was the youngest member in the team. The pressure was very high and I couldn't survive. I somehow have a feeling that even to work on a small block in QCOM-BDC GPU, you should have at-least 4–5 years of experience.

Some context → Professionals working in the VLSI domain belong to one of the following categories.

1. CAD-Tool Research.
2. CAD-Tool Usage.
3. CAD-Tool Support.

I’ll list some of the conferences that Semiconductor professionals attend. (These are some of the conferences that I am aware of. There are many actually.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Tool User Conferences (Unpaid)→

1. SNUG (Synopsys User Group) Conference.

SNUG- Silicon Valley →

SNUG Silicon Valley

SNUG India →

SNUG India

2. CDN Live (Cadence User Conference).

CDN- Americas→

CadenceLIVE 2020 Americas

CDN- India→

CadenceLIVE 2020 India

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

VLSI-CAD Research Conferences/Competitions (Paid)

1. International Conference on VLSI Design.

Program - Embedded & VLSI Design Conference

This happens in India round the year. I happened to participate in one of the tutorial proceedings. Oh Boy, the quality is off the charts. This particular conference has a very high rejection ratio. Only the best of the best papers are given a chance to present. The best of the best industry leaders/Universities present their research work here.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

The conferences that are listed from now on are of very high quality. Most of them are conducted in the US.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

2. ICCAD (International Conference on Computer Aided Design).

2020 IEEE/ACM ICCAD CAD Contest - Call for Participation | ICCAD

The competition (CAD-Contest) is much more intense than the conference. The problem statements are released about 5–6 months prior to the competition. The participants are mostly post grad & doctoral students. The beauty of this competition is that you ought to know about VLSI-PD and advanced Computer Science to solve problems given in the contest. Funnily, no one from India has made it to the finals. In-fact many of the semiconductor professionals in India are not even aware of this competition. (However, there are a few exceptions. Somehow, TI-India has been the R&D hub of India.) My manager’s manager was from TI. He not only knew about this, but also published papers in these coveted conferences. He in-fact owns a patent for one of his algorithms.

3. DAC (Design Automation Conference)

• Electronic Design Automation
• Hack@DAC2020

Another conference of very high quality. It’s very hard to crack these competitions. If you look at the link above, the “hack” winners are university students from the US and some of the working professionals are competing with them. The results speak for themselves.

4. ISPD (International Symposium on Physical Design)

This is one another event that focuses solely on Physical Design and CAD related to Physical Design. The competition format is on similar lines with the IC-CAD contest.

International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD)

Contest Link →

ISPD 2020 Contest: Wafer-Scale Deep Learning Accelerator Placement - Cerebras

5. ASP-DAC (Asia South Pacific — Design Automation Conference)

26th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC 2021)

I am not sure if they have a contest but this is one of the conferences of the highest quality in the APAC region.

6. DATE (Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference)

| DATE 2021

This is mostly the Europe equivalent of ICCAD.

7. Tau Contest (Timing Contest)

Tau Contest 2020

This contest is one of my favourites. Timing in Physical Design is one of the most important steps in closure of a SoC. The idea is to write/code a “Timing Calculator” for various models of libs. (NLDM/CCS etc).

8. ICCD (International Conference on Computer Design)

The 38th IEEE International Conference on Computer Design

— — — — - — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

IEEE groups associated with EDA research

1. ACM-SIGDA — (Special Interest Group in Design Automation)

About Us - SIGDA

2. IEEE-CEDA — (Council on Electronic Design Automation)

Front Page | IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Some of the influential personalities (read “Pioneers/Rockstars”)in Physical Design EDA are →

0. Alberto L. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli — (Founder — Synopsys & Cadence)

Let’s just say he is the guy solely responsible for what the VLSI Industry it is now.

Alberto L. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

1. Andrew B Kahng —

Andrew B. Kahng's Home Page

His Research Group —

UCSD VLSI CAD Laboratory

2. Sachin Sapatnekar —

• Sapatnekar, Sachin
• Sachin Sapatnekar's home page

His Research Group —

Research Group (Sachin S. Sapatnekar)

3. Igor Markov— (former student of AB Kahng)

Igor Markov at the University of Michigan/EECS

His Research Group —

Igor Markov

My answer may not be perfect. But, anyone reading this article will get a fair idea of some of the contests/conferences/research-groups.

An extremely detailed article about the CAD-Research Groups in the US can be found here →

I might have missed some. I’ll update when I get to know more.

Edit →

The Taiwanese are rocking the world of Physical Design EDA and Semiconductor Research in general. Here are some of the top researchers from Taiwan→

1. Yao-Wen Chang

Home Page of Yao-Wen Chang

2. Iris Hui-Ru Jiang

江蕙如 Iris Hui-Ru Jiang

3. Tsung-Yi Ho

Tsung-Yi Ho

Hey Reader, if you have made it this far, it doesn't hurt to show some support by “giving claps” to the article. It will encourage me to write more.

-Sethupathi Balakrishnan.

I’ll be presenting some of my view points on Competitive Programming and its impact on professional software development.

“Competitive Programming Vs Development” → This has been a debated topic for a long time amongst college grads and software professionals.

A lot of guys (including Kalpit Veerwal) have bashed CP. However, there are some other guys like Aman Goel who strongly support the sport of programming. I am not a CS grad. However, I have been a fan of competitive programming mainly because it sharpens the mind and increases the thinking capacity.

There is this statement that has been going around → “You will probably never use these algorithms (asked in CP) while working on a project in a corporate setting”. I however strongly disagree with this statement. I belong to the Semiconductors domain and algorithms are aggressively used in EDA firms.

AFAIK, Algorithms are used heavily in professional software development in the following areas →

1. EDA Companies. (Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor Graphics etc)
2. Quants/Hedge Funds/ Asset Management Firms to generate alphas. (Bridgewater Associates, Renaissance Technologies, Two Sigma, Citadel, Tower Research, World Quant, D.E Shaw etc)
3. Research divisions of Organisations (like IBM, Apple,NVIDIA, Samsung, Google, Intel etc)
4. Artificial Intelligence firms (DeepMind etc).
5. Startups like Code Nation etc. for their Compiler Design Projects.

(There might be other areas that I am unaware of).

The semiconductors stream is heavily dependent on “EDA Tools” (EDA → Electronic Design Automation). And all these tools are developed using C++ or Java. I’ll cite an example to give better clarity.

Semiconductor chips are designed using software suites/tools provided by Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics majorly. These are EDA companies and their products are these EDA tools. I am a SoC Design Engineer and my work is dependant on a software tool named “Innovus” from Cadence and “ICC2” from Synopsys. Innovus and ICC2 have the following engines built inside them namely (but not limited to)→

1. Placement & Optimisation Engine.
2. DRC Engine.
3. Extraction Engine.
4. CTS & Optimisation Engine.
5. Legalisation Engine.
6. Routing & Optimisation Engine.
7. Timing Engine.
8. Power Analysis Engine.
9. Verification Engines
10. Search Engines etc.

These “Engines” are nothing but sub-routines written in C++ that target very specific tasks and building these tools require advanced knowledge of discrete mathematics & algorithms (specifically graph algorithms). These tools are mainly developed by CAD Researchers (most of them are PhD’s). This is where competitive programming helps. For eg. CodeForces DIV-1 problems are so hard that they can be used for building a full fledged EDA tool-chain. It’s unfortunate that most CS grads are not interested in developing EDA tools (mostly because of lack of interest or awareness) and are more keen on working for FAANG companies. Once they land in these firms they are given tasks that do not require algorithms and eventually they loose interest in knowing more about algorithms.

Conclusions → Algorithms are definitely helpful for anyone who is interested in it and it is used in professional software development. CS grads who are interested in EDA Tool development are warmly welcomed at these EDA companies.

A detailed application of a competitive programming problem in a VLSI-EDA setting is presented here →

sethupathib/final_layout_generator

— Sethupathi Balakrishnan.

This article will be a little technical. It’s about CTS.

It is one of the important steps in the Physical Design Flow. It’s the process of building a robust clock tree. i.e it’s the process of balancing the clock skew and minimising the insertion delay.

Clock nets in any chip are the most switching. They can be nasty and couple with neighbouring nets and cause failures in functionality. Hence, they need special care.

There are many articles that describe about the settings/optimisation scripts/sanity checks etc. You can read about them here →

Clock Tree Synthesis- part 1 - Physical design, STA & Synthesis, DFT, Automation & Flow Dev, Verification services. Turnkey Projects

However, in this article I would like to highlight some of the processes that happen inside the tool while executing the CTS node.

What happens @ CTS ?

1. Clocks are propagated.
2. NDR’s are applied.
3. Honours exceptions like false path, multi-cycle path & don't touch attributes etc.
4. Generated clocks are taken care.
5. Clock Tree is built with the cell list that is provided.
6. OCV derates impact timing from non-common clock path
7. Clock gate enable timing is no longer ideal.
8. Inter-clock timing depends on achievable insertion delays.
9. Clock generator control logic timing is no longer ideal.

Anchor Buffer/Transport Buffer → It’s a strong buffer (capable of driving a long net). It is usually added at the beginning of the clock tree i.e near the clock pin.

Skew Anchor/Sink Point → It’s a clock endpoint that controls the downstream clock tree. for eg. a register that is a div2 clock generator has a clock pin as a skew anchor because the arrival time of the clock at that clock_pin affects the arrival times of all clocks after that.

Managing clock skew better often reduces hold failures in the design. Generally, for every 100K gates, 600–650 clock buffers are added. Building the clock tree with only inverters yields better DCD (Duty Cycle Distortion).

GLOBAL SKEW → Its the difference between the longest insertion delay and the shortest insertion delay.

(Skew = buffer delay + RC delay + delay due to process effects)

create_clock command →

1. Every create_clock constraint becomes the starting point for insertion delay calculation in propagated mode.
2. Every create_clock constraint triggers a new clock tree during CTS building.
3. A create_clock constraint defined on the hierarchical pin is not supported during CTS.
4. Clock logic is not to be synthesized during Synthesis stage.
5. create_generated_clock enables insertion delay calculation from the master clock unlike the create_clock command.

What does Meeting Skew Targets mean?

Its making the skew almost equal from clock source point to all the flop end points.

Clock Tree Optimisation →

1. Upsize/Downsize buffers/inverters/comb cells/ seq cells.
2. Limiting the number of buffers and inverters used.
3. Level Adjustment.
4. Delay Insertion.
5. Dummy Load Insertion.

CTS INTERNAL FLOW →

1. Initialisation. (Library trimming, identify place-able area, validate transition and skew targets)
2. Construction. (Clustering, Legalisation DRV Repair)
3. Implementation. (Optimise Insertion Delay, power and skew balancing)
4. EGR Post Conditioning. (early global route, area reclaim, DRV repair)
5. Clock Routing. (detail routing along global route guides)
6. NR Post Conditioning. (DRV and skew repair)
7. Post CTS Optimisation. (scan re-ordering, data-path optimisation and use of useful skew)

Edit —

CTS Problems —

1. Clock Skew.
2. Long Insertion Delay.
3. Skew across clocks.
4. Heavy clock net loading.
5. Crosstalk and EM.

CTS Analysis —

1. Report Timing.
2. Report ID, skew, targets.
3. DRV Report.
4. CTS Exceptions.
5. Clock QoR.
6. Report DRV, Power and Area.

Things to be noted —

1. Check “don’t use” and “don’t touch” attributes.
2. Check “don’t buffer” net.
3. Check “don’t size” and “size only” cells.
4. Check for “clock exceptions”

Disclaimer → These ideas have been gathered from various resources from the web. I do not own them nor am I responsible for the correctness.

-Sethupathi Balakrishnan

Hi Guys,

It’s been quite a while since I wrote my last article. My previous article was my take on “Rodha” — a CAT preparation vendor.

This article of mine will highlight some of the view points and my learnings from “suits”, a show that changed the way I look at things and life in general. I’ll be listing some of Harvey’s quotes that made an impact on me in this article.

The character “Harvey Specter” is every man’s dream. He intimidates everyone with his charm. I must say we should not be ignoring other characters like Mike, Louis, Donna, Rachel, Jessica etc. I got to know a lot from the TV Show. Some of them are

1. An appreciation for “Jazz” music.
2. I got to know that a person can be extremely be good at so many things. for eg. Harvey was very good at Poker, Boxing, Basketball and Baseball.

Similarly, Louis was a finance god, he was really good at tennis and shooting. He had a thing for cats. He is evil for sure. In fact, I had a manager who was exactly like him.

3. I got to know about “Hedge Funds” for the first time from “Suits”. I did not have the faintest clue what “Hedge Funds” were before that.

4. I got to know about “Investment Banking” from this TV Show. I understood this is exactly how “Consultants” at McK, BCG, Bain work. Long hours, Hard work, Business Class flights, 5* accomodation, interacting with C-Suite Execs. etc. In fact all the PGP grads from IIMs who crack consult interviews have this kind of a hectic and a super busy life. (Mainly because their bosses and partners at the firm promise the Moon to the clients and the consultants are forced to deliver). One of my classmates Nishant is a consultant at BCG and I barely get to speak with him. He is such a busy guy. He inspires me and I always look upto him.

5. I learnt this the hard way. Harvey was a law grad from Harvard. Degrees matter, the brand of the company you work for matters, the school you went to matters, in-fact in India, your ‘caste’ also matters (Sad reality).

6. Keeping yourself healthy and the attire you wear matter a lot. Harvey tells Mike this — “People respond to how you dress. Believe it or not that’s what you have to do. I don’t care about you. You are a reflection of me and I absolutely care about me. Spend some money on your suit.”

7. Learning from Louis — He is nasty, cunning and evil. He never the gets the attention he deserves. He is emotional. He is a math genius. He is low maintenance unlike Jessica and Harvey.

8. One of my favourite quotes from Harvey is “Excuses don’t win championships ”

9. “Winner gets it all” — and Harvey emphasises so much on winning every time. This is so true in almost every aspect of life. For eg. It is almost impossible for a person who is not from a tier-1 institute to get into firms like Tower Research Capital, McK, Bain, World Quant, DE Shaw etc.There are exceptions of course.

10. Harvey charms clients like a boss. For instance, he brought in “McKernon Motors” to the firm at a very young age. Harvey on never giving up →

11. Harvey’s Record Collection. Oh Man! Harvey goes to any heights for his record collection.

12. His rough childhood past. His mother was cheating on his father. That is so much to deal with at a very young age. This is one of the main reasons why he is emotionless. Harvey on emotions →

13. Some of Mike’s quotes. Mike is a math genius, he has a photographic memory. A small incident in the past and his life is destroyed. The way he bounced back is as they say nothing short of “History”.

14. Louis Litt is always known for his famous dialogue “You just got LITT UP!”

15. Harvey wears Tom Ford Suits and Louis wears Brioni. These suits have starting prices from $2000. I forgot to mention Donna and Jessica. They both are very high maintenance. Donna transitioned from being an actor to the Chief Operating Officer of one of the best law firm there is in New York City. She deserved it. Other characters who deserve honourable mentions are Rachel, Katrina and Samantha. Samantha is basically the female equivalent of Specter.

16. Some of the cars that are used in suits are from Lincoln, Mercedes, Lexus, Ferrari, Ford Mustang, Tesla and Jaguar. These cars are super expensive.

17. I know some of my friends who are Batman fans. They are so much fanatic that they download the background score and listen on loop. I am such a sort of fan. I have all the suits songs on my playlist.

18. Finally, I have to give credits to the creator of the Show “Aaron Korsh” without whom the show wouldn't have become what it is now.

EDITs —

Since I have got quite a bit of appreciation and criticisms , I am adding some more points

19. Harvey goes to any extent to defend his family and friends. He saves Donna, Mike, his driver Ray Bengazi, his brother and even Louis. When he says ‘You're family’, he definitely means it.

20. Harvey does take criticisms like a man. He loses some cases and gets fired by some clients and in most of the cases its because of someone else.

21. All these swags come at a price. We only see the bright side. The saying “Grass is greener on the other side” holds here as well. We never see the hard work and the sleepless nights. Harvey is a Harvard Law Grad. Making a cut into Harvard (which has extremely low rate of acceptance) is no joke.

22. We all have a ‘Louis’ inside us. The insecure, the emotional, the evil, the stupid, the furious, the selfish, the cunning personality inside us. It’s just that we have a mask and hide these traits safely.

23. Harvey is a winner. That’s all good. But he is not a leader. We can feel that when Jessica leaves the firm and Harvey struggles with things. Jessica is all about holding people together.

24. Harvey can't be Harvey without Donna. She plays a pivotal role in making his life easy.

Key Learnings from the show —

1. Life is not easy. Nothing worth having comes easy.
2. Even the best of the best lawyers/consultants face hard times. It’s all about how they manoeuvre over the situation.
3. Being fit and eating healthy comes at a time and cost effort.
4. You can be really good at many different things. In fact, at Goldman Sachs, people who are good are different things are given attention/priority.
5. Learnt about these terms — Investment Banking, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Consulting, Boutiques, Preferred Shares etc. (I did research about them afterwards).
6. Degrees matter. I am a big fan of “Asim Quershi”. He is a Oxford Physics Grad. He was an Investment Banker at Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse etc. He says, sometimes when you are pressed hard, you need that strong degree to shove it down their throat to silence them. Else, they'll keep pressing you.

— Sethupathi Balakrishnan

(A die hard suits fan)

Hi Medium Readers,

Here, I would like to pen down some thoughts that come across my mind randomly.

There are some brilliant youtube channels that are extremely under-rated/under-followed.

One of them is the “Rodha- CAT Prep” Channel on Youtube. I casually stumbled upon the channel. They were claiming to cover 100% CAT syllabus. I started watching the first few videos. The guy is extremely down to earth and has got exceptional conceptual clarity. I started binge watching all of his videos. I have watched all of his Quant Videos. They are really really good. He starts from the very basics and goes to levels beyond CAT standards. I really loved his content. I followed him on Unacademy and I’ll be purchasing his paid course soon.

He coins a term called “Mind Fat” which is analogous to “Body Fat”. In order to remove the Mind Fat we need to work aggressively and solve a lot of hard problems to remove it, just like the case of Body Fat.

There’s another take away and I strongly comply with his idea. “Hard work in the right direction & with right mentorship will definitely lead to success”. This is in line with the thought “The direction always mattered over the speed”. Mr. Ravi Prakash is name of the guy. I strongly believe that “He is the Hero that we need but we don’t deserve”. There are only 33K subscribers to his channel.

— — —

There are a lot of mistakes/mishaps that was done by me/to me in the past. I did not go for any sort of JEE coaching or Entrance coaching. This is the biggest mistake. I missed that sort of rigour. I am lacking that strength/command over concepts. And going to a no-name college was one of the greatest mistakes of my life. I should’ve take a break and joined JEE coaching. I would’ve at least got that rigour/command over the subject. Be it Math or Physics.

— — —

Some of the most under-rated music producers in India are “Lost-Stories” and Yashraj Mehra. This YashRaj kid raps so well. He didn't get the traction he deserves. I really feel bad for him.

Anyway, the world was never Linear. It’s always non-linear. It’s all about playing by your strengths and making your weak zones your strong zones.

-Sethupathi Balakrishnan

Hi Medium Viewers/Followers,

Here, I would be sharing some of my experiences of low points in my life and how I tackled them and proceeded ahead in life.

As a kid, I was bullied a lot. Till 5th grade things were pretty much sorted in my life. Good Acads (got an academic award), good physique etc. (I feel that if you’re good at acads you are almost sorted in all aspects of life). From 6th grade onwards, my grades started dipping. This is where all the problems started in life. Parents started bullying (read beating/insulting). My grades were going down because of the change of my school. I started badminton coaching classes in 6th.

Then I was transferred to another location. (Somewhere in TN). 7th grade began. I was extremely naive. I didn't know how to talk/behave. Basically no filter. Oh Man, I was completely lost and directionless. Bad Grades, No social respect, a lot of bullying. Friends, Teachers, Parents, Friends of Parents— all started teasing me. A lot of this made be a silent person. The only thing that I was good at was at playing Badminton. There was this person named R*th. He ruined my career. He tarnished my reputation. He made me feel like shit. I started believing that I am not that smart and I am a nobody. (I was having this feeling till the time I entered VIT). I still am raging. Given a chance, I would show him how rich/happy I am now. (He did get his share of Karma back where he was given a punishment transfer after he bullied a doctor’s son in our township). The lowest point in my life was during GATE results (I performed very badly), the Job Hunt Phase and when I was infected by Tuberculosis. I missed death by a very small margin.

Bullying did not stop in school. It was still present in College (Under-grad & Post-Grad (during internship)) & even in corporate life. I guess it is inevitable. I guess it would always be there. The funny part is that those guys who bullied didn't do well in their lives either. I don’t know where do they get their attitude from.

As Mr. Asim Qureshi rightly says “Anybody who is wanting to over-achieve or has overachieved had one one such instance happened to him in the past.” It’s always about avenging or giving a comeback or proving people wrong.

I had 3 crushes in life till date. One in school, one in college (Post Grad) and one during the corporate career. Obviously all the three lead to heart-breaks.

Now for the good part. How I overcame all these mishaps?

1. By watching a lot of TV shows.
2. By cutting out all the negative people from my friends-list.
3. By reading a lot of books. (You can find the books I read on my Quora Profile).
4. By watching a lot of Gaming streams (Tanmay Bhat, Carry Minati, Gunshot, Ankkita C, Scout, Gareebooo etc). This helped me a lot. Like for real. It did get me out of depression.
5. By following Shwetabh Gangwar’s, Aman Dattarwal’s & Kalpit Veerwal’s Youtube Channel.
6. By speaking to very selective people who supported me no matter what.

I know that I have performed decently in life. But, I am not going to be complacent. I learnt things the hard way. Nothing worth having comes easy. You ought give time and efforts with consistency. I also know that I have done a lot of good karma in life. One of my mentors told me that it will definitely come back in ways that no one can imagine.

Comments → I was not good with drawing.

Comeback → I significantly improved my drawing skills and I have become quite good at it. (Check out my behance profile)

Comments → I spoiled people’s photographs by oddly editing them.

Comeback → I have improved my design skills to a large extent and even received intern offers from good design startups (The Minimalist) and I did prepare a pitch video for one of the startups that we launched while at VIT.

Comments → I was not even knowing the basic syntaxes of programming. (I did not pass the test by IISc prof’s for internships)

Comeback → Cracked Research Intern at IIT-Madras (One of the most complex problems (writing STA Engine in CPP)).

Comments → I was not good at Math.

Comeback → Got straight A’s in VIT in Math and related subjects.

Comments → Was body slammed/body shamed.

Comeback → Reduced my weight by 5Kg’s under a month.

Comments → I was not got at my work (VLSI stuff)

Comeback → Cracked Physical Design Job at one of the best companies.

Comments → I was not good in English.

Comeback → Published articles on careerhigh.in, Quora and Medium left, right and centre.

There’s an anecdote →

We react aggressively to negative comments than to positive comments. There would be tons of people praising your work but that one person who criticised/teased you. You never forget him/her. We tend to believe that negative thing that some random XYZ commented on us and your subconscious mind programs itself that you’re not capable/good and the amount of self-hate increases exponentially. It’s super hard to break this belief that has been formed over years. There’s additional burden when your parents are not very supportive.

I could give you a lot of other examples of people whom I follow who were bullied during their childhood and gave a solid comeback. For eg.

— Lost Stories

— Samay Raina

— Vidya Vox

— Tanmay Bhat

— Prashasti Singh

Amidst all these bullying, there were some people who were always on my side. For eg. Meenakshi Ma’am, Thankachan Sir, Rajiv Sir, Ashok, Chirag, Akshay, Sibi Kabilan, Reena Monica Ma’am, RaviSankar Sir, Prastut, Sannidhya, Amey, Souryendu, Prateek, Sneha etc.

I wanted to ease things a little and let things out of my head and hence this article.

-Sethupathi Balakrishnan

• Sethupathi Balakrishnan on Behance
• Sethupathi Balakrishnan (सेतुपति बालकृष्णन)

Hi,

I’m Sethupathi Balakrishnan. I am a Tamil Guy. I have been a strong critic about TN for quite some time. However, I must admit that TN has definitely got some USP’s that I admire. They are →

1. Getting rid of the surname.
2. Exceptional medical infrastructure and quality of doctors.
3. Staggering Road Infrastructure.
4. It’s been leading in the “Mechanical” Design and Manufacturing sector.
5. TN Chief Minister’s (EPS) emergency response to COVID19. (The govt’s response was however very poor during the time of Chennai floods)
6. Humility among the public (Be it a millionaire or a daily wager)
7. The Transport infrastructure has significantly improved over the past few years.
8. Crime Rate (It’s very minimal when compared to the Northern States)
9. TN Police Force (Arguably one of the best in the Nation)
10. Discipline : The people in general tend to adhere to law and order.
11. Tax Payers. The southern states contribute to approx. 40% of the entire taxes collected in the Nation.
12. Movie Ticket Pricing. Movie tickets have gone upto Rs 180–220 here in Bangalore. I believe they are still priced at Rs 120–150 in Chennai.
13. “Zoho” originated from TN and is headquartered in Chennai. It has rocked the startup space and can no longer can be called a startup. It has scaled beautifully and is profitable.
14. The general quality of life has improved. There are almost ‘0’ households in TN where people are not getting food. There is at-least one guy who is educated in a family. However, this might not be the most optimal solution. We need to be moving towards getting better quality education and doing better quality jobs.
15. Power Cuts in TN have significantly gone down in the recent years.

I would also like to state some of the things that I do not like about TN.

1. Removal of Entrance Exams → I am not saying that Entrance Exams are the best way to judge the capacity of a person. However, not having an entrance exam is also not the solution.
2. As Balaji Vishwanathan rightly says “The modern Tamils are not aligned to do/achieve great things”. Most of them are jobless or doing very trivial jobs. There are fights over Celebrity Stars.
3. The behaviour of the so-called modern Tamils in CMBT bus station when the lock-down was announced was pathetic. And these are the “salaried” crowd I am talking about. The crowd that was present at Delhi’s Anand Vihar Bus Station and Mumbai’s Bandra Bus station were that of daily wagers. They didn't have anything else but to go home. This attitude of the new Tamils is just gross.
4. Increase in the number of service oriented organisations in Chennai. The no. of product based organisations in TN is very less AFAIK.
5. Resistance against Hindi. This was started decades back when Hindi was forced upon us. Agreed that Tamil is the oldest and the purest. However, strictly ignoring to learn a language where a significant portion of the population speak is probably not a good idea. People from Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana or AP are equally south-indians. However, I did not observe resistance of this scale in these states.
6. Representation in Central Institutions/Organisations → Be it the Indian Defence, Indian Space, Indian Nuclear Programmes, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, even VIT for that matter, the representation from TN is far far less. However, 30 years back, there was a significant representation from TN. In-fact there was a domination. I have seen people arguing that one need not prove his/her self-worth by only going to these institutions. This is the consequence of not having an entrance examination right after 12th grade. I was struggling to face these entrance exams because I never had any prior experience preparing seriously for these exams before. Since there is very less representation of TN junta in IITs, IIMs, as an after effect there would be very less representation in Big Corporates like McKinsey, Google, Adobe etc from TN. If and only if there are people from TN in big corporates, they can influence their bosses to funnel/pump money into TN.
7. Little to no motivation to participate and win Olympiads. (IMO,IphO,IOI,NTSE,KVPY etc) I know this is too much to ask. However, people in Delhi do prepare for these exams from a very young age.

There is however one counter-example. (West Bengal). They have the best education, best institutions, best scholars India has ever seen but Kolkata is not so developed. This is purely because of the ignorance of the politicians.

These are just my observations. I maybe wrong.

— Sethupathi Balakrishnan

However, in this article I want to throw some light on some of the work we do in the VLSI industry. This article is not meant for the general audience.

← I am assuming that the reader understands that the lib,lef,netlist,constraints are already loaded even before we begin our design execution →

The Physical Design process starts after the Synthesis step. The SoC (System on Chip) is divided into various sub-blocks using a step called “Partitioning”. A processor contains various processing units (for eg, CPU,GPU,Camera, Video etc) and these are termed as Blocks. A block is assigned to the implementation engineer and he has to execute the design such that the Timing,DRC and Power requirements are met.

Implementation of a block starts with Floor-planning the design, followed by placement, CTS and routing the design. The floor-planning activity includes the arrangement of memory macros, pin placement and power planning of the design to minimise the wirelength and area of the design.

Here, I am about to present my understanding of one of the “research papers” written by my manager.

Majority of the designs these days involve manual placement of the macros and pins for optimal area and wire-length. The layout generated by conventional placement techniques will not be able to handle large incremental changes since a small change in the position of the macro cells will lead to displacement of a larger number of standard cells and hence will be significantly difficult to close the design.

There are however special tool features to accommodate these types of problems. (Automatic Floorplan Feature in Innovus → The user can feed the constraints and the tool generates a floor-plan). I do not know many people using this feature in the industry. So, what is this article about then? It’s about writing custom C++ code for very specific design requirements. The requirements and constraints to be met may vary from team to team.

There are 3 constraints in macro-placement.

1. Pre-Placed constraints (position of macros are fixed from top level)
2. Grouping constraints (macros of the same logic level are to be grouped and placed together)
3. Region constraints (The macro or a macro group should be placed with in a pre-determined rectangular boundary within the block)

Given below are the cost functions that capture the constraints.

Cost Function of the algorithm→

1. Wire-length (It’s the half perimeter of the minimum bounding rectangle containing the connected macro cells) (Not the actual wire-length) (handles the group and region constraints)
2. Effective standard cell placement area.
3. Corners (These are the physical corners)

These kind of problems fall under the following category of problems

1. Combinatorial Optimization Problem.
2. Multi-Objective Optimization Problem.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Constraint Graph based Legalization →

The macros are mapped onto a constraint graph for overlap removal. Positive slack in the constraint graph denotes separation of macros and negative slack denotes overlap between the macros. The overlap is removed by redistributing the positive slack along the path having negative edges.

(So, I myself know only the theory behind the graph based legalization problem. I am a newbie in coding and I am exploring graph data structure. And also I haven’t seen the code that was developed).

Some of the inputs fed to the custom algorithm (that I can think of are)

1. The macro attributes (size and area)
2. The constraints (Grouping, Pre-placed, region )
3. B-Box Area.
4. Blockages (optional)

The placement and legalization of macros happens in the following manner.

1. Initial random arrangement of macros.
2. The macros are then clustered based on connectivity.
3. Overlaps are removed and macros are pushed towards the periphery.
4. Macros are aligned along the horizontal and vertical edges, compacted with a contiguous area at the center. (Removes corners and aids in routable congestion free placement)

Disclaimer → This article only demonstrates my understanding of the Macro Placement Algorithm. I in no way am the owner or the developer of the algorithm. This paper has been written by my mentor 9–10 years back and is patented.

-Sethupathi Balakrishnan