Darren’s Design Notebook
Week of February 14th
Project Work
- Created Design Notebook
- Research on OpenRAM and preparing a presentation
Comments
- Reading Research Papers is a pain
Week of February 21st
Project Work
- Discussed with James and Xingzhi on working on getting memory working
- I was sick, didnt get to do it
Comments
- Weak immune system strikes again
Week of February 28th
Comments
- No project work completed, first Graduate midterm ever, YAY!
- Still recovering form sickness
Week of March 7th
Project Work
- Getting somewhere with OpenRAM, able to get it installed in a Conda environment
- Having trouble understanding how to setup default variable paths for OpenRAM
Comments
- Reading through the OpenRAM github is getting a little easier, only took till the 5th attempt
Week of March 14th
Project Work
- Actually able to get a verilog file generated, thanks to much help with troubleshooting from James
- Filepath setup took a while, but it got there in the end.
- Understanding how to properly do a config file is up next
Comments
- Reading filepaths multiple times to make sure that there isn’t a folder missing or a typo, is not my strong suit
Week of March 21st
Comments
- Midterm season has fallen upon us
Week of April 4th
Project Work
- Begin working on OpenRAM documentation for future members and future use
- Worked Locally, so one commit at the end, but link
Comments
- Noticed that a lot of work after the founding members left became attempting to figure out what was left where, what was done, what hasn’t been done, what needs to be done, etc… Focusing on documentation for the future will allow for this VIP to more sustainable without having ultra-long term members.
Week of April 11th
- More work done on the OpenRAM documentation repo
- Hopefully will be able to add upon it throughout the Summer months, but it is at a state that people can use it as a guide to work on.
Week of April 18th
Notes
- Discussing wrapping up work for the semester among the rest of the team
- Preparing for end-of-semester debrief
Week of April 25th
Notes
- Meetings are now focused on next semester in mind, with new protocols and onboarding prepared for new members
- Slow but steady restructure of the VIP has been discussed among the senior members for a while now, and it is taking a while, but we have a good goal in mind and the members that are taking up leadership next semester are preparing to step-up, me included.
Week of May 2nd
Notes
- Great Final meeting being able to hear from everyone and their work that they were able to do throughout this work-around semester. We have an onboarding project ready, setup, documents prepared, and are heading into the next semester with a potential overarching goal of documenting the pre-existing processor so that it is back in a workable state.
Personal Comments
Initially joined the VIP back in my Sophomore year, and felt incredibly overwhelmed with everything that was tossed directly at me. Proccessor Design was not what I originally thought it to be, and also this VIP being so self-lead felt different from other things that I was told about VIPs at the time. It felt as if there was a semi-lack of leadership, not saying the old members were bad, they were amazing in their own right, just maybe some things could have been easier for newer members that are more lost.
I am personally going to a IEEE Conference in Dallas at the end of May with some of my friends, hoping to gain valuable insight into the semiconductor industry that I am very interested in. Maybe even incorporating some hardware into this VIP so that it isn’t entirely RTL design and verification. I am also hoping to learn more at this Conference and bring more to the table as the ‘Team Lead’ next semester.
I think that the VIP has had a rough semester transitioning from the old structure to a newer structure while having new members join. It has gone great with the new members being cooporative and working on a smaller scale project that will be used as the onboarding project for next semester. Using this project as a start, and providing newer members with proper points of contact allow for the more senior members to starting working on documentation, understanding what has happened, what needs to happen, and the steps that are needed to get there. Incorporating some sort of testbench/testing phase to the mini-project would be a good way to close of the onboarding for new members.
With the VIP against its own back with every route to another project being closed from companies going bankrupt, research being hard to start in the field, and options being limited to software as we do not have access to hardware. With the VIP being stuck in this never-ending loop of we need a little bit of hardware to be able to get somewhere meaningful in a shorter-term, but we can’t hardware funding until we show something substantial with software, but we can’t do that without having a clear goal requiring hardware in mind, the options are limited. I have been in this VIP for a few semester now, it is one of the few VIPs at NYU that is the gateway towards RTL Design, Processor Design, and this industry as a whole, I want to help keep this running and alive for future students and members.
Hopefully, with me gaining more knowledge at the Conference in May, and future Graduate Courses that I am taking, I am able to be in a position where I can help take this VIP to a clearer path with the help of other returning members that are just as passionate.