In the Belly of the Beast

I have now been working at my new job for about one month now and my first impressions are along the lines of, Whoa...

This company is much larger than my previous employer and I am finding the sheer scale of operations to be a bit daunting. I now realize that previously I was performing the tasks of people who fill 5 or 6 (more like 10ish) positions at this new place. I now can focus more directly on my own role in the lab, rather than on keeping track of all the different responsibilities I had before. This has its pros and cons. I am able to get more done and in a faster fashion, but at the same time, I'm not juggling as many balls, which had it's own invigorating merits. I have to say that I am lucky for my previous multi-faceted work experience because it gave me a good overview of how a company is run internally through many different departments and will be a huge asset moving forward. Not to mention that now I am mainly dealing with ICs (integrated circuits), where as before I was dealing with everything high tech, across all sectors and fields. This too will really allow me to remain broad within the narrow field of Failure Analysis (though not too narrow to be fair).

My second major revealation comes from how I as an individual am being treated here- like a Grownup of all things! I mean I know that 28 is still rather young, but not having to take competancy tests, not needing to fill out a time card, and having my opinions honestly considered really makes me feel like a professional adult. I guess what it really boils down to is trust. I am being trusted to be intelligent and not waste time. Before, I was being trusted to not screw up the lab while my boss was out, but not trusted to be intelligent and not waste time. I always found that juxtaposition to be rather daunting.

Finally, THE DRAMA! It is amazing how the amount of drama goes like the number of people cubed, well, acutally I think it's more like n! b/c it probably scales with the number of relationships that are possible and I think that is n! in math terms. You go from 24 possible relationships with 4 people (ie groupings of people who can talk and generate drama) up to 120 possible relationships when there are 5 people involved. I am working with approximately 6 people who directly affect my life which is approximately 360 possible relationships, mmm drama. There isn't even that much drama, just a few conflicts of personality (by others around me, but not actually me btw, I love everyone!) that affect my life, but it is still very stark in comparision to zero drama (well, near zero drama).

Anywho, I just thought I'd share some of my first impressions on going from a small company to a medium company. It has been an interesting experience and I am still learning loads everyday about business, failure analysis, engineering, and myself. (The above image is an x-ray image of the cross-sectional view of a wire bonding to a lead.)

What Does Jesse DO?

People ask me what do you do? It's often a hard question because there is so much to this industry, that when I say, well I work in high tech, it doesn't quite capture it. It's really more like, I try to figure out whether/why a high tech thing is breaking, broken, or otherwise messed up in various ways. There is a number of techniques that can be used. At my lab we can use optical microscopy, x-ray transmission microscopy, and acoustic microscopy to look at something without messing with it. However, to get a more complete picture of what's going on, you have to mess with it. This is done by removing parts to directly inspect what is left with things like an optical microscope, or a scanning electron microscope (which will be coming soon). Basically I'm making pretty pictures, so I thought I'd show some of them to illustrate what it is that I do.

These are all optical images:

This is a typical BGA (Ball Grid Array) package. From the top down you have the copper heat sink, followed mold compound (plasticy stuff) with filler particles (SiO2 particles), and that's followed by the brains of the operation- the leads connecting to the silicon die. The bottom of the die is attached to the ground though the "die attach" which also dissipates heat.

Here is a closer view of the leads, silicon die, die attach, and the via (metal filled with plastic) that grounds the die. However, in this image you can see that there is a "void" in the plastic filling the via.

This is what's called a "dark field" image. Basically instead of looking at the direct reflections of the light, which makes all of the metal bits very bright, this looks at the sides of the beam rather than the center of the beam. Here you can really see that void.

This is the higher magnifications of the leads connecting to the active side of the silicon die. If you look close you can see the transistors and the pad that the lead frame.

Here you can see the individual transistors (or whatever it may be) which here which look to be about 5um thick. There is an empty pad, or something, off to the far left. You can see the boxed in area on the right is something like 20 um2, and is the pad has now become an intermetalic mixture or alloy.

Trolls Live Under the Bridges

This is our bridge, the Richland Ave bridge over San Jose Ave (which becomes Guerrero St a few hundred yards up). It is a nice bridge and I think it looks cool. However, there is more here than the eye can see. Notice the area between the hillside and the bridge abutment? Trolls live there. I'm serious. Real-life honest-to-goodness, trolls.

Here is a slightly better shot of the space to which I am referring. They don't exactly extract a toll from crossers, but there is an unusually high rate of car vandalisation and break-ins on the bridge. I had both of my locks messed with, the driver's side no longer works ($200 to fix), you often see broken windows and glass in the parking areas, and even Liz's old school 1984 Accord was broken into (they didn't get anything but left the door open and the battery went dead).

One hole in the fence means a troll infestation on the order of dozens. Liz has counted between 10 and 20 people going in and out of this space under the bridge during a typical day. During the nights you can hear them yell and shout and scream, sometimes they will throw glass bottles down into the abutment for 5 or 10 minutes creating quite a racket. The sounds that echo up from these spaces makes me think of how it will sound when civilization comes apart at the seams. But who knows...

What do they do under here? Drugs? Sex? A little of both? You can see in this picture that they have made a bit of a nest under there for themselves. The other day we saw a perfectly normal looking red head skulking around our Troll hole. What did she need? She kept darting up and down from below. Was she waiting for her dealer, her hookup, a hookup, to hookup, or what?

Are they just poor sad homeless people who need some shelter from the wind and fog? I have spoken to a couple of them, typical immigrants from Mexico or Central America, down on their luck. I truly feel for these poor folks, but that doesn't change the facts, they are our very own, modern day- Trolls.

Ray's First Show

Great job Ray!

The Desolation Crew

Brian in true form.

Liz soaking up the last rays.

Anne reading on a split rock.

Desolation Wilderness

This weekend I went away with Liz, Brian and Anne to do some backpacking in Desolation Wilderness. This was my second time going, but it was just as beautiful as I remember. Here's what the hike looked/felt like. I will be posting some pictures later.

Another Photo Published

Today I got a nice little treat, one of my pictures made it on the SFist blog seen here. Always nice to be appreciated by others. Sorry I haven't been posting as often here, but I've been busy with life!

New Job!

I have managed to secure a new job at a new company with new pay and new skills to learn. I am sad to leave my co-workers, as I've always enjoyed their company. I've enjoyed working with all of them and will miss the laughs. However, I am very excited about this new prospect as my previous job didn't seem to have much in the way of a future if I stuck with it for too long, especially as I have said before, at the pay scale they were offering. The problem can be explained by the following:

When I was interviewing with one of the higher ups he said something very interesting to me, there are two teirs in any industry; Technician and Technologist. You want to be the Technologist. I was worried that I would get stuck at Technician. The problem is that there is a barrier between the Technicians and the Technologist. For starters, there must always be more Technicians than Technologists. This means that the Technicans must be paid much less than the Technologists or else the business model won't work. Also, you can only move up through when a Technologist leaves their position. Now, I don't know if you noticed, but the stock market crashed, which means that people's retirement investments crashed, which means they are going to be working for longer than ever before as they need to make up the difference. This coupled with the fact that people are living longer and healthier lives means upward mobility for the rest of us is squashed, not to mention that older people tend to say, "Well that's how we've always done it." I would say I am now at the upper reaches of the Technican status, but I am that much closer to breaking through the veil.

The great thing is that I accomplished my two goals with this company. I wanted to get into the high tech world and get a feel for the industry and key players, and I wanted to develop my network of people to help me find a new job. I can honestly say that these goals were accomplished. This allows me to walk away with my head held high.

Penelope Trunk - Brazen Careerist Blog

Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist Blog is one of the best to which I am currently subscribing. She is insightful and willing to take on the uncomfortable issues like how much oral sex different demographics receive, and today she's pointing her finger at overpaid doctors. 

I also found these two articles (End of the Glass Ceiling, Forget a Wage Gap) discussing gender equality to be very enlightening. These in conjunction with this article about the Gender Gaps that still exist. She has a very interesting take on how to view the problem, rather than starting with the assumption that there even is a problem. I don't know that I 100% agree with her, but I am happy that someone (especially an intelligent lady) is discussing our assumptions about the issue, and questioning what the true definition of equality really means. Do you really want to have the same life as men have had? As I posted before, it doesn't mean happiness. 

Finally, I wanted to link to her discussion of how to politely wiggle around the interview question, "How much do you want to be paid?" I made two (among many) rookie mistakes when getting my current job, I answered this question, and I didn't come back with a counter offer. When you are out there looking for you next employment, always make sure that they give you the number first, and that you always come back with a counter. The first is important because you can only undercut your value by giving them a number (because if you are high, then you might not get the job, and if you are low then you are selling yourself short). The second is important because what's the worst they can say to a counter offer? No. I just know that some of you are/will be looking for jobs, and I HIGHLY recommend that you read this post before you go into the interview.

Thank you Penelope for an excellent blog, I will be reading avidly. 

Mom is a Graduate

A couple of weekends ago, my Mom at age 55, became a college graduate, the first in her family. I am very proud of her achievement, and know how hard it was for her on many levels. She graduated valedictorian with a 3.96 GPA from Marygrove College in Detroit with a BSW (Bachelors in Social Work). I would like to take a minute to reflect on some of the hurdles that my Mom had to overcome to arrive a such a wonderful achievement this spring. 

She grew up in Auburn Hills Michigan in the farm country which was in the process of developing into the suburbs of Detroit. Fairly classic white flight region, she was the daughter of a WWII vet who came home to work for a construction firm doing bids and various other tasks. The family had its problems with the typically rambunctious kids getting the attention while my Mom just tried to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. She was the classic "good one" and manged to keep her nose out of drugs, sex, and all the other things that can so easily de-rail the teenager life. 

The problem was with society. You have this obviously intelligent girl who has a bright future, but no one to tell her that she could and should achieve the stars. In fact my Mom has told me a story about her high school guidance councillor, whom we all know can be rather hit or miss. My Mom wanted to become a teacher when she was in high school, and said as much to her councillor. The councillor (among others) basically told her, why? All you need to do is marry a rich man and you will be all set. Look out for that diamond ring, pop out a baby and go from there. It is so sad to think about how different my Mom's (and my own) life would be if that person had said something encouraging. I probably wouldn't even be alive...

My Mom has always harped on getting a proper education. I can't tell you how many young girls my Mom grilled about getting into college and getting some kind of a degree. I think that she always felt partially powerless about her employment situation, and didn't want other girls to go through the same trials and tribulations. I can remember time and again when girl-friends would come over to my place, they would always get an ear full from my Mom about graduating from high school and going on to college. She always painted it as a non-option, rather, something that you JUST DO!

Now, after a marriage, having two kids, losing one of them tragically to a drowning, a divorce, raising her niece through the trials of puberty, a re-marriage, getting her son through college, some financial distress, and the pressure of being an older student- she has done it! She has put her money where her mouth is and snagged that degree from the sky. 

I am so proud of her, I can hardly stand it. Here is to you Mom, I hope this boosts you to a profession that you have always wanted- to be a teacher. 

PS

She has been accepted at the University of Michigan School of Social Work for the 2010 Class. UofM has a great program (ranked 2nd according to this site). She's been pretty snarky about it being "HER" school, but I'd just like to point out who went first!  =P take that mom!