LEG

Well, to cut a long "mond" story short, I have accepted EngD sponsorship with ARM! :)

Ten CVs were sent to ARM for consideration, five of which were selected for a telephone interview, then two were asked down to Cambridge for a face-to-face interview and then one would be selected for sponsorship.

I had my telephone interview with them last Wednesday, with the manager of R&D and another top guy, which went well as they emailed me half an hour after asking me down to Cambridge on Monday the 12th.

Flights were arranged for me by Sandie at the ISLI for the Monday morning, arriving at 11am for my 2 hour technical interview from 2pm then getting the return flight at 9pm from Stansted (which was only half an hour away using a direct train). I wasn't too happy about this as it would be a very long day so I would of prefered staying over on the Sunday night. However, she wasn't "willing" to pay the extra, which was strange since it was ARM paying for it.

Anyway, it was a very long day and I was shattered coming home on the plane. (Though seeing all the lights from miles above on a clear night was very nice). The interview was split into two one hour sessions with different people. They asked me about my projects at Uni, FPGAs, things about using shared memory, paging, cache consistency, some ideas I had for a project, etc. Surprisingly, they didn't ask me about computer architecture even though I had studied up on it for a few days before.

The project had already been outlined and the abstract I got is below.

Title: Reliability implications of next generation SoCs.

Abstract:

Consideration of device reliability due to soft errors and wear-out is anticipated to become an increasingly prevalent requirement in future process geometries as feature size and voltage decrease, and still today, we have difficultly in understanding the detailed consequences and system wide effects of such errors in processing systems. How do we design cost sensitive systems to deliver existing levels of reliability with increasingly unreliable silicon?

This research project aims to investigate the design and integration of dependable computing measures. It will investigate the fundamental factors affects device reliability; including analysis, trends, and detection and recovery mechanisms, and explore how these can be integrated into future SoCs. The project will also investigate how reliability measures impact system level design, the impact on multi-processor and data engine systems, and how these can be reliably interconnected.

Initial proposals for key investigative areas:

1. Reliability of the single compute engine
(Fundamentals of dependable computing; analysis, trends, integration and development of error detection and recovery mechanisms)

2. System level design and integration of multiple interconnected processing elements, data engines, and peripherals
(ARM processor design and system level integration, processor interconnection, FPGA development)

3. Reliability at the system level, reliable interconnection, processing element wear-out and total system level reliability
(Integration of 1. and 2.)

The further I researched into it the more I was interested in it. The project is quite open in so much as that I'll be exploring what can be done and guiding it, which will be enjoyable.

So I will spend six months from the 3rd of October studying at the ISLI then I will move down to Cambridge to work on the project, occasionally coming up for some modules.

So I'll be down at Cambridge for about four years. Quite a big step really. I had to think about accepting it first, but it was too good an opportunity to pass. I really wanted to work for ARM, the EngD will be very good experience and I'll get to work on some cutting edge research with this project. Obviously, the down side being moving all the way down South.

I've talked it over with Mariken and what happens depends on where she finds a job. She had an interview with a company called Xplore Learning who have places near Cambridge but that would involve her moving down some months before me. If she gets a job up here then after I've spent some time down there then we can evaluate what we want to do.

Otherwise I've been looking around for cars. Some of the contenders are/were (all new cars):

Seat Ibiza 1.4 Sport 3dr
Vauxhall Corsa 1.2i SXi 3dr
Ford Fiesta 1.4 Zetec 3dr
Renault Megane 1.4 3dr
Fiat Punto 1.2 3dr
Citroen C2 1.1i

:( The Ibiza didn't have enough head room and didn't have a seat height adjustor, which was an optional extra (POOR). It was quite slow too.

:( The Corsa is quite nippy but it didn't have a steering wheel height adjustor so it grazed against my leg.

:) The Fiesta fitted me well but was quite bland inside, and well on the outside too. Seems like the best value though.

:) Although it may not be to everyone's taste, I like the shape of the Megane. It has cool things like: you start the car with a card rather than a key, full electric windows that can all be controlled from the driver's position, weird hand brake that looked like an accelerator from an airplane and stereo volume control on the steering wheel. Downside is that the three doors are difficult to come by and are on the expensive side for me.

:( The Punto was nice looking but the underside of the dashboard hits my shins when I reach for the pedals.

:( The C2 is nice to look at and surprisingly fits me. However, there is no room in the back, which I suppose is not an issue as I would hardly ever have more than one passenger. The engine is a bit small so it's quite slow. But the bigger 1.4 is a bit pricey.

So I have a test drive with the Fiesta tomorrow and I'll need to get one for the Megane as well because that will ultimately be the decider. Also, the Fiesta is cheaper ;) But the Megane uses a magic keycard! Oh dear.

Ta Ta....

--
mond