Must... Have... More... Problems!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Must... Have... More... Problems!

I realized that despite all my little programming projects, I've been keeping to a narrow list of applications. Most of my perl projects mostly involve arrays of arrays and simple nesting loops. My Python and Lisp projects end up being an exercise in recursive diversion. As the liberals say, I've got to embrace diversity.

So I've been looking for interesting stuff to work on. Lists of programming problems asked in interviews would seem to supply more than enough interesting material, but given that they exist mainly to weed out an astonishingly large percent of applicants who cannot program their way out of a paper bag, I don't think I'll find much euphoric-sense-of-playing-G-d in those questions.

So I will ask you. What is a cool problem to solve?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at October 30, 2007 18:38 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
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Comments:

#1 01 November 2007 - 19:57

ok here is a real-life one:
In a cmos style inverter there are 2 parameters that can be changed by a vlsi designer. The size of the nmos and the size of the pmos. Additionally there can be an odd number of them in series and it would be still considered an inverter. Typically 3 or 5 in series. Each one of these can have its transistors sized differently.
The transistor's sizes effect just about every single output and input parameter of the inverter. So your programming assignment would be to figure out based on some desired results 1 how many inverters in series to use 2 what size should each one of these be. To determine this you will be request the user to give a series of weights to each parameter. For example if I want time to complete to be the most important I would give it the highest weight. Its up to you to decide what the range the weights should have. The total result for each produced circuit should be in this form:
y1= (particular reading of the circuit)(weight of the value)/(average reading of the parameter of all the circuits simulated)
Now sum over all parameters, and tell me which y got the highest value. Allowing me to build the circuit, without reading a dead animals organs. For example 10 circuits were simulated and I said the weight for temperature should be negative 5, the average of the 10 circuits was 35 a particular reading is 2 then y1's first term is:
(-5)(2/35)
obviously temperature should be a negative reading while features like input impedance should have a positive weight. In order to calculate the result there are two possible strategies. 1 modify a circuit program like spice in such a way as to run each combination with the number of steps determined by the user. Useful in real life where margins of error exist. Another strategy is to take all the equations that model a cmos inverter and use a simultaneous equation solver on its gradiates. See polynomial curve fitting. Assume that the supply voltage can not be changed from 3.3 volts. Also for bonus points you can decide how all the parameters change as a function of input frequency.

These are the output parameters that can be effected:
total capacitance internal
power consumed dynamically
static consumed power
The highest possible output value in volts
The lowest possible output value in volts
the noise margins
the time delay average
the time delay worst case
the power consumed as a function of frequency
the overall size of the circuits
the switching threshold
total energy consumed during a switching operation

if your interested I will send you the equations that model all of the parameters

Anonymous

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Must... Have... More... Problems!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at October 30, 2007 18:38 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
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Must... Have... More... Problems!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at October 30, 2007 18:38 EST | Permalink | comments (1) | postCountTB('686057'); geekeryComments open but moderated. I reserve permission to kill spammers on sight.

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Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at October 30, 2007 18:38 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
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