Re: How to develop a random number generation device

On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:54:35 -0500, John Fields
<jfields@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:06:45 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:10:56 -0500, John Fields
<jfields@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:53:26 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


If you're using deep sub-micron technology, like modern dram, whose
soft errors compromise reliability, then something like ECC becomes
mandatory. What scares me is stuff I can't do anything about, like
FPGA config ram.

Things like using redundant data storage, with background checks and
checksums, can be done, but that seems like more trouble than the
device density is worth.

---
Why not let your client be the judge of that?

I have many customers. Sometimes I conferr with them as regards
product performance or interface; I almost never discuss internal
design issues with them. Few of them ever see schematics or source
code.

---
I wasn't referring to the nitty-gritty of it, of which your clients
would certainly not be aware unless they asked for your design
documentation, I was referring to getting the widgets to do what
they're supposed to do within your contractual cost constraints.

For example, let's say that for $1M a hit you could guarantee that
one tenth of the ten million dollar fighters on which your equipment
was mounted wouldn't be shot down because of failures in your stuff,
but for $2M a hit you could guarantee ten times better than that.

You present your figures to your customer and let _them_ make the
choice.

We sometimes do present a customer with a cost/performance tradeoff,
although once a gadget becomes a catalog item there's not much wiggle
room. We have never, so far, offered a customer a price:reliability
tradeoff. The image we'd like to convey is that we make things as
reliable as we can.

In some cases, it's like never telling your mother that you have a
term paper due; if you did, she'd nag you about it. Similarly, if we
have an MTBF tradeoff of some sort, it's probably better to not let
the customer get involved.

John

.

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