Engineer by the Bay - Palani's Blog

Obama it is!

palanis — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:14:46 +0000

Day of history. Turning point in US history.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html

The “Last Lecture”

palanis — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:33:52 +0000

Check this out if you guys have done so already. Thanks to Subbi for passing this on to me. Definitely a keeper for life.

Randy Pausch
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469&hl=en

How GAAP accounting has resulted in misleading financial statements and hindered entreprunership

palanis — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:23:14 +0000

See http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp105.pdf

How to become a VP?

palanis — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:29:12 +0000

Thought this was good. Enjoy reading.

http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=18510

Outsourced: Movie Review

palanis — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:38:53 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LImhTTFu4b8

Janani and I watched this movie yesterday with my friend and his wife. I should say it is one of the best indo-american movies I have ever watched. It is very relevant to the outsourcing industry. Although some moments are exaggerated, there were certainly some aspects that bring out the beauty of India as well eccentricity of running call centers for American companies in India. I had a great time since I have seen all three sides of the subject myself: India, US and call center training (Yes, I have been to a call center to train some of their staff on our products).

It is an independent movie, so it is released in very few theatres. Catch it if you can.

New Role: Back to C

palanis — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:23:48 +0000

I have moved from the High Speed Serial Interconnect group to the embedded systems group in my company. This change has been pretty exciting and I am learning a lot. For those who just know me as a semiconductor professional, my job is still the same. I am just working on chips that drive IPODs, Digital Cameras, Keyboards, Mice, Fitness Equipment instead of chips that drive CISCO routers, video servers, etc, which is what I was doing earlier.

I have spent almost 6 weeks on hands on training. So back to C coding, microcontroller design and also some analog design.

On different note, you guys should check out this cool game that I found. It has been pretty addictive.

Measuring crosstalk on High Speed Serial Interfaces

palanis — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:35:12 +0000

We had a product that had a multiple channels of serial interfaces in the same chip. When we got multiple requests from customers to give them confidence that there is no interference between adjacent channels, specifically when they are simultaneously operating at different frequencies. We had to invent the measurement methodology since there were no specific techiniques to estimate the crosstalk and its impact on serial interfaces. The measurement methodology we came up with is the featured article in Planet Analog today. Thanks to Jeff Hushley for making the measurements and writing the article. The article can be found at

http://www.planetanalog.com/article/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=201000007

Back to Blog world

palanis — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:26:23 +0000

I am back. I have been swamped lately and been unable write blogs. There are a couple of topics I would like to complete first and then get back on track. Stay tuned.

What you don’t know about housing loans in India – Part 2

palanis — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 04:54:26 +0000

I was in India looking for a home and I consulted Canara bank for a loan since my brother had availed a loan from them. They instantly pre-approved me for a 85% loan of upto Rs. 50 lakhs. This means I will pay 15% of the money down and the rest of the money will be covered by a bank loan not exceeding 50 lakhs. Although 50 lakhs was what I requested, I was told that for an NRI, a loan of upto 1 crore was easily possible. I identified a house that I wanted to buy. I decided to take the Canara bank loan, but the builder who was going to sell the property to me would not entertain it. When I dug deeper, I came to know that the builder prefers loans from ICICI bank since they remit the loan amount quicker and will remit the full loan amount directly to the builder even when the property is 70 to 80% complete. He told me that the Nationalized banks will make partial payments proportional to percentage of completion of the building. I suspect if there are deals between banks and builders. The builder probably gets a cut out of the whole deal. I would like to know if others have heard anything in this regard. The builder actually pushed me to take 90% loan instead of 85% and ICICI actually gives out 90% loan. I was in a hurry and did not want to let go of the house, since that was only unit left in the location. So I agreed to go with the ICICI loan. After the fact, a year after getting the loan I feel I should have stuck with a Nationalized bank. My personal opinion is that if you have people back home (example: Parents) who can operate your account, you are better off going with a Nationalized bank. Although things happen at a slower pace at the nationalized banks, you can approach the manager of the branch anytime. They will spend the time talking to you. You can get statements anytime. You would be surprised how difficult it is to get any statement from bank like ICICI after the loan has been issued. You can never get into an ICICI office to speak to any official about your loan. A front office person will ask you to fill a form and tell you that they will contact you or send you the relevant statements. But nothing happens. On the other hand, for my brothers loan, my dad can walk into Canara bank, directly go and talk to the manager and get what he needs. Coming next in part 3: “Getting you hooked”.

What you don’t know about housing loans in India – Part 1

palanis — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:30:28 +0000

Last year I bought a home in Chennai and I availed a loan from ICICI bank. In my upcoming blogs I will share what a person like me normally goes through and what you might want to know upfront so that you make an informed decision.

First thing you might want to know: The banks are very forthcoming in giving out loans. You will find that you can easily get a loan of even 1 crore rupees pre-approved with very less paperwork. Gone are the days when it was difficult to get loans. With proof of steady income you can easily get a loan of upto 2x or 3x of your annual gross salary without any problems. You will be amazed by the so called “service” that some banks offer you these days. They send sales people to your homes to get all paperwork filled up. They go above and beyond to hook you up with a loan. You might think that it is wonderful customer service, but watch out if you do not know what you are getting yourself into, you might be up for a huge roller coaster ride. The media does not cover the dark side of this due to obvious reasons, they get significant ad revenue from these big banks. More to follow.