Anyone have an online class they recommend for designing chips?
You need to learn prerequisites first:
1) digital logic design (combinatorial and sequential logic, synchronous and asynchronous circuits, automata theory, etc.)
2) elements of circuit theory (nodal analysis, mesh analysis, you'll need to understand what SPICE will do for you and what it won't do)
Only after some understanding of the above you will be able to comprehend the CMOS ASIC design textbooks.
For somebody who is a self-starter the best way is to get some low end FPGA kit from e.g. Digilent or Avnet or Terasic. Low-end because those are supported by the free editions of the respective design toolchains. This is the main objective: to actually understand the methodology and limitations. When FPGA's were competitive for Bitcoin mining several members of this forum learned everything from scratch in about 3 months.
The classroom environment becomes important only later. You want to choose a school that has access to the
https://www.mosis.com/ prototype fabrication service.
Bitfury actually did his first chip in partnership with some Polish research institute when I pointed to him that he will then qualify for
http://www.europractice-ic.com/ which is an European equivalent of USA's MOSIS.
Thanks for the info and recommendations.
I teach telephone technicians how to use their meter to identify and locate troubles on wire line telephone service; not wireless. I also teach transmission trouble shooting and some outside plant engineering design. ADSL is asynchronous but I'm very limited on my knowledge of it. My training focuses more on maintaining the wire and/or fiber [In the middle] connecting networks together rather than each end of the network with its equipment.
Telephony training in the telephone industry has taken a hit lately with the economy being so terrible. When the stocks of CenturyLink and AT&T take a hit, one of the first things to go in their budget cuts is training. I used to be on the road 42 to 45 weeks annually. Now, I'm fortunate to get 6 to 10 weeks of training classes annually after more than 18 years in training. So, i turned to mining to supplement income I had lost from less training.
Now, it looks like I might have to open up some e-cig stores to supplement my income from training. I've been thinking about opening up six to ten e-ciggerette stores in my area. I may end up going that route to make the funds. It's quite possible to clear $5K+ monthly from each store after taxes and expenses. A buddy of mine does this on average from each of his 14 stores scattered over about a 40 mile radius.
I'll take your advice to heart, weigh my options and decide what to do with my time. Obtaining the funds is the biggest obstacle in my opinion. I don't see where it profits me much to learn the stuff if I don't have the funds to use it. I may end up continuing the way I'm going with buying the best gear I can get my hands on when it's available. The block halving approaching doesn't help at the moment either.
So, more than likely, I'll go the e-cig route to obtain more funds to have more options when it comes to mining. If a 0.06 watts per GH/s rig comes on the market, I'm quite certain it would be able to mine with profits for quite a while. Maybe for the lifetime of the rig. I hope someone comes out with one soon that's available to us all. I'm not giving up on mining. That's for sure. I'm now in wait and see mode regarding mining.
Thanks again for your recommendations.
