A bit about my PhD

I know this is far too late to start blogging about my PhD, which I already have started since Jan 2012 ago. But I might regret not to write about it anyway one day later who knows, so it may not harm to start writing about it now.

My PhD is funded by the Indonesian government directorate general of higher education. I have tried to apply for other scholarships during my time at Universitas Gadjah Mada, and failed, but maybe that is what is meant to be: that I would have less problems moving to Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember mid 2011. My research area is basically microelectronics, even though as lecturer in UGM most of my research projects were embedded systems. As I looked for PhD topics and potential supervisors, I got interested at one point to a PhD opening by a professor at Sydney University. Long story short, I end up having that exact same PhD topic (they are practically the same project) but by his collaborator and also former student, at UNSW. So, here I am now, doing PhD in microelectronics, at The University of New South Wales.

Electrical Engineering Building, UNSW, Kensington. The window of my office room is one of the ones seen here.

I joined the nanolab group not long before they start on a 180 CMOS process chip tape out plan. As I was new, I get to join with other friends on working on a design that has been started previously in the group: a sigma delta modulation digital to analog converter.
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Lihat Kebunku

Lihat Kebunku (Look at my garden)

Leaves come in many shapes,
and different sizes.

Look at this one, they're tiny and thin,
just like your hands and little fingers.
Go ahead, grab a leaf,
or a bunch of them....

Oops, no no,
they're not supposed to go in there.
Not without being cooked,or maybe not even after.
It's not food, at least not yet.


Hey what about this plant.
Huge, hey?
Swing.... swing.... look it swings....
and look how thick they are,
and how wide they span.

Next.
Hmmm... what do we have here?
Can these even be called leaves?
They are green all right. But they don't look like leaves.
Yes they are tiny, and many,
but how can we tell them from the stem,
or the branch, if they all... branch.

Let's get closer, shall we
And touch them with your nose,
Take a deep breath,
I hope it's freshness you smell,
Not that something else,
that can make you
shout "hatchooh!"

Kisah kelahiran putra pertama kami PART 1

Tanggal 27 Juni 2011 pukul 6.00 WIB, telah lahir anak kami di Rumah Sakit Putri, Jalan Arif Rahman Hakim, Surabaya. Ini adalah kisahnya.

Semula, perkiraan tanggal kelahiran anak kami adalah 6 Juli 2011. Sejak kehamilan bulan kedua, kami rutin mengunjungi dokter kandungan yang kebetulan juga masih famili dari pihak istri (dr. Agus Sulistyono, SpOG). Tanpa kami duga sebelumnya, this choice (dokter) also led us (or forced us, precisely?) to go to RSIA Putri, one of the hospitals where the doctor works in, instead of other public hospitals in Surabaya. It's a private hospital, khusus ibu dan anak, and does not accept Askes. (sigh)

So when my wife, Vita, suddenly had blood covered in thick mucus coming out from her one morning, apparently it was only a matter of time until we left for that hospital.
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Set-top box untuk akses internet pada TV

[repost] 555-logic: designing digital circuits with 555s only!

The basic idea of 555-logic is to implement digital logic circuits with 555 ICs only. This gives advantage that a relatively higher and wide range of power supply voltage can be used, limited by the specification of the 555 IC (4.5V - 16V). According to Shannon through his famous 1937 Masters thesis at MIT, any combinational logic circuits can be made with switches. With semiconductor technology, these switches can be in the form of transistors. To use 555 as a transistor switch, one can utilize the internal pull-down transistor of a 555 (Figure 1).

Figure 1  Using the transistor of a 555

There is a restriction on how to use this transistor as its emitter is connected to ground pin (1).
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