Ethiopia Trip

Last week (from 5th till 11th March, 2009) I visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for attending to a customer issue on one of Cypress' memory Part. The following are some of my experiences during the trip.

Addis Ababa is the capital City and also the biggest and most well developed city of Ethiopia. It is also the headquarter for United Nation's operations in Africa and because of this it is one of the better cities to stay in.

The climate here was really nice. The city is situated very near to the equator (9 deg North). Even then it is not very hot because of its altitude (2500m). Right now, its summer season and the maximum temperature was ~27C. In the night it used to be quite cold. I think the temp must have dropped to 10 but it feels like 5 because of the wind. None of the houses or even my Hotel had any fan/ac. It is never required in this country!.. If you go out in the sun, you would feel very hot, but the moment you enter any shade, it will again be cool! Everybody has to wear goggles to protect their eyes from UV light.

There were a lot of Indians in the city. A lot of Indians who came here earlier are teachers/professors in local school/colleges. Because of this, the local people respect Indians a lot. A lot of them even knew Hindi and on seeing me, they would greet in Hindi saying "Namaste", "Kaise ho?" etc.. (They could easily identify that I was from India). According to one Indian friend living here since last 2 years, there are around 3000 Indians in the city and they come together to celebrate festivals like holi etc. Also, lot of them are Gujarati and there is also a Gujarati people's association!! :)

There were also a lot of Indian restaurants - I saw 4 and went to 2 of them for lunch and dinner. For food, generally it is difficult to find vegetarian food here in Ethiopia. But these days. their fasting (Upvaas) period was going on. During fasting they don't eat Non veg or even milk products. So, if we order fasting food in any restaurant we can be assured of getting pure veg food :). And it was quite good. Here is a photo of their fasting food which i had for lunch one day. The round dosa like thing (it is folded in the photo) is called Injera and it is really big (almost 2.5 -3 times the normal dosa that we get in India) and it is also much thicker. Nearly 3/4th of it along with vegetables is more than enough for one person like me.

Most of the local people in Ethiopia are Christians. But the Christianity they follow here is different than what is followed in the US or UK or anywhere else. They have their own calendar which is about 7 years behind the normal calendar. They just celebrated the "Ethiopian Millennium" last year and i could see a lot of hoardings related to that everywhere. They have their own dates for Christmas, new year and other Christian festivals! There are a lot of sites in the country which are of religious importance to Christians. It is believed that Mother Mary stayed here for some time when she was traveling. One Indian friend told me that the songs they sing in Churches over here are different from other places and they sound somewhat like morning bhajans in our temples!!

Ethiopia is one of the most well developed countries in Africa. Their currency (Ethiopian Birr) is stronger than Indian Rupee (1 Birr = ~5 INR). So in general things are a little bit costlier than India. In the capital city, the roads are all very good and broad. Two wheelers are banned in the city! There are a lot of large Vans (slightly bigger than our Maruti Omni) which run across the city on a sharing basis (something like 6 seaters in some cities of India) and can take you from one place to another in 2-5 Birr. I saw very few municipality buses on the road. I used taxi to travel most of the times (since it was billed to my company :) ) and it was quite costly (about 10 Bir per km). The city in general was much less polluted than any normal Indian city. The concept of Credit/Debit card is still not famous here and you have to carry cash wherever you go. 

Also, all the development is still only limited to the 4-5 big cities in the country. Outside the cities, you will not find any mobile network or even landline. And at lot of places no electricity also!. The internet is pretty slow and 128 KBPS broadband is supposed to be fast!. (I saw such an advertisement in one of the cyber cafes!! )

All in all, it was a nice place and i had quite a good experience. Much better than I expected when leaving from India. 

Hope I haven't not bored you all with a very long blog post. You can find some photos from the trip here. 

What is My Fault?

The key to the doorway of success lies within. But one has to search there to find it. A Chinese philosopher has said,

"If you treat people with love and are subjected to enmity, search within;

If you selflessly help people and are greeted with non-cooperation, search within;

If you treat people with respect and are subjected to hostility, search within;

In fact, in any activity which does not bring the desired results, search within."

So the answer to the age-old question, "What is my fault?" has only one answer - "That I cannot see my own faults is my biggest fault."

And the only way to correct this is through constant introspection and humble prayer to God.

--Sadhu Amrutvijaydas

My Prayer for India

--Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arm towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is lead forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom,my Father,let my country awake.

India's National Flag

-- THE HINDU dated April 26, 1956

The Indian National Flag has all the elements of a universal flag, observed the Vice-President, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, while presiding over a meeting of the council of directors of the Nations' League of Pen Friends in New Delhi. He said: "There is nothing specifically national about its symbols. On the other hand, it conveys a message of world prosperity to be attained by self-discipline and order against eternal time. The Ashoka Chakra, the Wheel of Time, represents the Cosmos, working against the white background of eternity, the saffron at the top symbolises discipline and self-control, while the green below points to the creation of prosperity." Dr. Radhakrishnan said that when he explained this to Mahatma Gandhi, he admired it, even though in his characteristic way he opined that it was "unintentional." The Vice-President commended the ideals of the League to promote the establishment of a free world State, based on the principles of liberty, equality and justice and its principles of allegiance "not only to a particular nation, but to all humanity."

My experience with Clean room :-)

Today (bole to 4/4/06) I had a small tryst with destiny if i might say..

As a part of our miniproject in E3-227: VLSI Device and Process Simulation, we are supposed to fabricate a few copies of MOS Capacitor on a Silicon chip. Today we went abt making that and i tell you, it was truly a memorable experience.

Before we go on to fabrication a small aside on the MOS Capacitor(or the MOSCap-as we call it)
A MOScap is as the name suggests a capacitor which is made using MOS technology. For starters, it consists of a Metal layer, an oxide(SiO2) layer and a semiconductor(Si) substrate. The metal and the semiconductor act as the two plates of the capacitor and the SiO2 acts as the dielectric. Thus forming a simple capacitor.

Fabrication of a chip is a very lengthy process and involves a series of sophisticated steps. These steps are performed by sophisticated equipment which is located in something called the clean room. Its called a clean room because it is totally dust free. To maintain the dust free atmosphere inside the room everyone who enters must wear an attire which covers him from head to toe. Also we need to pass through an Air cleaning chamber where air is sprayed on us so as to remove any dust particles that may be there.
Even a small amount of dust(which is nothing but impure silicon) can get transferred to the chip and spoil it. Hence care must be taken.
The device that we were going to fabricate was nothing compared to the ones being fabricated in the industry(where each chip has some million transistors-while our chip had just abt 100 capacitors at the end). But the very fact that we were doing something like that was enough to excite us.
So there we were..doing something abt which we had only read abt in the books or seen on TV..
(etching the wafer....growing oxide over silicon.... preparing mask using Photo resist...... metal deposition...... and then finally annealing the wafer).
Although these were not even half the steps needed for fabricating a full fledged transistor, but i guess this was enough for starters.

The following is a brief Description of the process(for those who are interested to know) :-
1 inch diameter silicon wafer is taken. This wafer is highly impure and consists of a lot of organic impurities and also some oxide layer due to natural oxidation. All these impurities are first removed by a process called etching where the chip(wafer) is placed in a concentrated solution of H2SO4(3 parts) and H2O2(1 part) and later in De-Ionised(DI) water.
After that the chip is ready for oxide growth. This is done by placing the wafer in a furnace maintained at a temperature of 1000 degC in an atmosphere consisting of dry O2. This is done for about 30 mins to obtain an oxide layer of 40nm thickness.
After that a mask is prepared and Aluminium deposition is done only at the places where we require the metal contacts(the upper plate of the capacitor)
After that the Chip is take to the other lab where Annealing is done in inert(Argon) atmosphere at 400 degC for abt 30 mins.

The whole process went on for some 5 hrs and we thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment of it. Today was one of those days when i really felt very very happy(and lucky) for coming to IISc. Really it was a moment to cherish. :-)

The following is an image of the chips at the end of the process.. the white dots that you see are the aluminium deposits. Each of them is a capacitor terminal(so abt 100 or more capacitors on one chip!!)... Now we need to do the characterization of some of them..that will be done in the coming week..so keep checking for the updates... :P

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
--Robert Frost

If.....

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
--- Rudyard Kipling