Oct 06 2008
The moment of truth
I am set to test my power amplifier sometime this week. I had gotten my chip back a month ago, but I couldn’t test it until now because some post-processing had to be done and that didn’t get finished until now. The stakes are pretty high. This thing needs to work.
1. The last power amplifier I taped out had its output power fall short by about 6-7 dBm. It was completely out of my control and there was nothing I could have done to design my power amplifier correctly because I did not have a good model of the MEMS device I was integrating the power amplifier with.
2. This work is a part of the design contest.
3. If it is a failure, I’ll have to tape something out again and there’s a tapeout deadline in November, around the same time I go to Austin, and also around the same time I take my qualifying exam. Not good.
I was thinking about going long the market and taking advantage of a short term trading bottom, but I’ve been in the RF lab testing a retarded chip while watching the market go against me too many times. It sucks when your chip sucks. It sucks even more when the market also goes against you. So screw it, no trading.
The market tanked hard over the past week and I wasn’t short, what a shame. However, I know that I cannot chase this on the short side. The market always acts in a way that screws the most people and to trade well, you need to think like a crook. The way most people will be screwed is if we have another monster rally, people pile back into stocks again, and then the bottom falls out. The crash is not now.
Speaking of trading, this post is my first post in more than a week. I’ve managed to stay clear from BOTH trading and blogging for a whole week. I did play Tribes 2 the last two days though.