First thing Monday morning, Bill feels enthusiastic as he arrives at the office. He pulls up the schematic and sees that Ted has indeed changed the devices to be the right sizes. So, with great abandon he starts to work on the amplifier.

Bill first makes mental notes, remembering what Ted told him about the schematic. Ted said to think about matching and current issues. Bill also remembers the responses to his key questions, "What does it do?" "How much current does it take?" and "What are the matching requirements?" After taking mental stock of the concerns, he begins.

The first thing Bill notices is that there is no current annotated on the schematic. He has no idea how much current this amplifier is really taking.

Ted did say there was a reasonable amount of current in the cell, but what is reasonable? So, being the bright, enthusiastic lad that he is, Bill wanders around trying to find another circuit designer in the department who may know something about this. He knows better than to blindly throw his layout together on his own assumptions. Communicate, he was taught.

Eventually, he is put in touch with Joan, who is also working on this project. He asks her if she knows how much current is being put in the device.

Joan answers, "Well, I remember something from the design review, but I'm not really working on this project. My specialty is ESD structures. I'm making sure that...