Hi folks!

I am an electronics Msc student, and I am mostly interested in analog chip design. I have been reading Grey and meyer's great book, and it's really great. The best book I've seen on analog chip design. I am 31 years old now and I don't actually have much experience in analog design. I am a bit scared that after I graduate, companies would not take much interest in me. I am working hard to learn but experience in actual design is lacking. I started out in life as a pure mathematician with a good knowledge and more than enough knowledge of physics (for electronics). A few years after, I discovered electronics, and became totally fascinated and identified with it. I found the beauty of electronics much more appealing than that of mathematics because it's tangible. Maths is beautiful on its own right but very abstract. Electronics is maths in action and I love it with passion and want to become good at it.

I have discovered over this period that electronics is very much like a language. One learns as many building blocks as one can, and then puts them together to form larger blocks. And one creates and discovers new blocks. In this respect, it's similar to mathematics.

I want to become a good analog engineer, preferably a chip designer. I would appreciate your opinion on the best path to accomplish this for me at 31.

What are your opinions on this?

Thanks a lot!

 

If you're good at your job then companies will want you , especially if you can design something cost efficient yet durable , not just quick designs.

 

There are those in electronics who fight math usage, which is sad, you are
in an enviable position.

University level education do have a number of device design with fabs
and they do teach actual chip design. I would think at minimum a course
or two would make sense. And that would have prerequisites. Not a moun-
tain to climb but neither a road bump. Consider talking to a university prof
about how to tackle the move. I am sure they would have sage advice.

Wouldn't hurt to go to a chip conference and talk to a couple of designers
and discuss your goals. Even capture an email address or two and ID
yourself and ask for advice. I would be surprised if you did not get some
good advice.

Analog is a mix of art, science, modeling, bench testing, compromise. I had
the good luck in early part of my career to sit amongst both application engineers
and chip designers, and often they overlapped in both areas. Taking a discrete
circuits design and translating it into chip design. And back again when bench
testing the chip. Models helped but always only partially complete. Math the same.

Read some books on analog design, Bob Pease, Jim Williams come to mind.
Do some breadboarding, torture some parts, its still an art to some extent.

Deep semiconductor insight, Tom Frederiksen

https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-M.-Frederiksen/e/B001HCX45S

"Intuitive IC Electronics" especially.

Regards, Dana.

 

Try to find a company in a place that you are willing to live that does what you want to do, and try to get a job or internship there. Any job. The goal is to get in the door. Working your way into the job that you want will likely be much easier from the inside, than from the outside.