Hi there,

please allow me the opportunity to explain my situation.

I am a mathematician who a few years ago decided to abandon the pursuit of mathematics to dive into electronics.

I totally fell in love with the beauty of electronics and I decided to change fields.

The maths of electronics is not a problem for me. I am a king at mathematics. Logic is easy, the hard part is understanding how circuits operate. Electronics seems more difficult to me than mathematics. It's funny because people think maths is the hardest subject. But I find electronics harder than maths, because when you look at a circuit, it's kinda impossible to know what it does unless you take some time to follow the electrons in your head.

I am now studying electronics at a university at postgraduate level (Msc), and I've been wondering how can I maximize my learning ?

How can I become a great electronics engineer ? My interest is analogue circuit and IC design. I want to become very good at it but I'm not sure how to proceed.

Should I read books ? Or is it mostly practice because you never know how a real circuit will throw at you? Or is it a combination ?


Is it necessary to work in the industry, or can I become great by becoming a university professor so I have more time to read books and research ?

 

Welcome to AAC and good luck in your search. I moved your thread to get a better fit.

 

Hi John,

Do big companies like Microchip, TI, ST and so on hire people without a first degree in electronics related area? For example my bachelors is maths, but my Msc is electronics. Do I have a chance being hired ?

Does it all come down to your knowledge, or to your degree ?

 

No comment on how great you can be, but there are several necessities.
1) parts inventory. You have to understand lots and lots of components and commercially available ICs. Resistors, capacitors, inductors, every kind of transistor which means bipolar, mosfet, igbt, frequencies from DC to gigahertz, timers counters, logic gates, special function, and what became available a week ago. You not only can't know it all, you have to try to keep up.
2) circuit inventory. configurations of single transistors all the way up to op-amps and programmable arrays. Building blocks like integrator, differentiator, amplifier, inverting and non-inverting, time delays, phase delays, voltage controllers, current controllers, and I'm getting tired of typing.

Does it all come down to your knowledge, or to your degree ?

A degree will get you a job, but I've sent designs back because it was physically impossible to put that many turns on a torroidal transformer and we've had people with degrees come here and ask how to tell which leg of a transistor is the collector. Nothing but a degree is like being a very smart fish out of water. You simply must have hands on experience and practice stringing building blocks together.

I suppose there are books about these things. This website has a .edu section. Reading datasheets is a great way to learn, especially if you look at the internals of the chips and see how they were designed...then you have to learn which building blocks work well on a monolithic chip and are difficult to do in discrete transistors, or easy to do in discrete and difficult on a chip.

OK. That's enough for me. Other people will contribute.

 

You might want to consider some further specialization also, since no one can be an expert in the complete field of analog design.
There's low frequency analog processing from DC up to several tens of MHz.
There's RF design which can go from there up to perhaps a few GHz along with antenna design (which is somewhat math intensive).
There's microwave design up to a terraHz or s0 (can also be somewhat math intensive).
There's analog and switching power supply design along with magnetic transformer and inductor design.
There're light sensors from far ultraviolet to visible to far infrared, including single sensors, line sensors, and array (imaging) sensors, along with their processing electronics.
All of those have subspecialities where many of these functions are designed into integrated circuits.
And there's likely other specialities that I haven't thought of.

 

This is a tough one to answer.

I have known people who have become expert computer programmers without any formal education in programming. Similarly, I have known people who have become experts in electronics without any formal education.

You do not have to be classroom taught nor have textbook learning to be an expert in electronics. However, there is some background knowledge required that will accelerate the learning curve.

A strong background in mathematics will be your number one advantage. A strong background in physics is also a great asset. Basic electricity and magnetism is commonly offered in every university undergraduate physics curriculum. Mathematics is the language of physics and by extension the language of electronics. Since electricity and magnetism as well as analog and digital electronics are covered at the undergraduate level, you are at a disadvantage and have some catching up to do. Courses at the graduate level will be much more advanced and will touch more on solid-state physics, semiconductor theory, devices, micro and nano-electronics. If that is the area of your interest, that is fine. However, I fail to see how you can jump into it without a working knowledge of basic components and circuit theory.

Electronic circuits is a language of its own, very much like road maps. I know people who cannot read maps. Someone well versed in any aspect of electronics is able to look at a circuit diagram and describe the function and operation of the circuit (provided of course that the circuit was properly designed and drawn). That expertise comes with years of hands-on experience, designing, testing, and trouble shooting a wide variety of circuits.

Reading textbooks can help but can only go so far. In the long run you need to have hands-on experience working with real components, applications and test instruments, much more than just book learning.

 

Should I read books ? Or is it mostly practice because you never know how a real circuit will throw at you? Or is it a combination ?

It's a combination of book learning (circuit theory) and practical application (designing circuits, building them, and observing their operation). It takes a LOT of both-- plus years and years of experience-- to be fully competent.

Is it necessary to work in the industry, or can I become great by becoming a university professor so I have more time to read books and research ?

Without practical design experience, you simply cannot become an expert designer. No amount of theoretical knowledge can substitute for hands-on experience.

Do big companies like Microchip, TI, ST and so on hire people without a first degree in electronics related area? For example my bachelors is maths, but my Msc is electronics. Do I have a chance being hired ?

I should think the order of your degrees would make little difference.

Does it all come down to your knowledge, or to your degree ?

A degree alone might suffice to get you in the door, but a degree plus knowledge plus experience give you a much better chance.

 

Thanks everyone for your kind responses. It's much appreciated.

When I look at certain things like the National Semi Applications handbook, I get stunned at the number of circuits there, and the astounding complexity that is in that single book. It kinda makes me sad because I feel so much behind in the really specialized and precision circuit stuff.

Was the book a collaborative effort inside National? I mean, does a single person understand everything in the book, or is it that some people understand certain topics but are ignorant of others?

Anyhow, this is just an example. What I mean to express is that the complexity reached today is so much that it kinda scares me. I feel behind.

Isn't it amazing that electronics, after the transistor was invented, is really a new discipline, but so much has already been done in so little time. How come things have moved so fast ? How come people were able to understand such complex circuits in just 50 years or so ?

I feel there is so much to learn, and so little time in the large scheme of things. A single lifetime is nothing compared to how much there is to learn.

I am 30 now, and I feel I am kinda behind on electronics, but I love it so much that I will keep learning as much as I can.

I'd like to be very good at analogue electronics, being able to understand complex discrete transistor circuits is my goal.

I am quite alright with digital, but digital feels very limited. Analogue is much more interesting to me. Of course both sides are needed and must be understood, but I learn more towards analogue.

In answer to MrChips, I didn't just jump into it blindly. I think I know enough electronics to compare to someone who has a degree in electronics. I am self taught and was accepted into the course by showing some of my work.

Anyway, I feel overwhelmed by the amount of things that have been done already. It seems there is to much for a single person to grasp, and one must really specialize in a narrow path in order to be a very good engineer. Is that so ?

 

Was the book a collaborative effort inside National?

The Linear Applications Handbook wasn't written as a book, nor was it the product of a single individual: it's a collection of application notes on various topics, written separately by numerous individual engineers within Nat Semi.

Back in the pre-Internet days such books, along with catalogs containing the data sheets for their products, were the primary means by which the major semiconductor manufacturers disseminated product data and application information; it was common for sales reps and field application engineers to regularly visit major customers' sites and hand out these books to the engineers.

Nowadays, of course, all this stuff is on the Web just a mouse click away, and printed books like this are a thing of the past.

I mean, does a single person understand everything in the book, or is it that some people understand certain topics but are ignorant of others?

No, and no.

Electronic design is such an enormously broad field of endeavor that no one individual can completely comprehend everything in every area of design; some degree of specialization is inevitable.

On the other hand, I doubt that any of the authors of the material in that book are "ignorant" of any of the topics covered by other authors, even though they aren't experts in those areas. They at least know the fundamentals.

 

MathKing - I would take a different perspective.

Yes, there is so much to learn and no one can be an expert knowing all things about everything. Hence we have to become specialists. Even then, you will not know everything that you need to know about your field of specialty.

Rather than being concerned about needing to learn everything in a given field, I would take a different approach.

You learn incrementally. Everything new that you learn is an asset in your whole knowledge base. You continue to learn and will never stop learning.
Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

 

Anyway, I feel overwhelmed by the amount of things that have been done already. It seems there is to much for a single person to grasp, and one must really specialize in a narrow path in order to be a very good engineer. Is that so ?

You're probably feeling overwhelmed because you're setting unrealistic goals. I don't think many people set out with an objective to become an expert in everything in a field.

I never had a goal of becoming an expert in anything; I just wanted to be good at what I did. After changing career paths several times, I did end up being looked upon as an expert at my company; but that was never a conscious goal.

As you're beginning to see, analog is a very diverse field. In order to become an expert, you're going to have to specialize. If you don't, you'll end up knowing something about a lot of things, but not a lot about any one thing.