How is VLSI Jobs in US now

vlsi jobs

hi friends,
can any one tell me about the VLSI Job situation in US now. Is it picking up. What are the chances for a fresh under graduate to get a Job in VLSI/ASIC Design, and which all companies are hiring fresh/entry level graduates now. Does an MSEE from a US university increases chances of landing in Job ....

vlsi jobs in usa

Not good

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US companies are doing their IC designs in other countries with lower cost of living and salaries. I have heard that US design jobs that paid $50k-$100k per year are now done in India at $5k per year. The reason is that these designs are now done with CAD programs and the people in these other countries are just as skilled at using the programs as anyone in the US.

ms in vlsi in usa

Pretty soon . we gonna have to go to India to get a job. And the pay will
probably will be in rupies.

vlsi jobs in us

Not to mention that a lot of these jobs are relocated to mainland China.

According to my sources, equivalent job functions in hardware design cost from 1/8 to 1/5 of what it would cost in US. So for the same amount of money, you could have 5-8 monkeys (highly intelligent ones :wink: ) hacking away.

The situation is worst for new-grads. Regardless of the amount of your education, you are a "new-grad". And in some places in US, companies will only hire experienced designer that has a very specific set of skills.

In terms of geography, east coast is better than west coast. Texas is doing fairly well, so is San Diego, CA.

It is not impossible to get jobs in US but it won't be easy.

MGPC

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what about europ :?

jobs in vlsi

Many engineer have left from the USA.

vlsi job market

The prospects of getting an ASIC job are getting worse, for 2 more other reasons:

1. ASIC design starts are fewer. Lesser companies have the hugh funds required for the ASIC NRE (above $300K). More companies opt to go SOC == lesser chips in their designs.

2. Unlike the situation 10 years ago - where everybody with basic skills of Verilog/VHDL/Synopsys/etc - would have been offered a job instantly, today these skills are basic, and are commodity.

I would not advise an undergrad to specialize towards the ASIC line - too risky.

More likely to get a job easy are:
RF engineers, HW engineers, System engineers, Broadband (SONET/SDH/Giga-Ethernet/Wireless/Optics - and above all - NanoTech & BioTech !!!).

vlsi jobs us

Hi Roli,
Thanks for the valuable comments.
Can you tell me about the probablity of future requirements in Analog Chip Design market ..
Instead of focussing on Digital Design with HDLs ,If I focus on AMS design..are my prospects higher

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A little better - but not by much.
Better be an Analog Design expert who renders contracting services not only for the ASIC market - but also for Board Level, System.

Also - FPGA is now better than ASIC - because many companies now tend to prefer FPGAs for immediate NRE cost reasons.

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Well , I didn't know that the skills in Nanotech are wanted more than RF - for example !.

What you all expect for the nanotech industry in the incoming years ? Do you know that the main reason for being delayed , besides the high cost , is that the elder designers who used to look at transistors as a black box with some I/O behavior will need to learn much about the device physics and such things that they used to through away for the simulators ?

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Let me butt in here and say that the above post illustrates the reason I tell students to take courses in basic theory because the laws of physics do not change and the basic theory will serve you for the rest of your career. It is also advantageous to take basic theory courses from other departments like physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering.

Have a reading program to reread your class textbooks over again every few years so that you are reminded of things that you forgot from not using them. Internet used book stores like bookfinder.com have old engineering classics for low prices. If you see several books reference a book you do not have it is well worth buying and reading it.

Another principle is to do different designs when you have the opportunity. It is part of human nature to take the easy way and do the same design over and over because it is easy. For example, once you are good at designing IF amplifiers, have a try at the synthesizer.

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flatulent said:

It is also advantageous to take basic theory courses from other departments like physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering.

Click to expand...

This is actually sound advice for all, in most places where I have contracted to, I have found multi disciplined or at least experienced engineers being valued most, and hence I keep seeing there faces every time I visit for a design review.

Do not know if I would attribute their value entirely to being multi disciplined but they communicate in a team/workgroup enviroment very well and can see opertunity to make use of others skills easily (not leach) with appreciation of a whole product design cycle and its limitations.

:R

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Just one more thing, do not be too depressed about other countries bidding cheaper, the ratio of cost of living to salary is about the same.

I still get plenty work from the US and EU and I definately won't work for $5k a year

Depends on you expectations of salary though, I am happy to make a living, everything god provides after that is a bonus

:R

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You don't have to go as far as being qualified to practice other disciplines as an expert. One of my personal examples is that when I was in school the engineers only had to take the first two terms of the basic three term chemistry sequency. The people in the hard sciences had to take all three. I took the third term and also the class in properities of materials from the material science department. These two extra class have served me well. I did similar choices in other areas.

I can confidently understand data sheets on materials and I can understand the discussions with the mechanical engineers on their selection of materials for strength and corrosion avoidance. Twice now I have used my knowledge of metals changing crystal structure with temperature to notice potential problems and avoid them.

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recent grads have job prospects which are dismal. more so last year. i know many many graduates from last year that still do not have jobs and will probably see their degrees wasted. very sad.

what is "hot" right now is power electornics and aerospace. i see only graduates of these studies which get jobs.

Mr.Cool

job prospects in vlsi

I do see things improving overall. I used to work for a major semi company and several other products companies.

As for the semi market, the above comments about the costs of doing ASICs are really getting out of hand. We used to spend up to 1M(US) for mask and initial prototype charges. We designed in several large gate farms so the could be metal mask changed to reduce the cost of a respin. Metal spins were typically 1/10 the cost of a full up project. These projects were state of the art, VLSI chips. The 1M was just a small cost of doing the product. X$linx has done very well in its strategy of replacing medium size ASIC production with FPGAs. I have heard of prices as low as $30 for a new Spartan3 1500. It might even go lower. Given this, if the mask set is 300K with 2 spins, you probably break about even on chip cost at about 30K to 50K chips. Unless the product is already in large scale production or the potential of production is at least 1M parts, most people will go the FPGA route.

Another problem with the ASIC market is that engineers are actually causing long term problems in the market. I am the kind of engineer that will reuse anything I can to speed the time to market, but there is so much IP (cores) out there for free, that ASIC engineers are becoming integrators and testers, not designers. This is fine for now, but how many people out there know what the next killer app is? When are they going to run out of ideas? For me (and I think about it often), I don't see many left that have any barrier to entry, especially when the IP is given freely.

As for the product market, this market is starting to impove. The future is merky, but for talented engineers with solid skills, it is pretty good. Many of the wannabe engineers are changing professions.

I also agree with flatulent on being multidiplinaried. This is one thing that I have always strived for. As my login name appies, I do robotics as a hobby. It is about a multidicinplinary as you can get. EE, ME, SW, and system level knowledge is a must. But I find myself always going back to the basics every time. Many companies like the idea of focused, engineers improving the time to market of products, but when time get rough and projects go, if the skill set is not needed, you are the first to go. Also, these engineers do not see the big picture. I have always viewed engineering as a study of tradeoffs, not totally about problem solving. If you take this approach, there are soooooo many solutions. Most focused people do not take the time to really look at the big picture.

One other aspect about outsourcing to other countries. On average, the studies (and my personal experience) shows the need of 5 average engineers to one really talented one. This come largely in part of the tradeoff strategy. Given that, there is very little difference in salary of hiring one good one to 5 average. I have also found that the quality level is much different. I think that will change over time and that is what frightens me. My value will become diminished. But as most people have seen, as economies get better, the life expectations get better. This always starts raising salaries. Soon then you end up with the next batch of overpaid people. And so on, and so on..... the cycle begins all over again.

Enough mumbling, and please don't shoot me for the comments. It is just one opinion and you everyone knows what opinions are.... right?

robotman

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Future predictions are very error prone. When the motor car came, people said that it would ruin the economy by putting horse breeders, stable operators, and road sweepers out of work. It was praised by some as a boon to public health by the elimination of horse droppings in the street.

Another example from more recent, a Persuaders television program from about 35 years ago had as its theme the formula for cheap synthetic pertroleum. The chemist died and his daughter inherited his documents. She put them in the fire because the world economy would be harmed by cheap fuel. This was hailed by the bystanders as an heroic act to save the world instead of becoming personally wealthy.

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In fact, it is not very good all over the world.

job in vlsi

Recently it is becoming better.