Future of analog design

[AndreiM]

future of analog ic design

Hello everyone,
What do you think is the future of analog design ?
At the moment I work as a test engineer for automotive LDO's and I would like to shift in the near future to analog design. I have the university background for this but no experience at the moment. Anyway, I'm not not decided yet to follow this way, my main concern is that analog design could become obsolete in 10-15 years.
Than what... ? it could be too difficult to train for a new qualification at 35-40 yo.

so, what do you think is the future of analog design ?

 

[LvW]

analog designer future 2009

Hello AndrejM !

Congratulations ! My recommendation is clear: ANALOG .
Analog will never die - and you certainly will get more money for a job in the analog world.
But I am afraid my opinion is not too important.
Therefore, read some contributions from people who are involved in actual technology. See and read the pdf-attachements.
Regards and good luck.
LvW

 

[LvW]

analog designer germany

Here are the other documents

 

[dfullmer]

analog design is the future

Hi AndreiM,

To begin I can say Analog will be around as long as we need to interact with the real world. It’s not going away in a few years or ever. Now having said that let me place a caveat to that. Every good or great analog engineer I have ever known has also had cross experience in digital. The point I think you were trying to say was that everything is going digital. This is true but everything starts as analog and will cross into digital is many instances. My best suggestion is analog with a sprinkling of digital. If analog is your passion. Analog has mysteries and surprises and still has a sense of art to me. I do more and more digital as you are suggesting but even in digital my analog experience comes in very handy. Many simple digital guys are flummoxed by simple analog interference.

Good Luck

dfullmer

 

[AndreiM]

future of analog designer

Thanks for the fast replys guys and the reading material.
I didn't read it yet, just printed it to read on the way home.

What do you think about future circuits in which the only analog parts are A/D and D/A converters communicating with a big digital part, power stages composed of mostly 2 or 3 trasnsistors, and some ESD and overvoltage protections ?
At the moment the factory technology doesn't accomodate this in a proffitable way, at least for automotive power circuits. But some day, a factory might qualify a technology that can give the designers efficient high voltage analog components and small, fast and reliable digital transistors. With that, the work of an analog designer would be only a very small part. This is what I am mostly affraid of.
Plus that we might get in a few years productive optical processors which can interact with the power electronic part through some foton-electron and electron-foton converters.

 

[socku_84]

hi andrei don't be happy in what these people hv said. 1st all their references is already obsolete. nowaday company only recruit engineers > 3 years of experice for analog designer. But then nobody are willing to give opportunity to freshers to get basis hands on experience. They believe with the growing world population, definitely too much of people are holding the required experience. So they can save the hell money not to train someone for temporary satisfaction. Its kind of medical doctor you have to do 3 years phd to get eperience. . Even Phd is not easy to enrol for analog design. Trust me in future time all the senior analog engineer will go extinct N nobody will be there to replace them. So future of ANALOG is a big doom. Moreover your knowledge won't stand for long in analog since in future carbon nanotubes or graphene will replace cmos. So all will be new kind of analog. One more thing in analog you cant take regular career breaks up to 2 3 months since all your design knowledge will discharge rapidly. Its true the an analog engineer knowlege has to kept at finger tips. But this what i don't want since there is too much to see in this world apart from analog design. Please i beg you don't ever think of analog and let the analog world get extincet

 

[jgk2004]

I agree and disagree with Socku_84. I disagree and do believe with everyone else that analog will not die. It will always be needed but of course things will become more and more digital with technologies getting smaller and smaller. As for being an analog designer. This is not a easy task by any means. Socku is correct with saying that companies do not want to give opportunities to beginners and they always want you to have design experience! This is why for example I am back in school doing my PhD. I was doing design verification for 4 years which is checking over what the senior old guys were making. I wasn't allow do make any big design changes but instead could only recommend things. I would say 90% of the time I was correct and they would do what I recommended but I didn't get any of the experience of doing it myself. Hence going back to school to get the experience. If you go to the right school with a good program where you design chips and can build in new technologies, for example my last chip was 90nm CMOS and I hope to be in 45nm on my next chip. This is where you will get the experience to get your analog job and learn along side with the old guys! I would say you need atleast one chip under your belt to get into a design job. And just to note, you would need to build more like a system,like sigma delta converter, pipelineADC, analog sensor interface, stuff like that. I once interviewed a grad student which taped out a inverter and said he knew everything about analog design, this will not get you the design job, it didn't get him one!

hope this helps
Jgk

 

[oermens]

doing a grad degree and getting fab experience along the way is a good idea (i did 2 fabs during my masters, finished recently and looking for work now), however i am still seeing that even layout jobs want 2+ years of industry experience! someone told me that if the job does not specify industry experience, they will consider what you did during university as experience. can a more seasoned designer confirm or refute this?

 

[jgk2004]

When I was interviewing people for my group, a masters counted as 1 year of experience. It is all in how you sell yourself. If you did two fab runs during your masters that is really good. Of course the larger the circuit the better! You just need to take these into account and sell sell sell! As for layout jobs I would say they are the easiest to get due to the fact not alot of people like doing layout. I would say in hardest jobs to get to easiest jobs to get you have analog design, digital design, design verification, applications engineer, product engineer, test engineer, failure analysis engineer with layout being last. This is how I saw it working in industry but this was only one company. Other companies you could see different trends. Of course because not alot of people like doing layout it is becoming one of the highest paying jobs right now. Some companies are making the analog designers do alot of the supervising to make sure there circuits are made correct with a beginner layout designer. When you have a very senior layout designer I would say the analog designer does not need to supervise much but still needs to keep on eye on what is going on!

Jgk

 

[dick_freebird]

Twenty years ago they were telling me analog was over.

I prefer to do my own layouts, rather than supervise. But
that's company-by-company, how that goes. It takes me
as much time to explain what I want as to do it right then,
myself. Layout to me is one of the more pleasant parts of
the design cycle anyway. But then I enjoy welding too,
while some people would rather talk about architecture.

It's not easy to get somebody to take a chance on you,
but desperation has a way of changing their fancy ideas.
Look for somebody who's in trouble and offer to help them
out. My first analog-y jobs were "rescue" projects - some
designs were busted, and their designers bailed, I got tagged
out of the custom digital group and never looked back.

 

[JoannesPaulus]

In today’s Information Age, the electronics industry is witnessing the disappearance of passionate and resourceful analog cell inventors. We are already at a time when many constructors of mixed-signal ICs draw their basic cells (pre-cut; some assembly required), from a library of circuits, conceived, one must assume, by the Gods. Many of these young people seriously expect that they should be able to always find the precise analog solution to some problem they are facing “out there,” perhaps at a company’s internal website; or from a book, a trade magazine, or a manufacturer’s application note. Students often ask me: “What is the best way to make a [certain analog circuit]?” I am quite baffled by this perspective, and at a loss for the “best” answer.

Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, p. 120.

This is one of the quotes I like to refer to when people ask me if analog design will ever die.
For those who have no time to read it, the answer is no (and they will never become good analog designers).

 

[aaronhor]

Analog will never goes die. New application coming in which require fast speed and high bandwidth can only be satisfied with analog circuits. But I do believe analog designer in the future might need to involve in digital design as well as the system getting more and more digital.

**broken link removed**

 

[darwinxie]

I think as long as Communication Engineering grows in a rapid pace, analog designer is still required. Even if we're entering the world of digital communication now, the channel between the digital interfaces from the source and destination, is still an analog world (fiber optic, RF, etc)

Perhaps you can read a book from Jim Williams, "The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design".
It's an old book, but the starting chapters contain stories of many great analog engineers.

 

[jhankar.e]

I agree and disagree with Socku_84. I disagree and do believe with everyone else that analog will not die. It will always be needed but of course things will become more and more digital with technologies getting smaller and smaller. As for being an analog designer. This is not a easy task by any means. Socku is correct with saying that companies do not want to give opportunities to beginners and they always want you to have design experience! This is why for example I am back in school doing my PhD. I was doing design verification for 4 years which is checking over what the senior old guys were making. I wasn't allow do make any big design changes but instead could only recommend things. I would say 90% of the time I was correct and they would do what I recommended but I didn't get any of the experience of doing it myself. Hence going back to school to get the experience. If you go to the right school with a good program where you design chips and can build in new technologies, for example my last chip was 90nm CMOS and I hope to be in 45nm on my next chip. This is where you will get the experience to get your analog job and learn along side with the old guys! I would say you need atleast one chip under your belt to get into a design job. And just to note, you would need to build more like a system,like sigma delta converter, pipelineADC, analog sensor interface, stuff like that. I once interviewed a grad student which taped out a inverter and said he knew everything about analog design, this will not get you the design job, it didn't get him one!

hope this helps
Jgk

Thank for your post. I recently done my masters, my project was in front-end analog design for electrochemical sensor (SAR, I to V etc). I couldn't tape it out, and I found extreme difficulties to find analog design jobs. Rt now am in digital design verification
You post is truly inspiring, i hope to join some school for a PHD in two years!!!

 

[leo_o2]

Digital verification should be better. You will find there is much fewer opportunity for analog designer always.

 

[kapilsn]

Analog design will never die...but the truth is that the amount of jobs that analog generates are very less....and we need more opportunities to survive and learn...