What define an Electronic Engineer?

Hi,

I was imagining an hypothetical discussion between 4 electronic engineers, in which one is specialized in firmware because he/she love to see things in control. Another plays with FPGAs and DSPs, because DSP is the future. Then one is doing pure digital ASIC design since the most important thing is to define the architectures and hardwired DSPs are the best, with associated heavy verification. The last has a specialization in analog and is doing pure IC analog design, because... well, no one discuss against analog. All of them had studied Electronics Engineering; more digital, few analog.

Now imagine a joke, like what a French, an English, a German and an Italian engineer could discuss on. The firmware engineer is happy to see things moving because is giving "the soul" to the silicon dead "brick". The digital ASIC insists that without him/her there would be no brick to "get" the firmware, hence the important circuit is the hardware. The FPGA guy just don't care, safe to feel like an ASIC designer but with the instant gratification of a firmware guy, feeling also a proper electronic guy because always using the lab and isntruments; plus, thinks that only him/her has to do with real signal processing.
The discussion is getting heated. The analog IC designer is almost going to join the confrontation, but suddenly decide to leave the room: "They'are just not electronic engineers".
There is a fifth guy, an application engineer, who listen this and runs to EDA to ask to the peers there what they think about what the analog guy said.

So, hoping to gave you the point, in my opinion an RF/Analog engineer, but also a PCB/System designer can be freely defined as Electronic Engineer. They are dealing with electrical quantities as a core skill, whether on paper/simulations or on real things.
But, an average person doing digital, never having to deal or play with electrical components, despite the official name of its field of study, is it still an electronic engineer? While in reality can be defined an algorithm/processing or even firmware engineer? Also, I assume all of them to be equally talented and super useful engineers, doing an equally demanding job, each on a different aspect.

I post in this forum exactly because there could be more digital guys and interchangeably some firmwares - but in general, dealing with digital techniques mostly.

Thanks for your time!

Analog electronics remains the core technology in our civilized world.

Power generation and distribution.
Motor theory/ building/ maintenance.
Heating/ ventilation/ AC.

All along we needed the analog hardware, and related know-how, before we reached a state of electrical engineering that could support digital operations. How uncanny that we could carry out our space program on early computers made from early IC's!

I love computers and I love programming. Yet I never got around to working with PROMs or EProms or BASIC Stamps. They seemed to require a whole 'nother level of knowledge and equipment.

Even today we try to figure out how Nikola Tesla did the near-miracles that he did a lifetime ago.

I dont think everyone can be as easily pigeon holed as you suggest.
At my work I am officially a "firmware engineer" which means I mostly write VHDL and verify it. But that doesnt mean I dont have to look at a PCB schematic every now and again. If you had a new design and doing the pinout, you'll likely need this. Its not clear whats connected to specific pins - go to the PCB.
Firmware tends to be a "crossover" skill. Usually, engineers have a mix of Hardware + firmware or firmware + verification, with some even able to write device drivers for the software team or just full blown software.

Everone is still an "Engineer". Skill required to be an engineer require analytical thinking and creating a plan. This is true for all engineers.

In my last job (I'm retired officially but still busy!) I was "senior engineer" yet I have virtually no paper qualifications.
I have always considered the definitions as:

Technician - someone competent to follow instructions, recognize problems and give constructive feedback about them.
Engineer - Someone competent to analyze customer demands, find solutions to problems and produce concise and detailed instructions to a Technician.

Both having somewhat fuzzy boundaries.

Brian.

I don' t think there are any GOOD firmware engineers who don't have an understanding of the world outside their FPGAs (and, thus, by your definition, they are electronic engineers). Otherwise, they are software engineers.

And I would have to disagree with my esteemed colleague, BradtheRad. Power engineers, HVAC engineers, etc. are NOT electronic engineers; they are electrical engineers. Electronics deals with active components.

Hi,

It seem everybody has it's own definition.

In my eyes an engineer should be able to understand - at least basic - electronic circuits. He/she should be able to read electronic device's datasheets and should be able to do - basic - calculations on hus/her own.

Electronis is a wide area ... no one can manage the whole range. Thus my exceptions "basic".
I think every electronics engineer should be able to use basic measurement equippment correctly. Like DVM in voltage and current measurement and basic measuremts with a scope - this includes correct timing voltage, timing and trigger setup.
In my eyes even a software engineer (at least those who work close to hardware, like with microcontrollers) should be able to verify/debug his/her software with the use of a scope.

Klaus

Indeed very interesting discussions! Thanks!

I've been curious about a reply here..

barry said:

I don' t think there are any GOOD firmware engineers who don't have an understanding of the world outside their FPGAs (and, thus, by your definition, they are electronic engineers). Otherwise, they are software engineers.

Click to expand...

You are not the first to consider firmware engineer the guy who develop on FPGAs. To me that is digital design, using FPGAs rather than ASICs. Firmware (as having worked in that field for few time), I always considered to be embedded software, down to register programming. The boundary between software and firmware may vary from person to person, but I never included HDL stuff in this booundary.

barry said:

And I would have to disagree with my esteemed colleague, BradtheRad. Power engineers, HVAC engineers, etc. are NOT electronic engineers; they are electrical engineers. Electronics deals with active components.

Click to expand...

I think he was saying that those are analog interfaces. After all, a car thermal engine is an example of a complex, slow and unstable analog system; it's just not an electric/electronic system - yes, today it uses complex EE systems to run it, but on the very basic functionality you don't need EE controls in this technology.
The difference tought at the university was that basically the electric engineer deals with (analog) quantities that are useful in high powers. The electronic medium to very low power. And if on top of that you can build a digital system, the extention is a digital electronic engineer. It does not build anything useful a digital electric engineer, not many people want a PC which consumes 1kW per transistor.

TheXeno said:

You are not the first to consider firmware engineer the guy who develop on FPGAs. To me that is digital design, using FPGAs rather than ASICs. Firmware (as having worked in that field for few time), I always considered to be embedded software, down to register programming. The boundary between software and firmware may vary from person to person, but I never included HDL stuff in this booundary.

Click to expand...

There is a lot of crossover between ASIC design and Firmware design. The HDL is pretty similar, but the layout is different. You have more liberties with ASIC in positioning logic, whereas FPGA resources are fixed. This can cause timing issues you might not see in ASIC as you have more control of the place and route. If you can write HDL for FPGAs, you can write HDL for ASICs. There is little in common with software.

TrickyDicky said:

There is a lot of crossover between ASIC design and Firmware design. The HDL is pretty similar, but the layout is different. You have more liberties with ASIC in positioning logic, whereas FPGA resources are fixed. This can cause timing issues you might not see in ASIC as you have more control of the place and route. If you can write HDL for FPGAs, you can write HDL for ASICs. There is little in common with software.

Click to expand...

Hi, you misread my reply. I don't think ASIC and FPGA are different, in fact are very similar except for some things, including what you said.. both are dealing with HDL, therefore, digital electronics design stuff. What I said is that I would not call this firmware, since I see the therm firmware mainly for embedded software, i.e. C/C++, not for HDL. I also added an OT note, which is the fact that you may argue where the software begins and the firmware ends, since boths are dealing with programming languages but on different scenarios. But in any case, HDL is not a programming language, therefore are two different worlds - to achieve similar functionalities.

@Tricky, I realized I should have mention also your reply in my post, not only @barry's.

I would not call this firmware, since I see the term firmware mainly for embedded software, i.e. C/C++, not for HDL.

Click to expand...

Despite of different design methodologies used and principle distinction between programming and hardware description language, it's quite common to talk of microcontroller and FPGA firmware, both developed in the software design team.

The FPGA FIRMWARE in my organization is most definitely not done by the software design team; they do software. Everyone doing FPGA firmware is an electronic engineer. We not only design the firmware, but usually the surrounding hardware as well.

FvM said:

Despite of different design methodologies used and principle distinction between programming and hardware description language, it's quite common to talk of microcontroller and FPGA firmware, both developed in the software design team.

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe you, and I see it in many applications. Though, this was a very different perception by many professors I remember, from university and former employers.
But I would presume that by software design team you meant firmware design team, because I really feel a world between someone who writes in Scala and Visual Basic, from who set registers and flip-flops, way bigger than between HDL and MCU programming.

In anycase, THIS boils down to the OP question. So I am getting it... because of the similarities, people put together firmware terms also for FPGAs and not only MCUs, but not for ASIC apparently.
Assuming this, I feel to extend the role of a firmware (how it is assumed to be now), from an electronic design category, way more than pure software one.

So, considering the "analog guy" in the OP, he/she was too much cranky towards the situation, but also not too much perhaps?