Does hardware engineer draw the pcb by themselves?

until now, i was doing both, full projects.
I got a job offer, where i have to chose (i applied to the hw-eng position, not to the layout eng). So, now, I am thinking in accepting the offer as a hw-engineer. I asked them about if i can do both, but they said: no.

I am afraid, that I have a lot of everyday practice-knowledge about layout design, but if i am not using it in practice, after few years, me knowledge decays and will not be accurate anymore.
I know, i have to understand the manufacturing process, i do, i did myself in my early projects (in the SMD lab at the university with proper equipment, also for BGAs to get the knowledge for next designs...), but i think the layout is more difficoult than the things what i want to know about manuf., so easier to forget.

If the layout engineer does something wrong, it would be hard for me to fix it in the layout, because i dont know, where he has routed the traces...


who does the signal integrity simulations and the pre/post-layout timing analysis?
who simulates for power delivery and decoupling network design?
who sets up the constraints in the layout tool? (there are more difficoult rules too, like in the cadence allegro: the custom measurements)
who determines the stackup, the impedance-calculations, and the bus-to-layer-assigments?
who simulates for the loss-budget for PCI-express serial lines?

and who earns more, the hardware (sch) designer, or the layout engineer?

Hi All,

This is a very good discussion. This is very much overlooked in industry. I have worked in smaller companies mostly (< 100 people). Think California start ups. I have always done both schematic / circuit design and layout. I too have seen many things go very bad when the designer is not doing the layout or even assisting in the process - High current traces run under high impeadance op amps, capacitive coupleing between high speed traces, violation of creapage or clearance distances for high voltage (over 1KV), heat sinks not designed onto the board....etc. I must admit I like doing the layout. It has an artistic quality to it that appeals to me. Plus it makes the circuit real to me because I can see the circuit running as I do the layout and understand what I must protect against. At the very least I feel that the designer should be looking over the shoulder of the Layout person.

Just my two cents....

Best Regards

dfullmer

E-design said:

One ...I used to go and sit next to the girl in the drawing office doing my layouts....Later when I became project manager I managed to have engineers be allowed to do at least the critical placement and routing themseves.

Click to expand...

So,.... did you fire the girl?
I personally think it all depends on sensitivity of the board, standards needed to follow and time budget. For an ultra sensitive board which needs to pass EC,... other than company logo, design engineer needs to do all the layout himself. For designs that are not that sensitive and needs to be completed as soon as possible(even at cost of a faulty product!) and design engineer already has been assigned a new design for the next catastrophic product, it can be done by a relax layout engineer while chewing gums. But I still think sometimes design engineers need to sit next to a girl!

if i start working at a company as computerboard hardware design engineer (no layout, only guiding), and work there for 3 years, I am afraid that i will never be able to work on complete desingns after this 3 years at this company. I do complete designs since 10 years ago.

are my fears realistic?

how much control does a hardware engineer have over the layout process, for a high-speed board? just fill in the constraints spreadsheet, then shout up?

Szia Buenos,
I think that designer should do layout if he can simulate PCB effects with a help of field simulator. Such experience is very valuable. For example, there is one ansoft's Siwave tutorial which shows optimal placement for components while decoupling is done using pcb capacitance, addtional capacitances and placement of devices. If you can not simulate high freq effects you have only rules of thumb and layouter with experience can do such job at least faster.

hi

are there bigger companies where the same engineer does the hw and the pcb for very complex digital boards? what companies?
i know the normal way is a separated design method, but are there exeptions? i also know that at very small companies its maybe possible, but what about biger ones (min 5-10 design engineers)?

another thing, in my new job, i have to do all the testings of my boards, including driver installations and OS tests... actually its more time than the design time itself. is it the same everywhere, or maybe at some places not the design engineer has to waste his time on this (instead of HW design)?