Analog Systems Integration/Design versus Analog Chip Design

[AZChips]

Hello,

I work for Apple in a Research role for the Staffing organization. I have prior experience with Analog Chip Design from a research standpoint, but am now tasked with Analog Systems Integration/Design. I am having a hard time separating out the people who are "Chip" people compared to those that are "Systems" people. I am not an engineer. I am wondering if there is a clear way for me to tell if someone is an Analog Systems person mainly or if they are a Chip person. It seems to me the people I talk to and review have both Chip experience and sometimes Systems experience.

Would a Systems person use different simulation software? Would they tend to have more experience in certain areas easily identified by certain keywords or acronyms? Generally speaking the team I am doing research for looks for people with Op-Amp, High Voltage/High Speed Analog, Precision Analog, Data Converters, ADC Design, DAC, Board Design, Circuit Analysis, Resistors... But simply trying to correlate these terms still leaves me finding people that are Chip people... Thanks for any help with a simple breakdown for me or whatever assistance you might be able to provide. And, I hope I am posting this in the right area of this forum and apologize if I didn't.

 

[crutschow]

It likely mainly depends upon their previous experience. System people are concerned with the complete signal path from source to final processing which may travel through many different chips. Chip people are concerned mainly with the signal from the input to the output of the chip.

Analog chip designers use chip layout software, as well as analog simulation software (usually Hspice) optimized for chip design.

System designers often use more system orientated software such as Matlab and analog simulation software such as Pspice.