Hi,
I am looking to persue a career in analog design, but, before I commit myself to this decision, I would like to get the opinions of the people here to have a (hopefully unbiased) look on what my options are. I've heard a lot of hand-wavey arguments about how "everything-is-really-analog" on some level, and how there are 10 digital designers to every 1 analog designer, but is this really true?
I like the fact that analog design is multi-faceted, i.e. one has to know some mathematics, some design, some physics etc.. I also like the fact that there is a lot of "design" in the process, one has to create a layout matching the specification of the design, one has to think about what the circuit will do out of a variety of possible options. If fact, I think that it's good to specialise in such a field because the knowledge that one holds is far more difficult to learn than C or HDL, and therefore of greater value to a company. These are the issues that are drawning me to this discipline. I would therefore like to know what the career paths are for those starting out in analog design. Will analog design become less previlent in years to come as more and more is moved into the digitial domain? Are analog designers really in high demand within the industry?
I have read Grey and Meyer's book on Analog design, and Razavi's, but I'm not entirely clear what the cutting-edge issues in analog design actually are. The books in question concentrate mainly on simple differential op-amps and current sources, analysing their stability, frequency response and what not. To me, it doesn't appear that the design of op-amps (signal goes in, larger signal goes out) is really an interesting career choice, and more so, I don't understand why someone who designs them would be in command of such a high salary such as they are. Surely there is much more to analog design than just making an op-amp that is -say- stable at 1Mhz and can work at a voltage of 2v. I would like to know what industrial designers work on. Do they work on op-amps such as these, or is this just the simple kids stuff, equivalent to the -say- state machine design in digital design books.
What are the issues in analog design these days, (Sigma Delta converters, PLL, high speed front ends, low-noise, low-power etc...)? I understand that people are often limited by the affect of deep sub-micron processes but is this considered an analog question, or a physics question? What would constitute a PhD. thesis in the area of analog design: the design of a high-performance op-amp, a DAC/ADC, an RF front-end, a new "current mirror" design? I really need to get a feel for the levels of complexity involved.
Thanks,
Stephen