Career in Analog IC design

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

Reply to
Steve
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Not that there are fewer companies, but they are moving closer to the factories. Many crtical issues (PCB manufacturings, components, wirings and shieldings) are resolved at the factories. Last time I checked, your country (UK) and mine (US) are not interested in productions. So, the best choice of analog career is in Asia.

Reply to
linnix

[snip]

If you actually want to design, go do it, forget the PhD. If you want the PhD, go teach and pretend you know how to design ;-)

If you have fun doing analog, do it... otherwise go sell real estate.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

good

at PHY and baseband level there will always be need for analog. Most of this is moving to mixed-signal design (analog and digital on same chip) this means CMOS analog design in a standard CMOS process. This is very difficult! Very high-end analog will still be done in separate chips.

and worked the problems? hmmm If you can read Razavi's book and understand it, you are much smarter than I am. I think Gray and Meyer is a better book. Allen and Holberg is another book to add to your library if you are serious.

not good. Pick up a copy of the red rag (IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits). If you are an undergrad, reading it you can find what you like and who you might want to work for as a grad student that is cutting-edge enough to get put into a journal. Picking the right program where right=what you want to do is critical.

Reply to
Kadir Solid Gold Suleyman

Yes it is basically true as digital solutions can replace analog soutions 9 out of 10 times.

Depends on the company. RF oriented companies still value analog.

These are the issues that

No. Analog is indeed the mode of the physical universe but 0s and 1s are easier to minupulate.

Digital signal processing is replacing analog IC designs in many cases. Let's say you need a stable feedback system with variable loads ... DSP shines. Sure, you need an analog gain stage here and there, but the core is a DSP computer.

If you can find a deep specialty in A/D or RF, then you will be OK. Otherwise, cave in to digital. Just my opinion!

Reply to
Charles Schuler

My view, as an analogue designer of er.. some years? If you have to ask people whether or not to commit to a career to analogue design, or for that matter, any career, then probably analogue design (or that career) aint for you.

Many of us started at like, 11 years old. It simply wasn't a choice that was made after graduating, or even in selecting what degree we should take. We have *always* been analogue designers. Its what we are. Its in our blood.

I personally find it rather strange that people have to ask others as to what they should be doing as a career. We are not you, and cant possible know what you *like* doing. We can only advise on objective matters like, salary, and job demand. So, as far as salary goes, yeah its quite good when there are jobs, as far as number of jobs go, analogue design is a very poor choice, especially i.c. design. There are so few companies. Try software, they are *millions* of C++ jobs, hence its easier to find just the one for you.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

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Reply to
Kevin Aylward

Unless you are designing ICs there I don't believe that there is much call for pure analog designer

Every product that I have designed in the past 10 or 15 years has been a mixture of analog and digital circuits. Since I worked for fairly small companies we didn't have dedicated digital or analog designers but had to deal with analog, digital, embedded microcs, micro programming in ass'y and in C, and then finally make the complete product pass all of the environmental and safety requirements. In a smaller company you can also be involved with production, sales and marketing so that you see and influence all phases of the business

I would find doing only analog design boring. Much more interesting to design a complete product. For this kind of design practical experience is more important than advanced degrees. Most companies want someone who will be hands on and who knows the art of design as well as the mathamatical theory

Dan

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Dan Hollands
1120 S Creek Dr
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Reply to
Dan Hollands

I have an MSEE. But, indeed, theory certainly doesn't make application.

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

You might like to read Tom Lee's book on RF CMOS, that has some reasonably up-to-date discussion of what people were working on about 5 years ago (as well as some ancient history in the front of the book). Another source of information about what companies are interested is the IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits (JSSC), which you should be able to find in a university library. The more processing is done in the digital domain, the better ADCs will be needed to make it possible, therefore there is always analogue work to be done. Similarly there are plenty of signal processing jobs that are not sensible to do in the digital domain for power and performance reasons (e.g. a 2GHz amplifier could theoretically be implemented by digitising and multiplying by ten then putting through a DAC, but the performance, cost, size and power dissipation would each be

1000 or more times worse than the all analogue solution. Maybe in 10 years time it would be only 100 times worse in each respect, but the gap will never close.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Jones

I inherited a non-working design from an external contractor. The switching power supply was not operating amongst other problems. Turns out he has/had virtually no analog experience, and had routed his sense and control signals back the controller *right under the inductor*, and had nice fat vias under there and the FETs too which added to the fun.

Without a thorough understanding (and that's made up of education, blood sweat and tears) of analog effects, such things will bite very hard. If you think you'll enjoy figuring out major layout issues along with the design, analog may be for you. I admit I do a mixture, but an analog background makes doing digital much easier. (I remember a time when electronics was considered a subset of radio ;)

As noted above, most of us started at 11 (or earlier - I had my first radio kit on sprung connectors when I was 6) and it's either in your blood or it ain't.

Cheers

PeteS

Reply to
PeteS

One piece of advice for Steve, the market for analog designers who *use* analog ICs is much larger than the market for analog IC designers. Experienced, skilled analog circuit designers can do very well financially, especially if they develop expertise in a few niche areas, such as miniaturized switching supplies, high-voltage stuff, low-noise techniques, high-frequency digital radio, high-power systems, scientific instruments, etc.

Reading Grey and Meyer is still a good idea, because a designer who uses analog ICs benefits greatly from an understanding of the design details and operating principles of those ICs. But as can be seen by glancing at my sample list of niche areas, analog circuit design in the real world consists of much more than understanding how to design a classic opamp IC. :-)

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    - Win
Reply to
Winfield Hill

Analog designers deserve every cent/euro/pound /etc they earn and probably more. Analog circuit design is a mind blowing process and you hardly have time to get bored as you'll most of the times be wiping the sweat of your forehead. It involves taking time to anticipate all the quirks or misbehaviours of your circuit. If you think you can make a circuit printed in a magazine to work or another that worked by making a small change you are inviting disaster. And even when it does , place it on a PCB and it might not. Attention to detail is everything . Opamps easy to design ?If you look at IC design ... things are even worse as neither does the SPICE simulation nor does the breadboard tell you what is actually going to happen. Breadboard measurements are influenced by stray capacitances from the scope and by connections within the circuit and SPICE has well known limitations. The real actual circuit depends on Physical parameters of the IC and layout of devices not to mention all the parasitics associated with the interconnects. So you are actually stuck with inventing every possible scenario. Its not that circuits don't obey the laws of physics but that the analog designer has to understand his circuit better then anyone else in the world!

"Go easy on the whisky" theJackal

Reply to
theJackal

Doesn't usually take that much money.

That seems to be one of the growth industries here in Arizona... "design centers".

Yes ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

It does not- all you ever have to do is look stuff up in books....

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

OTOH, hardware designers can work from their homes. With the tool- set upwards of six-figures and high-speed Internet, it's not much of a financial stretch to put the workstation in the home, anywhere.

A couple of years ago most of the analog designers at this site were laid off (dumb move, but...). AFAIK, none had to move out of the area (there was only one company employing such designers in the state). One of the usual analog design houses built a design center where the engineers were.

Hardware designers make a tad more than C++ programmers too. ;-)

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  Keith
Reply to
Keith Williams

I haven't looked at what our Cadence seats cost, but they're upt here. Of course they are floating licenses, so are used by more than one person. At one time I had almost six figures (over $80K) in FPGA development software. At about %15 of that for annual maintenance we dropped it after the project was done. SOme of this stuff is expensive!

No surprise. With the Internet, one doesn't have to live where the boss does.

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  Keith
Reply to
Keith Williams

Good on you Stephen - we need more like you. Unfortunately many of the not so good Universities neglect Analogue nowadays but it is still very much needed!

Good luck

Ing

Reply to
Ingeniur

Sounds like a guy with no Ph.D! (He's right though)

Ing

Reply to
Ingeniur

That's a bit daft - the world has changed since 1940!

Ing

Reply to
Ingeniur

Oh? I could probably name them *ALL*, like Analogue Devices, TI, National Semi, LT, Maximum, CSR, Apex, etc, like maybe 100 tops. For software there are literally 100,000's of companies. IC design costs BIG money. Even a fabless may be spending like, for Cadence tools, $50k+ per seat per year.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

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Reply to
Kevin Aylward

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