John said:
Hi!
I'm thinking of switching career from Analog IC Design to PCB Design.
Can an experienced PCB design Engineer give a description of the job?
What skills does he/she needs and how different it is from analog IC
design?
Wow... are you real serious!!! You mean you claim that you are an
Analogue IC Designer but do not know how this differs from a PCB design
engineer. I would guess that you are using the wrong term here. A PCB
designer is someone who designs the physical *layout* of the physical
board, i.e. places the components and wires them up. A design engineer
actually figures out how a circuit should be designed. A PCB designer is
a technician level job. An analogue designer engineer needs a good math
background, and in-depth knowledge of electronics.
What I suspect you really mean is a design engineer that designs
circuits that are manufactured on pcbs, rather than in i.c.s
Number one, and I mean number 1, is that "board level" analogue design
engineers can expect a much reduced salary. Possible as much as only
half. Most board level design is not at the discrete transistor level,
it is designing systems using i.c. chips from the main vendors. You need
much more detailed general electronic knowledge, e.g filters, signal
integrity over feet of wire, component characteristics, availability of
parts etc. In i.c design you can often get away with only the knowledge
of circuit configurations, and the associated knowledge.
I personally, think its a very bad career move to go from i.c. level
design to board level design. In fact, its insane, imo. I shall say no
more
Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.