Featured Sector
Featured Sector
The Semiconductor Industry
According to the Economic Times, the Indian semiconductor design industry had a turnover of USD 8 billion in 2010 with an engineering workforce of around 160000. It is estimated to reach USD 43 billion by the year 2015 and will employ around 780000 employees.
According to the Economic Times, the Indian semiconductor design industry had a turnover of USD 8 billion in 2010 with an engineering workforce of around 160000. It is estimated to reach USD 43 billion by the year 2015 and will employ around 780000 employees.
The major companies in the Semiconductor Industry on the basis of market share are:
- Intel Corporation
- Samsung Electronics
- Toshiba
- Texas Instruments
- STMicroelectronics
The jobs in the semiconductor industry can be broadly classified into two categories:
- Digital
- Analog
The digital semiconductor industry consists of companies that manufacture digital chips. Digital chips only use and create voltages or currents at discrete level. The major digital companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola, etc.
The companies involved in the manufacturing of Analog Chips will come under this category. Analog chips are those in which the voltage and current at specified points in the circuits vary continuously in time. Some example of long lived and well known analog chips are 741 Operational Amplifier, 555 Timer. The major analog companies are Texas Instruments, Sigma Tel, Cosmic circuits, etc.
Which are the Preferred Engineering Branches?
- Electronics & Communication
- Electronics & Instrumentation
- Instrumentation & Control (Only some of the companies allow ICE students)
Skills Required
- Sound knowledge of analog and digital electronics.
- Strong analytical & problem solving skills
- Good communicational skills
Profiles in Semiconductor industry
3.1. Digital Chip Design Engineer
The design engineer is responsible for physical implementation and design of high speed processor using latest tools and methodologies. The design engineer is required to complete design closure that includes placement, routing, timing, signal integrity closure, physical verification of assigned modules.
The design of a digital chip begins with the designer writing the hardware description of the IC using verilog/ VHDL. After the HDL (hardware description language) is available for an IC chip, there are various Electronic Design Automation tools (Synopsys and Cadence are the leading companies in EDA tools development) which can be used to simulate the IC. This generates a very low-level description of the chip and spells out all that is to be fabricated on the silicon chips. This results in the manufacture of the intended IC.
Apart from the elementary electronics knowledge, a digital design engineer should have the following additional skill set
Strengths
- Must have strong CMOS digital circuit fundamentals
- Familiarity to VHDL, SPICE, Schematic entry
3.2 Analog Chip Design Engineer
A design engineer in an analog semiconductor company is required to develop innovative analog microcircuit design principles and to design, simulate, layout, and package analog integrated circuits and multi-chip modules.
While the digital design is highly automated now, the same is not the case with analog design. SPICE remains the only useful tool for analog simulation and even that cannot be used for complex analog circuits. The analog designer generally designs the IC at a transistor level, building up to a cell level, then a block level and then finally integrating at a chip level.
Strengths
- Knowledge of active components, large, small signal and circuit analysis
- Familiarity with Op-amp based circuits and their detailed analysis
- Basic concepts of sample-hold circuits, ADC/DAC
3.3 Design Verification Engineer
Design Verification is an important part of any hardware design organisation. The design verification team is responsible for ensuring that chip designs are free from functional defects prior to fabrication. The team consists of hardware and software engineers with an in-depth knowledge of computer architecture, systems design and software development practices and methodologies. Their job is to test the chips from an end users perspective and look for potential errors in the chip design.
Strengths
- Knowledge of networking communications and protocols
- Strong system level analysis and design skills
3.4 Embedded Hardware Engineer
An embedded system is a computer system designed to do one or a few dedicated and/or specific functions often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. The designing of an embedded system consists of two parts- hardware and software. The layout and designing of the hardware circuit board is the job of an embedded hardware engineer.
Strengths
- Full understanding of a microcontroller with a basic knowledge of computer architecture, digital electronic design, software engineering, data communication, control engineering, motors and actuators, sensors and measurements, analog electronic design and IC design and manufacture
- C/C++/Java programming , RTOS programming and program modelling
3.5 Firmware Developer
Firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices. Firmware is typically involved with very basic low-level operations without which a device would be completely non-functional. Software on the other hand is the program or application that user installs in his device whereas firmware is software that is embedded into the device by the manufacturer.
A firmware developer is responsible for writing and implementing the algorithms for the firmware of any electronic device or embedded system. Firmware basically includes OS and drivers of a device.
Strengths
- Good Coding Skills
- Expertise in real time Operating systems
3.6 EDA/ ECAD Software Profile
Electronic design automation (EDA or ECAD) is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Major EDA companies are Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Magma Design Automation, and Cadence. The job of designing these EDA tools is done by EDA software engineers. These companies also consider graduates from Computer background as the job combines the knowledge of semiconductor with coding skills.
Strengths
- Excellent coding skills
- Knowledge of fundamentals of computer programming
