Those of us, who are already enjoying the brainteasers in designing and testing The Chips, find it very rewarding. Not just from intellectual point of view but also from the “pocket” point of view. When these two views converge, it creates an engineer’s paradise. Who wouldn’t like best of both worlds? With all the innovation and rapid development, this field has virtually unlimited scope to grow.

This is all fine, but it raises a million questions. To state a few; How does one get a foot in the door in this field? When do you start thinking about choosing this branch? What does it take? Where do you get the training? What sort of jobs are available and where? How much does it really pay as an engineer and what are the growth prospects for a fresh entrant? Does he choose a technical career path or a management path? This is an attempt to guide you on the right path when you are about make an important choice in your career. The idea is to give you a flavor of what to look for, and not to intimidate you with technical jargon (not yet anyway!) and information overload.

First of all, let’s make it clear that it is not mandatory to have a BE in Electronics to work in this field. It certainly is the obvious degree to earn, but quality graduate and post-graduate degree in Physics also qualifies one to work as an engineer. The Physics of Semiconductor Devices is the fundamental basis of VLSI. We will see how the choice of various curricula shapes up the job scene, but for now, let’s concentrate on the initials.

As is always the case, earlier the better. If you ever tinkered with a broken radio set, you have already started. Academically, the right time to acquaint yourself with various specializations of Electronics is when you are in second or third year of engineering. You can choose your electives so that you can concentrate more on specific subjects. A fresh engineer has several opportunities to use his engineering skills in the VLSI world. Primarily the jobs can be classified as a Design engineer, Product engineer, Test engineer, Process engineer or an Applications engineer. Of course there are other important functions such as a CAD engineer who keeps developing (or maintaining) the all important design CAD tools and systems. Irrespective of which job functions one chooses, there are certain basic skills required to break into this field. Typical coursework needed for a VLSI engineer (See sample job definitions in a later section) is given below. (complexity will vary for undergrad and grad, but the topics are the same). Depending upon the school, and even the country, the way these courses are organized and taught may vary significantly. However the following list is intended to give you a flavor of what an electronics engineer is expected to know.

Core Courses (Mandatory in most Engineering Schools)

1) Physics of Semiconductor Devices
2) Linear Systems
3) Probability and Random Variables
4) Engineering Mathematics (Fourier, Laplace and Z Transforms)
5) Circuit Analysis
6) Engineering Electromagnetics

Electives (courses you can mix and match from)
Electives comprise a long list of choices that make up several specializations. An undergraduate (BE in India, BSEE in the US) student chooses courses such that he continues in that field in graduate school (MS and Ph.D. level). Sample list is as follows: