Rookie to Expert - Hardware Engineer Advanced Road (b)

What should be learned by Hardware engineers?

This time, engineers will find that they need to learn a lot of things. There may be ARM, FPGA, MCU, DSP, DDR, PCIE, USB, SATA, Ethernet, UART, IIC, SPI, RF, antenna, power supply, video, audio ... in a system. Hardware engineers need to master this knowledge and master it? That may have to learn do not know when. This time positioning is very crucial.

What is your hobby, what is your profession, what is your company's main business, and what is your career plan, all of which will affect your position? The first and foremost affirmation is your personal interest and professionalism.

Cite a few examples. If you work as a hardware engineer at a chip company, your day-to-day work will probably be the verification platform and reference design for your company's chip. Then FPGA design is what you have to master. Depending on the chip of each company, there may be other requirements. However, the company's main business is IC design, how to get close to the company's main business? The best entry point for hardware engineers may be encapsulation. Packaging technology is the closest to the work of hardware engineers, PCB design, and also has a lot in common. From the understanding of packaging technology to start more to understand the chip design technology, with these experiences for subsequent reference design provides a good knowledge of reserves.

If in the consumer electronics industry, reliability and manufacturability are the most important design requirements due to the nature of consumer electronics. Then the system's reliability design, EMC, manufacturability, and so on are what hardware engineers have to learn. To understand the real production process, to understand the actual production process on the production line, which in turn will very well affect the design.

If in the instrumentation company, then the test and measurement techniques, waterproof and dustproof lightning protection design, low-power design, etc. may become the daily needs of hardware engineers' point of concern.

Hardware is the basis of the project, there will be a variety of hardware components above the circuit, circuit design. A good hardware engineer must be a hybrid student, to learn all aspects of knowledge. At the same time, however, we must also focus on areas that are relevant to our own work and try our best to achieve the goal. Only in this way, hardware engineers will have good development.

Do what you are interested in, connect your career plan with the company's main business, and work toward a stated goal. I believe after three to five years, will receive good results. Never let yourself out of the company's main business too far. The difference may not be obvious in the rising period of the company, but once the company has experienced a period of rapid expansion, entered a stage of steady development, or suddenly encountered major setbacks and needs to make business choices, it should only be retained by the company main job.

1) Have a clear career plan

2) Personal development linked to the company's main business

3) Be compatible and focus on areas of specialization

4) Do what you are interested in and keep going