What are the jobs prospects for VLSI?

Digital Signal Processing

Very-large-scale integration (VLSI)

What are the jobs prospects for VLSI?

For instance, is MS in VLSI more promising than MS in DSP?

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Anuradha Thota, Founder of a tech startup

10.6k Views • Anuradha has 60+ answers in Jobs and Careers

I am going to write a really long answer. I made a presentation with the help of lots of material available on the net to help Electronics students decide on the stream they want to pursue. I am putting here some information related to VLSI from that material. This will help you understand what kind of work is done in the industry, what opportunities are available etc., VLSI - Be ready for a very large size career Companies into VLSI, design integrated circuits is used by almost every domain in the industry. These companies design chips and manufacture them in large quantities. In simple words, VLSI circuits are everywhere from your computer to your car, your brand new state-of-the-art digital camera, cell phones, and whatever electronics item you have. The designs are mostly used for small transistor - count precision circuits such as amplifiers, data converters, filters, phase-locked loops and sensors. What can you exactly do with VLSI knowledge?

• In digital design, you can create fast and powerful circuits in smaller and smaller devices.

• ASIC - Application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). These ICs are created for specific purposes—each device is created to do a particular job. Ex: signal filters, image compression, etc., Ex: A watch that does time-keeping as well as extra features like games and calendar.

• Systems- on-a-chip (SoCs) - are highly complex mixed-signal circuits (digital and analogue on the same chip). Network processor chips and wireless radio chips are examples of SoCs.

• Reconfigurable computing - involves specially fabricated devices called FPGAs, that when programmed act just like normal electronic circuits without using a microcontroller running with EEPROM inside.

What kind of work you may be doing in the VLSI industry

• You may be working as an layout engineer, where you will be designing the digital and analog circuits inside the chip, say oscillator units for a microcontroller, or timer modules for a microcontroller.

• You may also be made to work on testing the designs for speed, noise etc and be called a test engineer.

• Alternatively you can be a RF engineer and be designing Wireless modules, antennas, RF amplifiers.

Career Opportunities ASIC frontend designer FPGA frontend designer ASIC physical design engineer AMS (Analog Mixed Signal) designer Library developer IP design engineer Verification Engineers Front-end verification engineer FPGA Back-end verification engineer Physical design verification engineer AMS verification engineer EDA tool validation engineer IP verification engineer Board validation engineer EDA/CAD Engineers Software Development Engineer Software Test Engineer Regression and Automation Engineer Build and Release Engineer Application Engineers Field Application Engineer (FAE) Corporate Application Engineer (CAE) Application Engineer Technical Support Tech Support Engineer Product Application Engineer (PAE) Reliability Engineer Fab/Foundry Engineer Major Recruiters: The major recruiters in this fields are Texas Instruments, PMC Sierra, Infineon, Alliance Semiconductor, Analog Devices, Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Celox Networks, Cisco, Control Net, Cypress, DSPG, HCL, Intel, Lucent, Micron Tech, National Semiconductor, Motorola, Philips Semiconductor, Qualcomm, Sasken, C2C, Atrenta, Conexant, Moschip, Cradle Tech, Synplicity, STM, Paxonet, Wipro, TCS, eInfochips, Ishoni Networks and CGCoreEL. Are you ready to pursue a career in VLSI

• Electronics engineers who are strong in electronics design fundamentals, and have mathematical and analytical aptitude, coupled with an interest in design and verification, can grow into good VLSI talent

• A VLSI engineer is expected to know the physics of semiconductor devices, linear systems, probability and random variables, engineering mathematics (Fourier, Laplace and Z transforms), circuit analysis and engineering electromagnetics.

• Skills you have to develop (few of these)

1. Proficiency in C, C++, Java • Data Structures • C/Java Debugger • Understanding of ASIC/FPGA flow • HDL (VHDL, Verilog, SV etc) Knowledge • Scripting Language CShell, Perl, Tcl and Python etc

2. Proficiency in Digital Electronics Design • FPGA Architecture • RTL coding using HDL (VHDL,Verilog, System Verilog) •Test bench writing using HDL •Verification Methodologies like OVM, VMM • Protocol knowledge •Knowledge of ASIC/FPGA frontend tools (Synthesis, Simulation, FV etc)

3. Exposure to Cadence, Magma or Synopsys backend tools •Digital circuit to transistor level design translation •Floor planning, power grid analysis, placement and routing •CTS (clock tree synthesis), DRC-LVS (layout versus schematic) closure, timing closure, signal integrity

4. FPGA Architecture •Exposure with FPGA backend tools •Floor planning, power grid analysis, placement and routing •CTS (clock tree synthesis), timing closure, signal integrity •Debugging on FPGA board •Scripting Language like CShell, Perl and Tcl •Knowledge of FPGA Backend Design & Verification

All the best and have a great career ahead !!