Ireland - Students / Graduates

Job Description: IC Design Engineer

The role of the design engineer at Analog is different to that available in many other companies because the designer has a much broader scope. The engineer is not just a circuit designer; he is a new product developer with responsibilities ranging from defining the product with inputs from a range of customers, through the architecture and circuit design phases, to interfacing with manufacturing. The designer also has a major input in determining the financial viability of a proposed product, and has the opportunity to monitor the revenue and returns from products after they have been released. In this way an individual can see how he or she contributed directly to the growth of the company.

The job as a designer is varied, and covers all parts of new product development. It consists of working with customers on product definition, identification of suitable architecture, circuit design, liaising with layout, test and applications engineers, circuit debug, and qualification / release to manufacturing. Because of the precision of the products, great care and attention to detail is required at the circuit design stage.

Analog circuits used include Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs), Digital to Analog Converters (DACs), Analog Filters, Phase Locked Loops (PLLs), Amplifiers and Comparators, Switched Capacitor Circuitry, Bandgap References, DC-DC Convertors, Power-on Reset and Brownout Detect Generators, Crystal Oscillators, etc. Digital Circuits include Digital Filters, Microprocessor Interfaces, Micro-Controllers, Serial Interfaces, State Machines, Memory Controllers, Interrupt Logic, etc. Analog CAD tools used include Composer (schematic capture), Virtuoso (layout), ADICE (proprietary SPICE-type simulator) and MATLAB. Digital CAD tools include Verilog-XL and NC, Synopsys, Verifault, Debussy and others. The operating system used is UNIX, running on Sun SPARCstation Ultra platforms.

Required Qualifications, Core Subjects
BE in Electronics, Microelectronics or Electrical Engineering. In some cases graduates with Applied Physics may be suitable. Core subjects would be Analog Circuits, Digital Circuits / Logic Design, Solid State Electronics, Filter Design, Control Theory, Communication Theory, RF, etc, although not necessarily all of these.

Skills Required
A person with a strong ability in analog and digital design would be most desirable although there would be jobs for people specialising in analog design only. There is only a couple of jobs available for digital only specialists.

Training
When a new graduate joins the design faculty the first 2 to 3 months is giving over to a combination of on the job and classroom training. The formal classroom training involves several short courses ranging from a half day to several days, on the various design tolls listed above (Composer, ADICE, Verilog, Synopsys, etc), the design of basic circuit building blocks such as op-amps, references, filters, etc, as well as more general topics such as the New Product Development Process at Analog Devices.

Initially a graduate engineer will work closely with a senior designer who acts as their mentor on a day-to-day basis. While most graduates will be assigned to a real project from day one, initially, their time is spent learning basic design techniques, and the CAD tools that are used. They are not thrown in at the deep end and expected to design a block on their own. As the graduate gains more experience, they are then given more responsibility in their day-to-day work. This will vary from person to person dependant on their rate of learning.

Micro-Converter (MCV) Product Line

MCV is a new group which defines, develops and markets microconverters (TM). These are A to D's and D to A's with a microprocessor. Also included is Flash memory, RAM, and various interfaces for connecting to a PC etc. Released products include the ADuC812 and the ADuC824 (you can see lots of detail for these on the web site www.analog.com/microconverter). These are used in applications such as remote sensing + control where the microconverter can acquire the data, process it, respond as appropriate, and send status to the system controller. Future products will have higher performance analog cells and increased processor performance. The group consists of about 10 design engineers, 6 test engineers, 3 design evaluation engineers, as well as applications and marketing engineers, all based in Limerick. In recent times groups in Austin, Texas and Beijing, China have worked with us on the design of blocks for our newest parts.

The design of the mircoconverter parts require a broad range of skills. There are digital, analog, and memory design specialists in the group (and openings for all of the above). The challenge in MCV lies in integrating the most advanced analog technologies with enough computing power to make sense of the digital data. The design role will involve working closely with the existing team to develop new modules for existing designs and to help evaluate architectures and implement the best solution for new designs.

Industrial Converter (ICV) Product Line

The ICV group develops sigma-delta ADCs aimed at industrial markets. These convertors have high resolution (up to 24 bits) at modest conversion rates (typically up to 5KHz). This performance is achieved using oversampling. The signal is sampled very fast (typ. 5MHz) at a low resolution (1-4 bits). This digitised signal is then digitally filtered so that the excess conversion speed is traded-off for increased resolution.

The ICV team of 12 engineers (5 design engineers) works on the development and marketing of industrial mixed-signal ICs. The products to date have been predominately high resolution (up to 24 bits), low speed (100-1KHz) convertors, using sigma-delta technologies. Products that have been developed include the AD7701 family, AD7710 family, AD7714/15, AD7750, AD7705/06/07, AD7730/30L/31, and the AD7740/41/42. Revenue from these products, all of which were defined, developed and marketed at Limerick, was approx. $33 million in 1999, and is expected to grow by 35% this year. Products in this marketplace typically have slow ramp times and long design-in lifetimes, giving steady growth and stability. The products are tailored for industrial sensor interfacing, power metering, weighscales, etc. The team is also considering developing related products for industrial communications and for consumer products.

The team believes that it can define and develop successful products by a combination of leading edge circuit design and a detailed knowledge of the customer's requirements. The latter is achieved by working closely with key customers when defining new products. Innovative circuit developments have resulted in the granting of nine US patents to members of the team, with a further six pending. The team has also presented papers at international conferences including ESSCIRC (1996 and 1999).

Opportunities exist in the ICV group for design engineers with analog and mixed signal skills. The team works closely with new engineers to broaden their existing skills in relevant areas such as analog and digital signal processing.

Temperature and System Monitoring (TSM) Product Line

The Temperature and System Monitoring Group (TSM) is a new product line that has developed a market leadership position over the past 5 years or so. This outstanding performance driven primarily by our significant design-in wins at leading PC customers such as Intel, Compaq, IBM, Fujitsu and Dell is set to continue as we strive to expand the product portfolio into other markets and applications

One of our key success factors has been our ability to penetrate into these highly competitive markets with world class products. This has been made possible through the hard work of a focused, customer-aligned team of highly motivated engineers who have displayed the ability to respond to a dynamic marketplace through initiative inventiveness.

The products to-date consist mainly of an ADC core with local and remote temperature measurement channels. For the remote temperature measurement channel our ICs connect directly to a thermal diode transistor which is typically located on another IC whose temperature is being monitored, for example Intel's Pentium 4 processor. Some of the products have DAC channels also. The digital circuitry typically consists of a SMBus interface with onboard registers for control and limit setting, etc. More recent designs have added sophisticated PWM fan control technology to provide a more complete thermal management solution and EEPROM technology for storing customer settings. It is foreseen that in future as the group becomes more focused on opportunities in other markets that a wider range of circuit building blocks will be required. The initial steps in this expansion have already happened through the development of our first power supply controller and capacitive sensing products.

Opportunities exist in the TSM group for design engineers with analog and mixed signal skills.

For further information, see http://www.analog.com/temp-sensors

RF Limerick (RFL) Business Unit

RFL is a new (~5 year old) product line that has spun off from our highly successful Baseband Communications group, also based in Limerick. The RFL group defines, develops and markets IC components and systems for wireless applications, primarily for mobile phone handsets and base-stations. The chips are designed onto advanced RF-CMOS and BiCMOS Fabrication processes.

To date we have released a family of high performance integer-N PLL based frequency synthesizers that operate up to 4GHz and have the lowest phase noise in the industry. In development are 8GHz versions as well as Fractional-N PLL based synthesizers and Tx/Rx systems.

We are part of the Communications Division of Analog Devices and work closely with other ADI sites in the US and UK, more recently on the new Othello chipset for GSM.

The group is made up of 7 design engineers, 8 test/evaluation engineers and 4 applications / marketing engineers, all based in Limerick. The design work involves a mix of RF, analog and digital design as well as system level design/architecture definition.

The Communications Group architect, design & test IC\222s for the exploding Wireless Telecomms market. Currently the group is focusing on developing low power and cost effective chipsets for GSM (pan-European Digital Cellular standard) handsets. However research is already under way into solutions for third generation (3G) cellular standards termed Wideband CDMA.

Increasing Integration and functionality of handsets e.g. MP3 players, Internet access, GPS geo location etc. mean that the IC\222s developed are communication Systems On a Chip (SOC) i.e. incorporating the signal chain from antenna to earpiece / micro-phone. The core designs include ADC's, DAC's, filters (analog & digital), mixers & PLL's. Within the group there are opportunities to work on all sections of a digital radio including RF (1.8-0.9GHz), Baseband (0-100KHz), Voiceband (0-8KHz) & Power management. The fabrication technologies used are RF-CMOS and BiCMOS.

The Communications product line is one of the largest in Analog Devices worldwide. In Limerick there are a total of 18 engineers between Design, Test & Evaluation. Many of the projects are multisite resulting in close co-operation with engineers in the U.S. England and Continental Europe. Estimated Revenue from COMMS products developed in Limerick for FY00 is $40 million.

The group requires Mixed Signal Design, Test & Design Evaluation engineers.

High Speed Networking (HSN) Product Line

The HSN product line was formed about 2.5 years ago to focus on the lucrative and exciting telecom and datacom markets. The product line has design centers in Limerick, the U.K., and the U.S.

To date, the group has focused on products for the electronic side of electro-optical interfaces for high speed (2.5Gb/s and 10Gb/s) fiber-optic communications.

On the receive side, we are developing a series of products that are used to recover the clock and data from a high speed serial bit stream using patented PLL based techniques. To find more information on one of the earlier generation products of this type, search for product AD808 on http://www.analog.com

On the transmit side, we are also developing laser diode driver ICs. These ICs contain two main functions. The first is the high-speed data-switch which switches the laser on and off in response to the input data. The second is a series of analog control loops that measure and control the optical power and signal swing in the laser. Future generations of these products will use a PLL to convert low speed parallel data into high-speed serial data which then drives the laser. To find more information on the first of this type of product, search for product ADN2840 on http://www.analog.com

The products we work on have a large analog content, but they also contain some digital circuitry that operate at frequencies where the analog/digital boundary is blurred. The type of design work taking place within the group includes system modeling & design, PLL design, amplifier & control loop design, GHz rate analog & digital design etc. etc.

The group in Limerick consists of 23 people working in design, layout, design evaluation, test, applications & marketing. Many of these engineers have over 10 years of experience, and the group provides a good learning environment for graduate engineers. One third of the group are recent university graduates and this ratio is likely to grow as the group expands to address the opportunities in our target market.

Interface (ITF) Product Line

ITF is a Limerick-based Product Line, but with Designers also based in Dublin, Silicon Valley and Edinburgh. It has been the fastest growing product line in Limerick over the last 5 years.

ITF products are geared towards consumer applications, with our RS232 Transmitter/Receiver products used in Notebook and Desktop PCs, Personal Digital Assistants, Mobile Phone Handsets and Digital Still Cameras. Our Supervisor family of products can find uses in almost all applications, as their function is so fundamental to so many applications.

More recently ITF is designing products into applications requiring control of current flow at he interface of host computer and peripherals or cards. Examples would be USB current limiters on Desktop PC USB ports, or PCI Hotswap controllers on Servers with multiple PCI slots. Design Engineers provide a key role in New Product definition in Interface. We are also developing products for powering colour LCD screens and high-speed data transfer for next-generation Mobile Phone Handsets.

The products contain a large portion of analog blocks such as amplifiers, references, comparators and DC/DC converters with an emphasis on high performance and low power consumption. The processes used are state-of-the art High Voltage BiCMOS processes along with the most current CMOS processes.

The ITF group presently consists of 9 Design, 4 Design Evaluation, 4 Layout, 4 Marketing / Applications and 7 Test Engineers. Revenues for ITF for the year 2000 were $88 million.

Video (VID) Product Line

The video group develops high performance, high speed, mixed signal, system level ICs for both consumer and professional markets such as DVD playback and record, set-top boxes, video editing equipment, security camera systems and JPEG and Wavelet compression. The group is primarily based in Limerick but also has a design centre in Austin, Texas.

The signal processing of video requires dealing with very high bandwidth signals at up to 12 bits resolution at 108Mhz clock rates and this becomes more and more challenging as higher and higher definition video standards such as progressive scan and HDTV are supported. The rapidly changing video marketplace requires the continual development of new architectures to meet these challenges. The variety of blocks required on such ICs is very broad and includes ADCs, DACs, phase locked loops, RAMs, ROMs, control loops and extensive digital signal processing and datapath blocks using the latest tools. The rapid success of the group is fuelled by the accelerated growth of digital video demand driven by broadband access availability and higher quality entertainment needs.

The group in Limerick consists of 12 design engineers, 4 test engineers, 3 design evaluation engineers and 3 applications engineers and 5 layout engineers.

Opportunities exist in the group for digital, analog and mixed signal design engineers, mixed signal test development engineers and mixed signal design evaluation engineers preferably with a strong customer focus, teamwork skills and the ability to develop system level knowledge. With the broad variety of projects ongoing and the many experienced designers, the video group provides an ideal learning environment.

For further information, see http://www.analog.com/video

Switch / Multiplexer (MPX) Product Line

The switch and multiplexer development group in Limerick design products for many end markets, including wireless communications (handheld phones), networking (optical network switching), medical (blood pressure monitoring) and industrial. ADI is investing significant amount of resources in this product line and the group has doubled in size over the last year. With that sort of expansion there are opportunities in all areas including design, test and design evaluation. Sales from switches and multiplexers products have nearly doubled in the last year and the forecast shows strong future revenue growth. With the expansion of the development group it will be possible to focus on new areas, where innovation will be key to our success.

Switch products are being developed in limerick for over 20 years and many of the products designed then are still being sold today. As these products are general purpose type products and each product has a wide range of applications the switch products have a long life time compared to other parts in this industry. Typical time to market for a switch product is 9 months. This means that once the product is defined (by the designer in conjunction with marketing and the customer) until the finished part is available to the final customer will take this time. In order to achieve a high level of performance. A designer in the group will be expected to work closely with other engineers in the group, both within design and other faculties,

The group presently has 4 designers and has opportunities available in the group for designers with interest in either Analog or mixed signal design with the ability to work as part of a team.

Precision Converter (DAC & ADC) Product Line

The Precision Converter (PRC) group focuses on both Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog converter technology sectors. Precision Linear converters have been a core technology and business units of ADI for many years and we remain the dominant player in this sector of the IC industry, continuing to grow our market share. Our team currently boasts the biggest selling product in Analog Devices, Ireland in the AD7839 Octal 13 bit DAC which primarily targets the large industrial market e.g. Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) manufacturers.

Many patents have been granted to the PRC group which remain key to protecting our highly valued corporate intellectual property (IP) and thus our market dominance. Analog Devices has an important reward scheme to promote such innovation.

Our converter developments are also re-used by other product lines inside ADI for higher levels of integration. ADI is thus a very big "customer" for us.

A graduate design engineer will get good exposure to both Analog and Digital sectors in this environment on different and sometimes diverse technologies e.g.s 0.5um 5V Flash-EEPROM CMOS process with triple metal & Double Poly and a 30V BiCMOS Mixed supply process with zener diodes & trimmable thin film resistors.

Current design developments see the group embracing the new, potentially huge, optical networking market which is moving to address the world-wide-web ever growing bandwidth requirements. High resolution (>14 bit), high Channel count ADC & DAC solutions are required to manipulate the many critical micro-mirrors in the network accurately.

List of Courses for Graduate IC Designers at Analog Devices, Limerick.

Continuous time filters
Regulation & power supply rejection
Current Mirrors
Switched cap filters
Power on reset
Intro to Miller compensation
Digital design
PLL's
DC-DC Converters
Automatic Gain Control
OTAs
Op-Amps
References
Memory Design
Oscillators 1
Oscillators 2

List of Courses for All Engineering Graduates at Analog Devices, Limerick.

Introduction to AD Limerick
Unix Tutorial and Practical
Introduction to Design Tools
Introduction to New Product Development Process
Framemaker Tutorial
ADICE Tutorial and Practical
Product Line Familiarisation
Introduction to AD Limerick
CADENCE Training (3 days)
Wafer Fab Overview
Digital Design Flow
Assembly Engineering Overview
Design Components
ESD / Latch-Up
CMOS Course (5 days)
Design for Test
Layout Training

Additional Information:
Interview Tips
Job Descriptions:
    - IC Design Engineer
    - Wafer Fabrication Engineer
    - Test Development Engineer (Audio/Video)
    - New Product Development Engineer