Page 53 - The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

Analog Design Productivity and the Challenge of Creating Future Generations of Analog Engineers

QUESTIONNAIRE 2
Q. We have two professional circuit engineers, one is in digital and
the other in analog, available to add to your project troop. Which
do you prefer, analog or digital?
RESULTS:
Analog .. 32(62%) Digital.. 20(38%)

QUESTIONNAIRE 3
Q. To support your urgent project, you can add ten more circuit
engineers to your troop. What ratio of engineers, analog to digital,
do you like?
RESULTS:
10 digital engineers 1
1 analog, 9 digital 1
2 analog, 8 digital 14
3 analog, 7 digital 16
4 analog, 6 digital 9
5 analog, 5 digital 2
6 analog, 4 digital 3
7 analog, 3 digital..... 3
8 analog, 2 digital 2
9 analog, 1 digital 0
10 analog engineers 1
Results of Questionnaire 1 confirm that a few universities are inter-
ested in analog circuit technology and most student are fond of computer
software rather than hardware technology. This shows at the same time
that most general people's interests are in digital field. It is, however,
very interesting that industries need a lot of analog circuit engineers. Dr.
Nagata said "Analog technology is a Key technology, while digital is a
Main technology." It means that what governs the final performance of
digital system such as speed and reliability is an analog circuit technol-
ogy. Digital circuits are analog circuits in topological sense, they use
only two states of the circuits. Therefore faster the digital LSI, more trou-
bles arise which analog technologies are mandatory to solve.
As mentioned at the beginnings main productions of Japanese 1C in-
dustries are digital LSI, they need much digital circuit engineer to hold
their production. It is difficult for a digital circuit engineer to understand
rather complicated analog circuit, but to the contrary analog circuit engi-
neer can easily design digital circuits. By this reason analog engineers
are tend to be thrown into digital project, it forms one way flow (diode)
of engineers from analog to digital, making the number of analog
circuit engineers in the industry decreased year by year. Nevertheless
many leading project managers become aware of importance of analog
technologies. Results of questionnaire 2 and 3 seem to show this
situation.

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