Internships? Yeah, nah. TSMC doesn't hand out technology NDAs to interns, which makes them kinda useless.
All in all, the IC design field is a decade or two behind software dev in terms of ergonomics. They're not going to attract a lot of talent, if the tooling remains as kludgy and unreliable as it is. What if GCC or Clang crashed on you once in a while "just because"? That's the reality of IC design flow.
On the flip side, the world at large has just realized the importance of chips, which makes the outlook mildly positive.
I think the average programmer would be horrified if they really knew the state of modern chip design. SWEs already know how bad most software is, but imagine an entire industry of tens of thousands of people writing code (HDL/TCL), who often don't even think what they do is programming, that has evolved over the last 50 years with minimal interaction with the rest of the software engineering world.
Verilog is a nightmare. The tools are buggy. Everyone has Stockholm syndrome. Version control is considered state-of-the-art and you're lucky if your org uses it.
I've seen a lot of HDL code in my career, and there's a huge number of well respected senior engineers who think having any form of hierarchy, abstraction, or even for-loops is very advanced design practice.
The only good part is the bar is so low it's easy to standout and climb. I think the industry is in a position where it would be surprisingly easy for a startup of seasoned SWEs with a decent understanding of how to write optimized hardware to churn out competitive chips with 10x the velocity of the big players like Nvidia/AMD/Intel
Entry-level web dev interview: "Can you center things using CSS? Can you reverse a linked list? You're hired, here's 75k/yr, go write some Python"
Entry-level EE interview: "What is Ohm's law? What are sources of noise in an electronic circuit? Are you okay relocating to Guangzhou?"
This is a weird US-centric article. There are tons of microelectronic engineers in places where a low cost of living makes microelectronics a viable career. If you go looking for PCB design training online, it'll be almost exclusively from China, India, and eastern Europe.
Obviously money is a big factor, software engineers are reputed to earn large starting salaries, like medical doctors and lawyers.
Another factor is that after sports stars, the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc are associated with programming and that's where so much of the startup action is too.
So then why study electrical engineering, which is heavy on theory, calculus, minimal lab work and a Dilbert-like reputation?
Disclaimer: I have an EE degree, worked as a certified engineer for 10 years and then defected to the dark side, PhD in SE and 20+ years in IT. When I look at returning to EE design work & project management (which I really did enjoy) the salaries being offered immediately dash any further interest.
Similar. I have an MSEE, but started my career doing embedded software work, and eventually moved to all software (I did carry a double CS/EE major, but never finished CS). I easily make 2-3x doing software than I'd make doing hardware, plus I do enjoy software work.
Would not surprise me that EE is also way more offputting it due to the amount of rigor, and dedicated practice required to get anywhere with it - just to graduate is a serious undertaking.
Contrast this with bootcamps and everything else that is involved when it comes to software jobs. I've seen many people weaseling through this. Maybe it's the same with EE to some degree, but I imagine these people get filtered out at a much greater pace than their SE/Web Dev counterparts.
I'm all for passion, but I tell my (also young) friends to beware of donating your passion to 100-billion dollar (or otherwise) companies with 50% profit margins without adequate compensation. You can use your money for causes like Effective Altruism too.
Not for me. For society. This isn't about individuals. People in mass choose higher paying jobs. People are not going to get into microelectronics because: pay sucks comparatively, easily outsourced, high effort, worse benefits, etc. There aren't enough "passionate" people to take advantage of to fill these roles.
The focus on money is THE cultural meme of the 21st century.
Do you ever hear of a basketball / baseball / football pro who turned down a multi-million deal? Or an actor for that matter. Nobody questions why they don't play because of their passion for their sport.
In practical terms, if you want to live where the career opportunities are, you need a sizeable income just to stay in place. They (the greedy capitalists) want you to work to live. Of course, the "leaders" don't manage because of their passion. They demand ever increasing salaries.
> Students hear about software grads getting tremendous starting salaries. Why should they choose hardware engineering?
I didn't. They shouldn't either. It's a harder job, with less perks, for less money. The real question is why do the existing hardware engineers keep doing what they are doing when they could be making double just by picking up the phone and talking to a recruiter?
> I didn't. They shouldn't either. It's a harder job, with less perks, for less money.
This is 100% correct. Stay far, far away from semiconductor companies until the salaries come up where they belong.
> The real question is why do the existing hardware engineers keep doing what they are doing when they could be making double just by picking up the phone and talking to a recruiter?
1) Because those of us who are good at hardware engineering aren't making half of what software people make--we're making the same or more.
2) Because the people in hardware probably don't have knowledge of the "modern" web stack idiocies. A remarkable amount of hardware still runs on VB6! (the last useful desktop development environment)
3) Because the super high salaries at the FAANGs are an anomaly--as we are seeing from all the layoffs.
4) Because I do things that require my in person presence in a lab, I can't be outsourced. Everybody wants to only work from home, but they forget that if you can only work from home you can be replaced by somebody cheaper.
Perhaps it's because there's little skill overlap between hardware engineers and software engineers? Perhaps it's because they have different career goals and desires?
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All in all, the IC design field is a decade or two behind software dev in terms of ergonomics. They're not going to attract a lot of talent, if the tooling remains as kludgy and unreliable as it is. What if GCC or Clang crashed on you once in a while "just because"? That's the reality of IC design flow.
On the flip side, the world at large has just realized the importance of chips, which makes the outlook mildly positive.
SiFive probably not as worried about interns and NDAs.
I think the average programmer would be horrified if they really knew the state of modern chip design. SWEs already know how bad most software is, but imagine an entire industry of tens of thousands of people writing code (HDL/TCL), who often don't even think what they do is programming, that has evolved over the last 50 years with minimal interaction with the rest of the software engineering world.
Verilog is a nightmare. The tools are buggy. Everyone has Stockholm syndrome. Version control is considered state-of-the-art and you're lucky if your org uses it.
I've seen a lot of HDL code in my career, and there's a huge number of well respected senior engineers who think having any form of hierarchy, abstraction, or even for-loops is very advanced design practice.
The only good part is the bar is so low it's easy to standout and climb. I think the industry is in a position where it would be surprisingly easy for a startup of seasoned SWEs with a decent understanding of how to write optimized hardware to churn out competitive chips with 10x the velocity of the big players like Nvidia/AMD/Intel
Entry-level EE interview: "What is Ohm's law? What are sources of noise in an electronic circuit? Are you okay relocating to Guangzhou?"
This is a weird US-centric article. There are tons of microelectronic engineers in places where a low cost of living makes microelectronics a viable career. If you go looking for PCB design training online, it'll be almost exclusively from China, India, and eastern Europe.
Another factor is that after sports stars, the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc are associated with programming and that's where so much of the startup action is too.
So then why study electrical engineering, which is heavy on theory, calculus, minimal lab work and a Dilbert-like reputation?
Disclaimer: I have an EE degree, worked as a certified engineer for 10 years and then defected to the dark side, PhD in SE and 20+ years in IT. When I look at returning to EE design work & project management (which I really did enjoy) the salaries being offered immediately dash any further interest.
Then they will go to CS fields. It's not all about money but if a person is interested in two things and one pays higher, guess where they'll go?
Contrast this with bootcamps and everything else that is involved when it comes to software jobs. I've seen many people weaseling through this. Maybe it's the same with EE to some degree, but I imagine these people get filtered out at a much greater pace than their SE/Web Dev counterparts.
Maybe for you. Most of the time there are other variables when choosing your job (EE here).
Do you ever hear of a basketball / baseball / football pro who turned down a multi-million deal? Or an actor for that matter. Nobody questions why they don't play because of their passion for their sport.
In practical terms, if you want to live where the career opportunities are, you need a sizeable income just to stay in place. They (the greedy capitalists) want you to work to live. Of course, the "leaders" don't manage because of their passion. They demand ever increasing salaries.
I didn't. They shouldn't either. It's a harder job, with less perks, for less money. The real question is why do the existing hardware engineers keep doing what they are doing when they could be making double just by picking up the phone and talking to a recruiter?
This is 100% correct. Stay far, far away from semiconductor companies until the salaries come up where they belong.
> The real question is why do the existing hardware engineers keep doing what they are doing when they could be making double just by picking up the phone and talking to a recruiter?
1) Because those of us who are good at hardware engineering aren't making half of what software people make--we're making the same or more.
2) Because the people in hardware probably don't have knowledge of the "modern" web stack idiocies. A remarkable amount of hardware still runs on VB6! (the last useful desktop development environment)
3) Because the super high salaries at the FAANGs are an anomaly--as we are seeing from all the layoffs.
4) Because I do things that require my in person presence in a lab, I can't be outsourced. Everybody wants to only work from home, but they forget that if you can only work from home you can be replaced by somebody cheaper.
I am getting so sick of people saying things like this. Of course, their companies never happen to be hiring at the moment...
MEMS, NEMS is out of scope, for virtually everything.
Display tech is out of scope.
Architecture was set in stone decades ago, shows obvious signs of pipeline issues, with speculative execution vulnerabilities.
Everything in hardware is either so difficult as to require a PhD from a program that doesn't exist, or it's solved already.