Is electronic engineering dead?

My first course at the university was a 400 level special engineering course on hardware/software interfacing for a DEC PDP computer. At that point I had a two year electronics degree and experience operating a PDP-11 at work. I made an A for the class. It was just the first of several 400 level classes I took and aced during my freshman year.

Wow, that's definitely a great example of the strengths and diverse skill set of the computer engineering discipline... and how quickly the students come to speed.  Now of course because I am recognizing the merits of computer engineering I do not want to diminish any personal credit owed to you.  Landing such an important opportunity so early on was certainly due to your hard work and dedication to your field and, also I imagine,the natural gifts bestowed upon you.

Whilst I still do some electronic design, I let my career take me towards embedded software because I initially thought this. After a solid few years away from electronics completely, I then went into a mixed role where I designed some (fancy, not just micro on a circuit board with some LEDs) electronics as well. Just a few years out of the electronics world left a void of missing knowledge that made the electronic design really hard. 

Behind the scenes I still had the aptitude to work everything out, but in reality, it was not just wiring up little black boxes with metal legs. One thing that was different was that everyone now wants to put a radio in everything and that's where a lot of my older knowledge came in (handy I had some experience in this). The other thing is that, unlike a reference design, it had to meet the emissions standards expected. Plenty of that is down to electronics experience - someone alluded to Apple and their iPhones further up (or down) who took sticking wiggly things right next to other wiggly things and still managed to make a radio transmitter of at least three types out of it whilst meeting all the relevant standards. It's definitely not software engineering making all of that happen.

What I would say instead is that the entry point for electronics is now lower - integration makes some previously unfeasible devices really simple now; of course we know that because I now have a mains plug that can be controlled by my cell phone. If that's not a first world problem, I worry what is! This means we see more everyday items with a chip in (it started with those musical Christmas cards in the 80s!). 

Yes, when I was in school during the 1970's I was already gainfully employed full time integrating a microprocessor into a laser guided bomb guidance unit.

They hire computer engineering students for co-op terms where I used to work and I was pretty impressed with their effectiveness right out of the gate.

I agree.

I started with a computer engineering degree which was a split between software and hardware.

Knowing both worlds made me very useful on many projects.

The expansion of SOC's to include digital and analog hardware with integrated radio capability keeps bringing these areas together.

I believe the border between electronic engineering and software engineering is becoming fuzzy.  Future engineers will not be able to separate the two and specialize in one or the other.  Chips can't cover all of electronic engineering especially human interfacing and not-so-smart sensors.  Reference designs are nice to have, but don't always cover all feature requirements of a project.

I tell all our new students to learn as much as you can in hardware/software/machining/prototyping/etc. because the available positions require people that have multiple skill sets.  Hiring managers would rather hire a person they don't have to train as much before they become productive.

I suspect the need for EE will increase once the AI begins to crank out solutions.

You still need someone with intuition to get the final circuits to work.

Theory only gets you to about an 80% solution.

Knowledge and experience takes you the last 20%.

acdc90 said:

When you plan power supply or Driver circuits do you think of the life of caps in the machine  

Actually, yes.

The board in the picture will have an easy life - it's planned existence is that, after development and testing, it's powered up life time will be << 1000 hours.

But that is unusual.

You can make your caps last longer by running them cool and de-rating by large factors for voltage and ripple. 1000 hour rated cheap caps often last a very long time in low stress applications.

The realities of power design often result in large stress on capacitors but when the cost of a big 10000 hour 450V cap can exceed £100 you can see why they don't end up in washing machines.

Another thing to watch out for is that the capacitance of ceramic capacitors (especially Y5U and X5R types) can be as little as 20% of nominal value at the full rated voltage and less than 50% of nominal at 50% of rated voltage.

Good point about the dust !

Just been working on a design with 80V supply and lots of tracks -  0.15mm track and gap rules definitely not suitable !

MK

Hello, My job for the last 38years is repairing electronics. when dealing with domestic equipment which can sometimes get circuits. But when i am doing industrial modules i have never got circuits. so using data sheets and my own test points works. one thing that gets me is when designed they put small caps running 24/7 in a standby power supply that should be away from heat. Where i have found bigger caps of the same value last longer.

then a motor driver ic with multiple legs would die because it has high voltage then dust then moisture.

When you plan power supply or Driver circuits do you think of the life of caps in the machine  

running 24/7 there is 8760 hours in the first year of warrantee 

how many caps used are better than 2,000 hours.