A Career in Designing Processors

[QuantumKnight]

Good evening,

I am curious as to where I would start if I wanted to start a career designing microprocessors? Although my major is mathematics I have taken Digital Logic courses and many other EE courses. I am very interested in the process behind processor technology. While it's relativitly easy to design a microprocessor using a breadboard and a FPGA chip, I have no clue how processor companies are formed or how the engineers in companies like Intel or AMD get to where they are designing and manufacturing processors. Can anyone point me in a decent direction?

Good day.

 

[carlgrace]

Get an MS in EE focusing on Microprocessor design. Try really hard to get an internship at a company doing microprocessor work. Keep in mind the vast majority of microprocessor engineers do not work for Intel or AMD but work for smaller companies designing microcontrollers (MCUs) or ASIC companies modifying and integrating ARM (or similar) cores into SOCs.

For what it's worth, I disagree strongly that it's "easy" to design a microprocessor in an FPGA. If you did a Z-80 clone, good job, but it's like saying you can design an adaptive equalizer because you put a shunt capacitor after a series resistor once.