Success said:So how can I get Bachelor's degree in Electrical engineering without going to college? Can you study for the PE exams?
johnqwertyful said:PE=professional engineer
My dad has been working as an EE for 20 years now, and is very well respected (he has standing offers for work at at least 5 companies, and has recently gotten a job shift to do something no one else has done). He dropped out of high school, and took a few classes at a JC, but never any real math/physics.
He's been doing RF for awhile and the reason why he can do it, and does it well, is that he truly cares and is passionate. He was into radios as a kid. First CB radios, which turned into ham radios, which turned into a career of working in RF for a living.
He didn't really study from books, or learn any math/physics or anything (he has no idea what a limit is, or a derivative, and can't even graph y=mx+b. He knows extremely little math), he just played with radios...a LOT. He's worked with radios so much and for so long. Hours and hours. He was interviewed by a major cell phone company and wasn't expecting to get the job (he went in with absolutely no relevant work experience and a GED). They tried intimidating him, but he wasn't expecting to get he job, so he was totally calm. They liked that (along with his knowledge) so they hired him, and he has been working there since. Since then, he's won countless awards, has been told he's irreplaceable, and recently has been assigned to a newly created job basically solely created for him. He has no boss, no spending limit, no one checking in on him, authorization to hire/fire/buy/spend/whatever he wants. He's very good at what he does, simply because of all the countless hours he put into messing with radios. He started when he was 10 years old, now he's almost 50 and even to today he'll come home after working on radios all day to play with ham radios. He's just obsessed.
Anyway, I don't know if this is irrelevant or not. But I thought it was a good story.
Success said:So how can I get Bachelor's degree in Electrical engineering without going to college? Can you study for the PE exams?
analogdesign said:I'm in Silicon Valley too. It is almost impossible to get a PE in a company here if you are working on products. This is because you must work under a PE for your required experience, and no one here has a PE.
For electrical engineering the only people with PEs are people who do wiring and power for construction or consulting firms.
I took the EIT (engineer-in-training) test and passed, but I'll never get a PE because I have never had a supervisor with a PE.
To add on to what everyone has said, I come from the opposite side of the fence (I have a Ph.D. in EE). I think that what really matters at the end of the day is how good you are. It is much more difficult to get the needed skills on your own, but yungman's experience shows it is quite possible. It is much harder to get your foot in the door without the academic degree, though. You'll always be hustling.
If I were to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same. If you know you want to be an EE it will be much easier if you get the degree.
No, it isn't. It just means a PE electrical engineer is different from a non-PE and it works both ways; someone who works for a construction engineering firm and gets a PE will not be qualified to be a chip designer. The PE is for specific jobs. It isn't a label that says you are qualified for any EE job.Turion said:Wow. That's a shock. Looks like it's a flaw in the requirements in order to become a PE.
russ_watters said:It isn't a label that says you are qualified for any EE job.
Turion said:The issue is that there aren't any people that have both an EE degree and a PE license in Silicon Valley which to me sounds like a flaw because the entire point of the PE is a proof of competency.
ModusPwnd said:A PE is not a proof of competency. Its license for liability. If you are very competent and are in a field with low liability you don't need one (like in the semiconductor industry). If you are doing something with liability to the public then you do need one.
Turion said:So essentially, the P.ENG. is useless to Electrical Engineers or more specifically, Computer Engineers.
What makes a PE different from an engineer?
PEs must also continuously demonstrate their competency and maintain and improve their skills by fulfilling continuing education requirements depending on the state in which they are licensed.
- Only a licensed engineer may prepare, sign and seal, and submit engineering plans and drawings to a public authority for approval, or seal engineering work for public and private clients.
- PEs shoulder the responsibility for not only their work, but also for the lives affected by that work and must hold themselves to high ethical standards of practice.
- Licensure for a consulting engineer or a private practitioner is not something that is merely desirable; it is a legal requirement for those who are in responsible charge of work, be they principals or employees.
- Licensure for engineers in government has become increasingly significant. In many federal, state, and municipal agencies, certain governmental engineering positions, particularly those considered higher level and responsible positions, must be filled by licensed professional engineers.
- Many states require that individuals teaching engineering must also be licensed. Exemptions to state laws are under attack, and in the future, those in education, as well as industry and government, may need to be licensed to practice. Also, licensure helps educators prepare students for their future in engineering.
analogdesign said:but yungman's experience shows it is quite possible. It is much harder to get your foot in the door without the academic degree, though. You'll always be hustling.
If I were to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same. If you know you want to be an EE it will be much easier if you get the degree.
yungman said:Yes, I belong to the late 70s and early 80s where electronics were like in the wild west days. Now because of the economy, every joe blow has a degree. But the problem is degree does not increase one's intelligence and IQ did not increase in the last 30 years. You just see more incapable engineers with a degree. As a manager of EE, I gave test to engineer candidates only from the Electronic Principle By Malvino...that was used in Heald College...a trade school. You'll be surprised how many so called degreed engineer flunk pitifully. Just a simple opamp with summing junction that create an offset and with gain. If you break down the circuit, they all become very simple.
Now that I spent 8 years after retiring, studied all the math, electromagnetics, various microwave theories, I can comfortably say that education and creativity/design is not that closely relate. I don't think I am that much better a designer. I can explain my designs a lot better with all the theories, but not much better. There are a lot of inspiration involve in designing and creativity that you cannot learn in school. A theoretician don't imply creativity. Ideas just comes...when you are in bed, doing something else. You then use theory to verify the idea. IT'S NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Like the biggest discovery of the Benzene ring in chemistry. The person dream of a snake biting it's own tail and goes around and around. Then came the theory and model to proof that it's a ring...and the rest is history.
The hard part is getting the foot in the door. Once you get in, it's all fare game.
analogdesign said:What getting a Ph.D. for me did was provide a great way to get a foot in the door. I had the opportunity to do an entire chip design from concept to design to layout to test and it would be almost impossible to get that experience without the degree.
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yungman said:I was designing bipolar linear integrated circuit in 84 with a company called Exar. I don't even know whether they are still around or not. I regret I got out of there after two years. I always like high speed circuits, at the time, the bipolar IC are very slow, fT of NPN was 1MHz and PNP was something like 100KHz! It's too boring for me. I went on to design the RF front end of the Ultra Sound scanner for Siemens instead. I never thought one day, IC gets to multi GHz, multi layer metalization. I so wish I stuck around, got into CMOS and RFICs.
analogdesign said:Yeah EXAR is still around, they got a nice building in Fremont you can see from 880. I know a few people who have worked there (although long after you left).
I work in CMOS ICs... I did a 10 GHz ADC for optical comms in 90 nm and a 6 GHz RF front end in 65 nm. Really hard projects. The 65nm process had 9 metal layers including thick inductor metal! You would have really enjoyed it.
Now I'm working on a multi-gig SERDES and PLL IC. I can't imagine doing anything else!
Nowadays, though, you really need a MS to get in the door. It's a shame since a lot of talented people probably aren't getting a chance they deserve.
A PE is basically useless for anyone not getting government or other permits for their work, yes. It is completely useless for a chip designer in Silicon valley.Turion said:So essentially, the P.ENG. is useless to Electrical Engineers or more specifically, Computer Engineers.
yungman said:Yeh, those days, IC was relative simple, the excitements were in discrete designs. Now everything is connecting from one big IC to another big IC. Designs are transmission lines impedance matching of the traces from IC to IC or to external world. Everything exciting is inside the IC.
I worked in SONET related system, all we saw was the transceiver ICs with differential outputs. We just design the differential traces to interface the circuit to another IC! Yes, at 10GHz, pcb material makes a difference, every little kink, every little bent has to be considered. Pads has to be shaved off here and there etc. But it is just a glorified pcb layout! You have all the fun! I don't even think you can do a lot of 10+ GHz circuit design in discrete form as the ##\lambda## is just too short and loss is too high to run traces. It is a lot more suitable to be inside the IC where dimension of devices are much smaller.
IT's too bad now the degree is so much more important. As I said before, education does not make a person more creative or more intelligent. I just seen more morons with a degree...and they are still morons! I hired a student that is in the process of getting a MSEE in San Jose State...Let's just say...he got fired after a month.
Well, my days have passed, I had my fun in my days. It's been 8 years since I retired. It's a different world. When I was working in LeCroy in 82, we did a 200MHz 8bits ADC front end using subrange configuration. It was a big big deal. You are doing multi GHz ADC! We had hybrids that we put surface mount transistors inside the hybrids!
russ_watters said:A PE is basically useless for anyone not getting government or other permits for their work, yes. It is completely useless for a chip designer in Silicon valley.
Or from the other direction: you cannot become competent at making permit documents unless you work for someone who makes permit documents. A chip designer job won't prepare you for that so it is not a flaw in the PE requirements.
analogdesign said:How interesting! I'm with on you the moron angle... in my experience education and capability are somewhat correlated, but they don't have a one-to-one correspondence at all!
PCB design at 10 GHz or even 40 GHz (!) is possible but very challenging and specialized! You're right that it is primarily connecting highly integrated ICs but getting multi-gig signals across a backplane is tough! There are some good new materials (like the various Rogers mixes) that really extend the bandwidth... you can't just use FR-4 these days! You have to keep the signals balanced and minimize changing layers whenever possible... also you typically have to back drill vias to get rid of the stubs. Very expensive! The SERDES I'm working on right now has an equalizer in it that can compensate somewhat for the board parasitics, but you're right, it's much easier in the IC (and even then not easy!)
The scope front-end designers are always on the cutting edge! That must have been exciting at LeCroy. I have a buddy who does ICs for scopes and they typically use a InP or GaAs S/H amplifier followed by a massively parallel CMOS ADC. Going parallel is the real trick. The 10 GHz ADC I did was eight 1.3 GHz ADCs in parallel. You get all kinds of issues due to timing, gain, and offset mismatches but you can fix those in DSP. Fun stuff!
russ_watters said:A PE is basically useless for anyone not getting government or other permits for their work, yes. It is completely useless for a chip designer in Silicon valley.
Or from the other direction: you cannot become competent at making permit documents unless you work for someone who makes permit documents. A chip designer job won't prepare you for that so it is not a flaw in the PE requirements.
Dembadon said:I know this is probably a rare case, but wouldn't there be a need for a PE if the chip were, say, to be part of a control system that runs an autopilot system or something similar? Or are these type of chips not developed by electronics companies in Silicon Valley?
AlephZero said:Maybe a better version of the question would be something like "what about the design and manufacture MIL-SPEC parts in general" - and I don't know the answer to that.
In California, electrical and mechanical engineering work performed by
employees of the Federal Government, and employees of manufacturing,
mining, public utility, research and development, or other industrial
corporations is exempt, and thus, such employees may serve as
references whether or not they are licensed as long as they are qualified
to appraise the technical competency of the applicant.
Typical examples of exempt employers would be aerospace companies
such as Boeing, or McDonnell Douglas; public utilities such as San Diego
Gas & Electric or P.G.&E.; manufacturers of electrical or mechanical
equipment such as Allen Bradley, Square D, Trane or Carrier, etc.
Examples of non-exempt employers are consulting electrical or
mechanical engineering firms and state and local governments.
AlephZero said:Probably not, unless the chip was designed and manufactured for that single application, and that's not very likely.
Certainly in the case of aircraft engine electronic control systems, the design responsibility and certification of the complete system is the responsibility of the engine manufacturer. That would certainly include a requirement to have a traceable source of parts with well-defined specifications, but most if not all those parts are not specific to an ECS, which conceptually is not much different from any other embedded computer system, and built from the same types of parts.
Maybe a better version of the question would be something like "what about the design and manufacture MIL-SPEC parts in general" - and I don't know the answer to that.
yungman said:If you are not going to school and you want to get into EE, get a low level job. I don't know what's your knowledge level, try get a technician or even an assembler position and study at the same time.
I never have a degree in EE, I had an AA from Heald that I never even advertized as it is not very useful nor would I recommend. I studied everything on my own. I started as a field service technician for Norelco office dictator equipments. Job was just cleaning recorder heads, belts, motors etc. Then I studied the schematics, I studied textbooks at the same time. I even got fired because I rush through the job so I can stay in the car to study! Then I landed onto a production tech in a satellite transmitter company. Then slowly move into engineering tech. Then got promoted to be a designer engineer. I had been an engineer and manager of EE for 30 years since. Other than I stayed home and studied 18 hours a day for 3 months after I got fired from the first job, I never stop working. I gained broad knowledge by keep switching companies of completely different technologies after I mastered one technology. I went from designing data acquisition( oscilloscope type), to linear integrated circuits, to ultra sound imaging medical equipments, mass spectrometers, RF military equipments. All just to gain knowledge. Use the job, maximize return of your time!
Point is try to use the job as an experimental ground to learn. Once you get your foot in, you are surrounded by people in this field and you learn from them. Just the fact you are in the environment, it rub off on you. You'll be surprised how much designs you can do with so little knowledge to start with. I did studied along the way, but nothing to get a degree. After I retired, I spent 8 years studying everything required for BS and way beyond now. But that's after I retired. I don't know the job situation now a days, it worked for me. You have to be hungry, you have to work hard, put in lots of hours, be aggressive to get result.
I did do some experiment at home, you can buy breadboard like on ebay:http://www.ebay.com/itm/70pcs-Breadboard-Jumper-Cable-Wire-PCB-Protoboard-Test-Circuit-Board-400Points-/360667847168?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53f97a9a00 to build circuits. Get some experimental books and build the circuits. I went to a electronics surplus store and bought a used oscilloscope and function generator for cheap and use it at home.
If you have more specific question, post back.
