Overview of Electronics Engineering Technology
Overview
Everything that you see around yourself and use, whether at home or at your work place, right from the computer, printer, scanner, keyboard, mouse, down to the massive Plasma TV sets, DVD/Blu-ray players, washing machine, vacuum cleaners and even the coffee/tea makers, have some kind of electronic/electrical circuitry built inside.
Electronics engineering is closely related to several sub-fields such as telecommunications, power, instrumentation engineering, semiconductor circuit design, and the likes of them.
Building Blocks of Electronics Engineering Technology
To the newcomers, especially the students, electronics engineering may seem to be all about resistors, inductors, capacitors, transistors, diodes, operational amplifiers, and oscillators. Of course, these are the building blocks of a circuit, but one can’t identify them within an electronic circuit as such. Basically, by making use of chunks of these components, highly complex electrical and electronic circuits are designed.
Circuit Design and Synthesis
Once the basic circuitry design is done with the help of basic building blocks, the next step is the layout design and synthesis phase using transistors and diodes. Basically, the gate level design synthesis is done by using six basic gates namely – the OR gate, NOR gate, XOR gate, NOT gate, AND gate,and the universal NAND gate.
The next step is the actual fabrication of circuitry by incorporating the desired components and producing a practically useful chip that can perform a particular task, which is often referred to as an IC.
Integrated Circuits
You might have heard a lot about the integrated circuits, often abbreviated as ICs, which are used inside almost every electronic circuitry today. In case you’re not aware of what really lies inside an IC, an integrated chip is a combination of millions of transistors connected with the help of low resistance wiring, fabricated on a breadboard or a PCB.
The fabrication process of an IC is pretty complex, and is explained in detail separately, in this article.
Difference between Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Electronics Engineering have been classified as two different fields, though both of them complement each other. Today, the existence of one without the other is next to impossible
To learn the differences between the role of an electrical engineer and an electronic engineer click here.
Other Domains Closely Related to Electronics Engineering
Signal processing is also categorized under electronics engineering these days, though it basically deals with analysis of signals, and happens to be a separate field in itself.
Telecommunication, analysis of semiconductors, and digital communication are also separate fields closely related to electronics engineering, but these are often considered to be a part of the electronics engineering technology, as a whole.
Future of Electronics Engineering Technology
The future of electronics engineering technology looks absolutely bright with the emergence of Mobile Engineering, which include advanced concepts like Pen-Based Computing, RFID, handwriting recognition, Drawing User Interface (next level of Graphical User Interface), ultra mobile PC, HF-Iso, and mobile broadband.
Additionally, concepts like usage of organic Light-Emitting Diodes, CDMA EV-Do technology, OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) are also gaining high popularity in this field at the moment.
Job Prospects for Electrical/Electronics Engineers
And last but definitely not least, job prospects for potential Electrical & Electronics engineers are absolutely fantastic as they seem to be in high demand across the globe. Obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree or an Associate Degree from a reputed engineering institution can get you kick-started with a rewarding career in this field.
The Bureau of Labor and Statistics has predicted a considerable growth in the field of Electronics Engineering over the next decade through 2016. The average salary of an Electronics/Electrical engineer is about $44,720, and the figures vary across the board, depending upon the job role, employer, individual capabilities, and many other parameters.
For further assistance on obtaining an online bachelor’s degree in this field, refer to this article.
