Analog Comes to the Forefront in 2005

Analog is once again gaining in importance as every application or end-user product today has some analog component. This is especially true for consumer electronics, the area that continues to thrive and the one that drives the rest of the industry. Every complex chip design team needs to consider power management, mixed signal, data conversion and signal processing, all considerations of the analog domain. This means that 2005 will be the year that analog comes to the forefront of electronics design.

Unfortunately, the many years of Digital Rule have taken their toll and fewer electrical engineers have analog domain knowledge or expertise. After all, high school students began flocking to universities in the 1970s to learn more about computers and the binary code that drove them and they haven't stopped since.

Unlike digital designers who have tools to support their efforts, analog expertise often comes with years of experience. Add to that the few available software tools that can predict analog behavior to support the work and it's easy to see why no one would choose to learn this highly specialized discipline.

Appearances can be deceiving. To begin, with fewer trained and experienced analog and mixed-signal designers, those with the expertise are sought after which makes them eminently employable with commensurate salaries.

Therefore, the call goes out to the entire electronics community to increase awareness of the analog domain and how it applies to today's integrated circuits (ICs).

QualCore Logic took an unusual approach when we identified analog as a growth opportunity about two years ago. It was at that time that we began strengthening our analog and mixed-signal silicon intellectual property (IP) expertise when we acquired all of the analog and mixed-signal IP and the experienced analog engineering team.

We took it a step further by relocating the analog design team from Texas to our Sunnyvale, CA, headquarters, which also serves as a design center. From there, we began hiring in earnest designers to strengthen and expand our analog expertise in the U.S. and in India. Over the past year, we have hired 50 additional engineers, many with advanced degrees and very large scale integration (VLSI) experience. Junior engineers were paired with an experienced member of the analog design team in order to learn our internal design flow and also learn more advanced analog IC design techniques.

The team, which now totals more than 60 analog engineers, is split between a design center in Hyderabad, India, and the one in Sunnyvale. Expected to expand to 100 this year, our analog design team complements an existing digital design team.

We believe that we're at the forefront of the analog design trend, but more is needed to build an infrastructure of support. The industry needs more usable tools, more analog and mixed-signal IP and universities must build strong curriculum for this area. Additionally, companies with offshore development typically specialize in digital design and not analog. We see a growing need in this area as well.

With renewed emphasis on the analog domain and the need for analog and mixed-signal design expertise, 2005 is shaping up to be the year of the analog designer.

Mahendra Jain is president and chief executive officer (CEO) of QualCore Logic Inc. of Sunnyvale, CA, a leading provider of digital, mixed-signal and analog IP for SoC designs. Previously, he was vice president of operations of TeraBurst Networks Inc., where he was responsible for establishing its manufacturing operations test, quality and relationships with suppliers, contract manufacturers and foundries. Early, Jain was vice president of Worldwide Marketing for Sagantec. He was executive director of VHDL International and a director of ASIC vendor relationships at Compass Design Automation. Jain was co-founder and editor-in-chief of ASIC Technology and News. Formerly director of ASIC customer engineering, Jain managed 16 design centers worldwide, while working for National Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor. He was responsible for the development of more than 1,000 ASICs over a seven-year period. Jain, a graduate of Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in New York, holds a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering. He also has Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Louisiana State University in New Orleans. His email address is mjain@qualcorelogic.com.