The growth path of IC design experts

First of all, as a beginner, you need to understand the basic process of IC design. You should do the following:

Basically understand the process of system, front-end and back-end design and verification, the relationship between IC design and semiconductor physics, communication or multimedia system design, understand the basic design process of digital circuits and mixed signals, and understand the basic industry models such as ASIC and COT. I think this is very important for cultivating interest and establishing your future technical career plan.

To learn basic design knowledge, it is recommended to read some design textbooks from Taiwan’s CIC, many of which are classic summaries.

Learning EDA technology: EDA tools are of great significance to IC designers. Through the promotion of EDA tool vendors, new design concepts can be learned. Many domestic IC designers were introduced to the IC design field purely from the perspective of EDA. Many designers also established basic concepts through the promotion and training of EDA manufacturers before they were exposed to deep submicron processes. At the same time, for some difficult designs, identifying and selecting tools is also very important.

If you want to have a higher level of design, accumulating experience is a necessary process. The efficiency of experience accumulation can be improved. The following points can be used as a reference:

1. Learn from some classic designs. Many details in them are necessary to make your design a product. Some may be to adapt to changes in process parameters, some may be to speed up the switching process, and some may be to ensure the stability of the system. Carefully observing these details through simulation will not only be beneficial but also fun. Frequent communication between project teams, especially between project team members, can avoid making the same mistakes.

2. Checking literature is a good method. Working on projects with "experts" can also help you accumulate experience quickly. If you have the opportunity to participate in training given by people with a good design background, it is best to have interactive training, which will also yield good results.

3. When you have initially completed a design, you should do several checks: understand the chip manufacturer's process, the changes in device model parameters, and determine the range of parameter sweep simulation accordingly. Understand the actual use environment of the designed product, and correctly set the input conditions and load model of the system simulation. Strict implementation of design rules and processes is also helpful in reducing design errors.

4. In addition, you need to exchange knowledge, pay attention to communication with the front end or system, and deeply understand the design constraints. As a beginner, you often don’t know the system very well. In addition to understanding your own design task specifications through design documents and meeting exchanges, communication with the system and the front end is essential for IC design. The so-called design skills are all based on understanding the constraints. The system or front-end design engineers can often give beginners a lot of guiding opinions.

5. Pay attention to communication with the back-end and processing lines: IC design is too complex. In addition to relying on the active promotion of EDA tool vendors to establish concepts, IC designers should also actively communicate and learn with the upstream and downstream of the design process, such as engineers of back-end design services or processing services, and process engineers. For beginners, back-end processing manufacturers can often bring them some classic basic concepts, some basic rules such as mistakes that cannot be made. Some good back-end service companies can not only provide very strict DesignKit, but also provide very useful guidance on mixed signal design to help beginners get started.

Knowledge of processing is even more critical for the "productization" of IC design.

6. Pay attention to verification and testing, and be a "paranoid": The risk of IC design is greater than that of board-level electronic design, so the opportunity for experimentation is very valuable, and the spirit of "paranoid" is crucial to the success of IC design. In addition to relying on the company's mature design environment, DesignKit and institutional norms to ensure success, the emphasis on and deep understanding of verification is a crucial part of whether an IC designer can withstand pressure and enjoy success. Since there are relatively few opportunities for tape-out, finding opportunities to participate in and understand testing more, and carefully summarizing and analyzing the success and failure of products are the only way for an IC designer to grow.

The importance of peer communication and working environment: The complexity of IC design and the rapid development of technology make communication between peers very important. Participating in more discussion groups and industry conferences that are suitable for your level is also very beneficial to improving your level. Through communication between peers, you can also find the important impact of the environment on the level of IC design.

The company's financial resources, product direction, and project difficulty can largely affect the highest level a designer can achieve. Dialectically recognizing the relationship between one's own technical improvement and the environment will be a problem that domestic designers will encounter at a certain stage.