Want to get into FPGA

R

RealInfo

Guest
Hi all
I am a 52 years old electronics technician with massive experience in
analog electronics like audio and power supplies .

I want to start a career in FPGA designing .

My intention is to buy a good book and a good FPGA
evaluation board and to do some projects on it to
get experience .

I did some work in VHDL in the past .

My question is do I have a real chance to get into this field now
at my age ?

Thanks
EC
 
Hi all
I am a 52 years old electronics technician with massive experience in
analog electronics like audio and power supplies .

I want to start a career in FPGA designing .
Click to expand...
Seriously, I would think that RF was a better bet for you if you want t
increase your earnings/hour.

BTW, are you UK based, or elsewhere in Europe?


---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com
 
RealInfo wrote:
I am a 52 years old electronics technician with massive experience in
analog electronics like audio and power supplies .

My question is do I have a real chance to get into this field now
at my age ?
Click to expand...
Depends on how deep you want to go but, sure, I did and I
started at a later age than yours. I had so much fun that
I started a hobby company based on it. Check out Demand
Peripherals.

Bob Smith
 
If you are determined and patient enough and most importantly you want
to learn I don't see why you can't make a move into this area. There
is still a bias against taking on the older worker with limited
experience so I don't think it will be an easy move. There will be a
lot of rejections probably along the way. Your analogue background can
be useful in understanding issues particularly at board level. Most
young graduates these days don't think beyond '0' and '1' if they even
think at as low a level as that. That's something you might be able to
use as an advantage in gaining a position. Combining with some board
level analogue electronics might also get you a way in as an all-
rounder. That way an employer gets some immediate benefit but you get
a path to experience.

Starting on your own is a good idea to see that you like doing the
work and can make the transition. If you want to go further and do
something like a masters or other qualification that may also help but
is costly to do.

John Adair
Enterpoint Ltd.

On 1 Sep, 09:52, RealInfo <therighti...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all
I am a 52 years old electronics technician with massive experience in
analog electronics like audio and power supplies .

I want to start a career in FPGA designing .

My intention is to buy a good book and a good FPGA
evaluation board and to do some projects on it to
get experience .

I did some work in VHDL in the past .

My question is do I have a real chance to get into this field now
at my age ?

Thanks
EC
Click to expand...
 
On Sep 1, 9:52 am, RealInfo <therighti...@gmail.com> wrote:
My question is do I have a real chance to get into this field now
at my age ?
Click to expand...
Can't say, but...

My intention is to buy a good book and a good FPGA
evaluation board and to do some projects on it to
get experience .
EC
Click to expand...
I came on this news group and asked for some advice getting started a
couple of weeks ago and got some really good tips. I ended up buying
"FPGA Prototyping by Verilog Examples" by Pong P. Chum there is a VHDL
version of the book too. Its a good read and I am finding it to be a
very well structured book to learn from too so I will pass that
recommendation on to you. I come from a purely software background.
 
On Sep 1, 4:52 am, RealInfo <therighti...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all
I am a 52 years old electronics technician with massive experience in
analog electronics like audio and power supplies .

I want to start a career in FPGA designing .

My intention is to buy a good book and a good FPGA
evaluation board and to do some projects on it to
get experience .

I did some work in VHDL in the past .

My question is do I have a real chance to get into this field now
at my age ?

Thanks
EC
Click to expand...
I'm curious about what you mean by "get into this field". You say you
are a technician. If you are looking for employment as an FPGA
capable engineer, I would say your chances are slim since most
companies won't hire you as an engineer unless you have the
sheepskin. When I started in electronics it wasn't that way. A
technician could learn on the job and grow into an engineering
position. But now companies are much more "anal" about having a
degree.

So I assume you know all that and are asking about something other
than a career as an engineer. What would that be?

Rick
 
When I started in electronics it wasn't that way.  A
technician could learn on the job and grow into an engineering
position.  But now companies are much more "anal" about having a
degree.

Rick
Click to expand...
Hm, I see that most companies requires BSEE _OR_ MSEE. Its a new
question on offtopic actually. I am on the last year of my BSEE and
thinking of not taking MSEE. I believe MSEE is a start way to Ph.D?
Then whats the point of studying for MSEE?
 
On 9/4/2010 5:47 AM, Socrates wrote:

Hm, I see that most companies requires BSEE _OR_ MSEE. Its a new
question on offtopic actually. I am on the last year of my BSEE and
thinking of not taking MSEE. I believe MSEE is a start way to Ph.D?
Then whats the point of studying for MSEE?
Click to expand...
An MSEE is also a good way to fill in something missing in your BSEE
coursework. Maybe an project and thesis on a VHDL/FPGA related idea?

-- Mike Treseler
 
On Sat, 4 Sep 2010 05:47:41 -0700 (PDT), Socrates <mailsoc@gmail.com> wrote:

When I started in electronics it wasn't that way.  A
technician could learn on the job and grow into an engineering
position.  But now companies are much more "anal" about having a
degree.

Rick

Hm, I see that most companies requires BSEE _OR_ MSEE. Its a new
question on offtopic actually. I am on the last year of my BSEE and
thinking of not taking MSEE. I believe MSEE is a start way to Ph.D?
Then whats the point of studying for MSEE?
Click to expand...
Logic says MS is clearly better, and PhD is clearly better still. But still...

When I had to face the choice you are facing, we had a brand new Conservative
prime minister - Margaret Thatcher.

And the writing on the wall said ...
go out and get a job, while jobs are still in fashion.

I was lucky: friends who stayed in education for another year had about ten
times the trouble I had finding employment.

So, be guided by circumstances as well as logic.
Circumstances will be different for you ... won't they?

- Brian
 
On Sep 4, 8:47 am, Socrates <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:
When I started in electronics it wasn't that way.  A
technician could learn on the job and grow into an engineering
position.  But now companies are much more "anal" about having a
degree.
Rick

Hm, I see that most companies requires BSEE _OR_ MSEE. Its a new
question on offtopic actually. I am on the last year of my BSEE and
thinking of not taking MSEE. I believe MSEE is a start way to Ph.D?
Then whats the point of studying for MSEE?
Click to expand...
MSEE is not a step on the way toa PhD unless you want it to be.
Mostly it is something you can get so that if you don't complete the
dissertation at least you've got the MS.

Getting an MSEE was a very interesting experience for me. As an
undergraduate I felt very underrespected. As a graduate student you
are treated very differently. I also felt like the coursework was
much more advanced although that may just be a school related thing.

The most important thing about getting my MSEE was that it got me a
lot more respect from employers... other than the one I had when I got
the durn thing. They made it very clear that I would get nothing
extra for the extra education. Everyone else thought the MSEE was a
good selling feature. I never used to see MSEE even mentioned in job
listings and now they often say BSEE or MSEE... notice they don't
mention PhD! Getting a PhD opens a lot of doors, but closes others.
Ever hear of the term "overqualified"?

The really great thing about an MSEE is that you can get one while you
work and your employer will often pay for it! I remember the
"Fairchild Scholar's" program at U of Md. They put in two heavy
semesters and a short summer semester and were done, all paid for by
the company and they didn't have to work during that time.

Rick
 
 Getting a PhD opens a lot of doors, but closes others.
Ever hear of the term "overqualified"?
Rick
Click to expand...
And talking about FPGA area, what doors can open Ph.D? I believe in
this case its less.
This question is actually a big dilemma for me, because there are no
FPGA courses in BSEE program at my Uni. All I've learned in FPGA
design is by myself, reading books and doing some tasks that I have
given them to myself. Here in my country (I will mention it in the
end) MSEE program requires a research, something that You could do
real or not, but have many results from analysis, text: graphs, etc...
There is FPGA course in MSEE program, but the course is very basic.
Here is only one professor who knows verilog basics and one or two
designing with ABEL-HDL, because the main sponsor of FPGA area at this
Uni is Lattice. I've started learning VHDL and I like it. To sum up
these sentences I can say that I will not increase my knowledge of
FPGAs in MSEE program in my Uni even if I want to do that. The
solution to this question would be different Uni in USA or other
country in Europe? Well, what if my FPGA knowledge is still to low,
because I have no literal basics? I believe running a serial/parallel
DAC/ADC is not enough, but I am still too dummy to design a DDR or
ethernet MAC cores by myself. However, I have one more year to get
into it more deeply :)

I'm studying @ Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
 
In article <78906f51-4849-4590-bef2-1476b9039d43@m15g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Socrates <mailsoc@gmail.com> wrote:
=A0Getting a PhD opens a lot of doors, but closes others.
Ever hear of the term "overqualified"?
Rick

And talking about FPGA area, what doors can open Ph.D? I believe in
this case its less.
Click to expand...
I know a couple of people in computer-science departments a large
chunk of whose PhD was to implement a non-trivial cryptographic
algorithm efficiently on FPGA; they picked up the necessary
VHDL/Verilog and use of the tools as they went along, in parallel with
the algorithm development, I've seen them with laptops at the back of
conferences looking at waveforms and trying to figure out what they
actually encoded in terms of finite-field arithmetic. I don't know
where they've ended up working.

http://www.copacobana.org/ based at the Ruhr University in Bochum is
an offshoot of some of this work, you might find some interesting
content at the websites of the CHES and SHARCS conferences.

Tom
 
On Sep 2, 2:52 pm, John Adair <g...@enterpoint.co.uk> wrote:
...
Your analogue background can
be useful in understanding issues particularly at board level. Most
young graduates these days don't think beyond '0' and '1' if they even
think at as low a level as that. That's something you might be able to
use as an advantage in gaining a position. Combining with some board
level analogue electronics might also get you a way in as an all-
rounder. That way an employer gets some immediate benefit but you get
a path to experience.
Click to expand...

An analog background could be useful also in the new SoC mixed-signal lik
ACTEL SmartFusion (http://www.actel.com/products/SmartFusion) tha
integrates an FPGA, hard ARM Cortex-M3, and programmable analog.

A digital-analog engineer could find his (hard) way there ..

Fabio



---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com
 
An interesting trend in universtities is to dumb down the bachelors'
degrees (fewer hours required), and then extract more $$ in "graduate"
school to get an MS that only teaches you what you should have been
taught as an undergrad. A BSEE program that does not offer an elective
for FPGA design?! My father got his BS in Chem Eng in the '50's when
it took over 160 hrs. I got my BSEE in the '80's and it took ~140 hrs.
Now some BSEE programs require only 120-130 hrs, and at a time when
even more specialized courses are required to be productive in any
given area. Too many schools just won't push their students more than
15 hrs per semester. More likely they can't push their professors to
teach as much either.

Andy
 
When I started in electronics it wasn't that way.  A
technician could learn on the job and grow into an engineering
position.  But now companies are much more "anal" about having a
degree.
Click to expand...

They're that way about a lot of things. They've outsourced recruiting to
someone who only knows how to match keywords.

Hm, I see that most companies requires BSEE _OR_ MSEE. Its a new
question on offtopic actually. I am on the last year of my BSEE and
thinking of not taking MSEE. I believe MSEE is a start way to Ph.D?
Then whats the point of studying for MSEE?
Click to expand...
Some MS degrees are intended to be final, some not. Many weren't
intended to be, but became so.

It has been said that the BS degree shows that you already know
something.
A MS degree shows that you can learn new things. This makes you more
valuable in the long run.
I guess the PhD shows that you didn't get the point.

In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.

Some employers balk at hiring PhDs, considering them expensive and
impractical.

-- mac the naďf, who didn't get the point, but who is nonetheless cheap
and practical.
 
In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.
Click to expand...
Well, thats the point! I would like to go for MSEE somewhere in
Europe. Some people recommends me RWTH @ Germany. Maybe any other
offers in other places? :) I am mainly pointing to FPGA design
studies.
 
On Sep 8, 7:23 pm, Socrates <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:
In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.

Well, thats the point! I would like to go for MSEE somewhere in
Europe. Some people recommends me RWTH @ Germany. Maybe any other
offers in other places? :) I am mainly pointing to FPGA design
studies.
Click to expand...
What would you like to learn about FPGAs? I can't see how FPGAs would
be a topic of study in any level of school, not just graduate school.
FPGAs are where you would apply the general design theory you learn as
an undergraduate, but I don't see how there is anything you could
learn beyond that which would be a topic of "study". Typically areas
of application are what you learn after you get out of school.

When I got my undergraduate, they taught us Karnaugh maps and various
methods of logic minimization as well as describing how PLAs worked.
But PLAs were a part of one class, not a topic of study. On the other
hand, I took a class in more advanced logic design techniques which
covered things like string recognizers, state equivalence (in FSMs)
and asynchronous logic, all of which are applicable to PLAs as well as
FPGAs.

What would be the topics of study in FPGA design? I can't think of
anything I have learned about FPGAs that would be considered college
level material. Or are you thinking of how to design FPGA
architectures rather than FPGA usage?

I don't see HDL and FPGA as being synonymous as HDLs apply to all
logic devices, not just FPGAs.

Rick
 
On Sep 9, 7:35 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 8, 7:23 pm, Socrates <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:

In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.

Well, thats the point! I would like to go for MSEE somewhere in
Europe. Some people recommends me RWTH @ Germany. Maybe any other
offers in other places? :) I am mainly pointing to FPGA design
studies.

What would you like to learn about FPGAs?  I can't see how FPGAs would
be a topic of study in any level of school, not just graduate school.
FPGAs are where you would apply the general design theory you learn as
an undergraduate, but I don't see how there is anything you could
learn beyond that which would be a topic of "study".  Typically areas
of application are what you learn after you get out of school.

When I got my undergraduate, they taught us Karnaugh maps and various
methods of logic minimization as well as describing how PLAs worked.
But PLAs were a part of one class, not a topic of study.  On the other
hand, I took a class in more advanced logic design techniques which
covered things like string recognizers, state equivalence (in FSMs)
and asynchronous logic, all of which are applicable to PLAs as well as
FPGAs.

What would be the topics of study in FPGA design?  I can't think of
anything I have learned about FPGAs that would be considered college
level material.  Or are you thinking of how to design FPGA
architectures rather than FPGA usage?

I don't see HDL and FPGA as being synonymous as HDLs apply to all
logic devices, not just FPGAs.

Rick
Click to expand...
When I was in college in the early/mid 80's, we learned the Karnaugh
maps, QM methods, etc. and how to implement logic functions with muxes
and decoders and other SSI devices (PALs were still pretty new, and
were addressed in a couple of labs). We did state machines with
registered PROMs. On the job, later in that decade, I learned more
about PALs, and CUPL and ABEL programming. Then the earliest days of
FPGAs were schematic capture, and many of those old SSI design methods
were called upon again, but with more rigid clocking rules. Then HDLs
came along, and we started coding our schematics in VHDL (what I call
netlisting in VHDL), which was only marginally more productive. But
gradually we got more comfortable with higher levels of abstraction in
HDL, and focusing on describing behavior (on a cycle-by-cyle basis)
rather than physical structure, and on more advanced verification
techniques.

My point is, FPGAs are the medium in which much of digital design is
accomplished today, and teaching design techniques that are applicable
to that medium (as opposed to SSIs or PALs) is certainly within the
realm of undergraduate courses, particularly lab courses, where using
an FPGA development board allows students to accomplish much more
complex logic designs in the time available. Even in a non-lab
environment, working with FPGAs, HDLs and testbenches lays a
foundation that I believe should be a part of a good undergraduate
education.

Andy
 
On Sep 9, 10:25 am, Andy <jonesa...@comcast.net> wrote:
On Sep 9, 7:35 am, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:



On Sep 8, 7:23 pm, Socrates <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:

In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.

Well, thats the point! I would like to go for MSEE somewhere in
Europe. Some people recommends me RWTH @ Germany. Maybe any other
offers in other places? :) I am mainly pointing to FPGA design
studies.

What would you like to learn about FPGAs?  I can't see how FPGAs would
be a topic of study in any level of school, not just graduate school.
FPGAs are where you would apply the general design theory you learn as
an undergraduate, but I don't see how there is anything you could
learn beyond that which would be a topic of "study".  Typically areas
of application are what you learn after you get out of school.

When I got my undergraduate, they taught us Karnaugh maps and various
methods of logic minimization as well as describing how PLAs worked.
But PLAs were a part of one class, not a topic of study.  On the other
hand, I took a class in more advanced logic design techniques which
covered things like string recognizers, state equivalence (in FSMs)
and asynchronous logic, all of which are applicable to PLAs as well as
FPGAs.

What would be the topics of study in FPGA design?  I can't think of
anything I have learned about FPGAs that would be considered college
level material.  Or are you thinking of how to design FPGA
architectures rather than FPGA usage?

I don't see HDL and FPGA as being synonymous as HDLs apply to all
logic devices, not just FPGAs.

Rick

When I was in college in the early/mid 80's, we learned the Karnaugh
maps, QM methods, etc. and how to implement logic functions with muxes
and decoders and other SSI devices (PALs were still pretty new, and
were addressed in a couple of labs). We did state machines with
registered PROMs. On the job, later in that decade, I learned more
about PALs, and CUPL and ABEL programming. Then the earliest days of
FPGAs were schematic capture, and many of those old SSI design methods
were called upon again, but with more rigid clocking rules. Then HDLs
came along, and we started coding our schematics in VHDL (what I call
netlisting in VHDL), which was only marginally more productive. But
gradually we got more comfortable with higher levels of abstraction in
HDL, and focusing on describing behavior (on a cycle-by-cyle basis)
rather than physical structure, and on more advanced verification
techniques.

My point is, FPGAs are the medium in which much of digital design is
accomplished today, and teaching design techniques that are applicable
to that medium (as opposed to SSIs or PALs) is certainly within the
realm of undergraduate courses, particularly lab courses, where using
an FPGA development board allows students to accomplish much more
complex logic designs in the time available. Even in a non-lab
environment, working with FPGAs, HDLs and testbenches lays a
foundation that I believe should be a part of a good undergraduate
education.

Andy
Click to expand...
And are those generic design techniques not learned in school? Of
course they are taught. They just don't have specialized courses in
FPGA design because most of these techniques are not unique to FPGAs.
HDL is the only part of FPGA design that is not widely used in other
areas and that is also used, and in fact was invented for, chip
design.

The "real" FPGA specific design techniques are things like inference
of specific structures (memory, MACs, etc) and how to meet timing
using static timing constraints. These are not taught to any degree
because they are not subjects of study, but rather just tools. They
may be exposed to them in the lab classes, but they aren't likely to
show up on a lecture.

Heck, I remember the professor mentioning that when you look at
digital signals in the lab they will have all sorts of noise on them,
mostly the high levels being sensitive to the other outputs on the
same chip. He drew a wavering line on the board and moved on. Later
I had to learn about signal integrity on my own. Today signal
integrity is an area that you can become a well paid expert on, ask
Dr. Johnson. But as far as I know, there are still no classes on SI.
They expect you to learn E&M theory and then apply it.

Same with FPGAs. You learn to write HDL, but most of FPGA design is
something they expect you to learn by doing.

Rick
 
rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 8, 7:23 pm, Socrates <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:
In terms of FPGAs, the BS might indicate that you can program in a HDL,
MS that you understand HDLs in general, and PhD that you understand how
HDLs actually work.

Well, thats the point! I would like to go for MSEE somewhere in
Europe. Some people recommends me RWTH @ Germany. Maybe any other
offers in other places? :) I am mainly pointing to FPGA design
studies.

What would you like to learn about FPGAs? I can't see how FPGAs would
be a topic of study in any level of school, not just graduate school.
FPGAs are where you would apply the general design theory you learn as
an undergraduate, but I don't see how there is anything you could
learn beyond that which would be a topic of "study". Typically areas
of application are what you learn after you get out of school.
Click to expand...
I think I agree with this. The subject is digital logic and
logic design, with FPGAs as a practical and affordable way
to implement such designs.

In addition, HDL is a way to write down logic that gets too
complicated to fit drawn on gates on a single piece of paper.

When I got my undergraduate, they taught us Karnaugh maps and various
methods of logic minimization as well as describing how PLAs worked.
But PLAs were a part of one class, not a topic of study. On the other
hand, I took a class in more advanced logic design techniques which
covered things like string recognizers, state equivalence (in FSMs)
and asynchronous logic, all of which are applicable to PLAs as well as
FPGAs.
Click to expand...
I don't know how many of those they still teach. I do believe
that asynchronous (dual-rail, self-timed logic) is a lost art
by now. I never got to take the class, but I do remember others
who did explaining how dual-rail logic works.

What would be the topics of study in FPGA design? I can't think of
anything I have learned about FPGAs that would be considered college
level material. Or are you thinking of how to design FPGA
architectures rather than FPGA usage?
Click to expand...
Well, there do have to be a few of those. Though I think by now,
it is more a marketing issue than a design issue. I could come
up with many FPGA designs, but they would never get past any
marketing department.

I have wondered about an FGPA specifically for dual-rail
asynchronous logic. No useless FF's, and routing optimized
for dual rail signaling.

I don't see HDL and FPGA as being synonymous as HDLs apply to all
logic devices, not just FPGAs.
Click to expand...
-- glen
 
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