I wish to become an Electronic design engineer and know how to do PCB design, Analogue/Digital design (I know analogue is quite a broad term), Microcontroller programming and simulation in MATLAB. I wish to have a job where these things are done.
I have an MEng in Electronic Engineering from UK but after going through the degree I am not at all satisfied with the level of experience and knowledge that I have gained through the degree itself. There are also those things that did not become completely clear from the degree course itself. What should I do to learn about all these things to the extent of being able to do them like adding two number?
I know C, C++, C#, VHDL, and MATLAB. I don't have enough money to make a lab at home that I badly wish to do.
I wish to get into Electronic design industry, please advice me.
If you have an electronic engineering degree, then as others have said, your next step is simply to start applying for jobs. Employers understand that you won't have real-world experience yet, though you'll certainly have an advantage over your peers if you've done some tinkering in your own time for the sheer fun of it. We're looking for people who are genuinely interested in electronics, and if you are then you'll be expected to be able to prove it. Being able to talk about projects you've done on your own is a great way to do this.
You don't need a lot of expensive kit to set up a lab. In fact I didn't really "set up a lab" at all until a few years ago, when I decided to undertake a major project which I intended to sell commercially. Until then I had a £5 mains powered soldering iron, one of the cheap, crummy "830" multimeters like you can get off Ebay for about £3, plus a load of resistors, caps, stripboard and so on. Add a few basic hand tools and you're all set.
If you're interested in microcontrollers, get yourself a PICKIT 3 and a PIC development board - like this:
http://uk.farnell.com/microchip/dv164131/debug-kit-express-pickit-3/dp/1686530For about £55 you have a complete programmer, compiler and debugger, and a board to experiment with and learn on. It's fantastic value IMHO, and much more professionally useful than something dumbed down like a Picaxe or Arduino. If you already know C then you've got a major advantage over me when I bought one of these kits last year.
When I did start setting up my lab, I started with a nice, solid bench (s/h off Ebay for next to nothing), and covered it with an ESD bench mat. Then I added a desk lamp and, finally, a cheap s/h (but good quality) analogue scope. The project I was designing was mains powered, so I did the PSU first and didn't even need a bench supply.
You can do quite a lot of learning for free by simulating circuits instead of having to build and probe them. Download yourself a copy of LTSpice from the Linear Technology web site, it's a wonderful tool and costs nothing at all. Design your next project with it, simulate it, tweak it until it all works OK, then build it once with real components.
Of course, once you start earning, you'll be much better placed to buy yourself some decent tools and equipment, so the major hurdle is to get your first job. If you can find vacancies for junior design engineers then apply for them, of course, but don't overlook ads for technicians either.
Don't be afraid to move on after a year or two as a tech, though. Someone with a degree and couple of years' experience as a technician could be quite valuable to a new employer as a junior design engineer, whereas to your original employer you'll be more valuable as a tech who knows their products and has started to become useful in that capacity. Don't expect to automatically get promoted.
The best advice I can give you right now is to get your CV sorted, and really thoroughly checked for typing and grammatical errors. Your original post contains a few, which would give a prospective employer a bad impression. Do remember that a major part of engineering is being able to document what you've done in a way which is accurate and readable, so any mistakes at this stage can be the red flag that gets your CV chucked in the bin.
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