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Why are physicists the electronics experts?
coppice:
--- Quote from: filssavi on August 21, 2020, 12:08:08 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on August 21, 2020, 11:38:21 am ---
--- Quote from: capt bullshot on August 21, 2020, 09:52:57 am ---Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...
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You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail?
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That is unfortunately not the case.
From what I have seen by working with universities around the world that used to be the case (and often still is) is Europe (Italy, Germany, etc.). Here the traditional teaching order is bottom up, starting with lots of math (complex functional analysis, linear algebra etc) physics, electromagnetism in particular, then device physics (pn junctions, BJT’s, MOS) and on from there.
This gives you amazing basis for research type work.
Unfortunately it’s been some time that we are importing the Top down approach from the US (the UK has been the first, however it is not the only one now). This starts from system level and goes down from there, often times completely neglecting physics, math and even how semiconductor devices work. In a “makery “ type of way.
This is obviously fine for 99.9% of the electronics type work (nobody needs to know the width of the space charge region for the mosfet turning on and off the Smart IOT lightbulb) and thus preferred by most companies ( it is faster and cheaper to train engineers that way) however for research (both academic and Company R&D) in Cutting edge fields, this is really sub-optimal (basically it requires the first year of the PhD to be used up in studying the theory that was skipped before.
Unfortunately we are now (some countries sooner, some later) importing the Top
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In the 70s my UK electronics degree went from both directions, and I think that is important. Some of our leaning, like communications, started from a need and worked down to solutions at their lowest level, including the physics. Other leaning, like semiconductor devices, started at the lowest level and worked up to the things you can create from the basic physics.
I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal. Surely there are still serious degree courses in most places teaching a proper understanding?
richard.cs:
--- Quote from: coppice on August 21, 2020, 12:21:44 pm ---I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal.
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Yes, I have interviewed quite a lot of electronics graduates from a major UK university with a "good" reputation for electroincs, and many of them seem to suffer from this problem, often to a greater amount than you describe. In many cases the lowest-level and most "practical" thing they have done is a matlab simulation of a communications system, diving deep into comms and modulation theory but never having even seen an IC let alone a transistor. In all seriousness we are now tending to recruit electromechanical engineering graduates and other related branches of engineering because so many electronics graduates are lacking in practical electronics skills. That and looking carefully at industry placements and hobbyist experience.
Edit:typo
Berni:
They do still teach it from the basics upwards here, but it is never called physics. The physics there goes trough the general physics-y stuff like forces, motion, acceleration and going on to waves, light, optics etc.. While its instead called "Basics of electrical engineering" where things go into electric and magnetic fields into how a capacitor or inductor works and onto mesh circuit analysis.
Semiconductors take a similar path having a subject dedicated to going from the grounds up in how diodes and transistors work internally up to the more macroscopic model of what a transistor actually does, up to building a single stage amplifier out of a transistor. Ending up doing measurements on transistors in the lab etc..
As for building useful circuits out of transistors is just not there. This leaves people stranded with this theoretical knowledge inside of a vacuum. They never get to find a use for it in school so it just gets forgotten that much faster. If any circuits are involved they usually get a schematic handed to them, often also containing higher level building blocks such as opamps. Sure opamps also got explained what they are, how they work and some basic opamp circuits, but i don't think it is explained at any point what transistor magic is inside the opamp in order to make it do what it does, so the continuity from a transistor to an opamp is cut here.
So they do teach the underlying physics behind it pretty well but fail to properly connect it all together into a bigger picture.
coppice:
--- Quote from: richard.cs on August 21, 2020, 12:35:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on August 21, 2020, 12:21:44 pm ---I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I have interviewed quite a lot of electronics graduates from a major UK university with a "good" reputation for electroincs, and many of them seem to suffer from this problem, often to a greater amount than you describe. In many cases the lowest-level and most "practical" thing they have done is a matlab simulation of a communications system, diving deep into comms and modulation theory but never having even seen an IC let alone a transistor. In all seriousness we are now tending to recruit electromechanical engineering graduates and other related branches of engineering because so many electronics graduates are lacking in practical electronics skills. That and looking carefully at industry placements and hobbyist experience.
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I have heard from some UK academics that health and safety plus cost issues means lab work is mostly matlab work these days.
Someone with an electronics degree who has little understanding of basic components is not necessarily a bad thing. Electronics is now a big topic, and every engineer is a specialist of some kind, For example, many careers in electronic engineering can be entirely based on the maths of communications.
Nominal Animal:
I suspect that it's either just a random occurrence; or perhaps that among those who work with electronics, physicists are more likely to answer questions online than actual electronics experts.
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