Electrical Instruments Information
Electrical & Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical power supply. It now covers a range of subtopics including power, electronics, control systems, signal processing and telecommunications.
Electrical engineering may include electronic engineering. Where a distinction is made, usually outside of the United States, electrical engineering is considered to deal with the problems associated with large-scale electrical systems such as power transmission and motor control, whereas electronic engineering deals with the study of small-scale electronic systems including computers and integrated circuits.[1] Alternatively, electrical engineers are usually concerned with using electricity to transmit energy, while electronic engineers are concerned with using electricity to process information. More recently, the distinction has become blurred by the growth of power electronics.
History
Electricity has been a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th century. The first electrical engineer was probably William Gilbert who designed the versorium: a device that detected the presence of statically charged objects. He was also the first to draw a clear distinction between magnetism and static electricity and is credited with establishing the term electricity.[2] In 1775, Alessandro Volta's scientific experimentations devised the electrophorus, a device that produced a static electric charge and, by 1800, Volta developed the voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery.[3]
However, it was not until the 19th century that research into the subject started to intensify. Notable developments in this century include the work of Georg Ohm who, in 1827, quantified the relationship between the electric current and potential difference in a conductor, Michael Faraday, the discoverer of electromagnetic induction in 1831 and James Clerk Maxwell who, in 1873, published a unified theory of electricity and magnetism in his treatise Electricity and Magnetism.[4]
The Society of Telegraph Engineers (the forerunner of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, now the Institution of Engineering and Technology) was formed in 1871. This date is preserved by the telephone number of the IET's switchboard at its Savoy Place headquarters being currently 0207 240 1871.
Thomas Edison built the world's first large-scale electrical supply network. During these years, the study of electricity was largely considered to be a subfield of physics. It was not until the late 19th century that universities started to offer degrees in electrical engineering. The Darmstadt University of Technology founded the first chair and the first faculty of electrical engineering worldwide in 1882. In the same year, under Professor Charles Cross, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began offering the first option of Electrical Engineering within a physics department.[5] In 1883, Darmstadt University of Technology and Cornell University introduced the world's first courses of study in electrical engineering and, in 1885, the University College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in the United Kingdom.[6] The University of Missouri subsequently established the first department of electrical engineering in the United States in 1886.[7]
Nikola Tesla made long-distance electrical transmission networks possible. During this period, the work concerning electrical engineering increased dramatically. In 1882, Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electrical supply network that provided 110 volts direct current to fifty-nine customers in lower Manhattan. In 1884, Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine which today generates about 80 percent of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources. In 1887, Nikola Tesla filed a number of patents related to a competing form of power distribution known as alternating current. In the following years, a bitter rivalry between Tesla and Edison, known as the "War of Currents", took place over the preferred method of distribution. AC eventually replaced DC for generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution.
The efforts of the two did much to further electrical engineering—Tesla's work on induction motors and polyphase systems influenced the field for years to come, while Edison's work on telegraphy and his development of the stock ticker proved lucrative for his company, which ultimately became General Electric. However, by the end of the 19th century, other key figures in the progress of electrical engineering were beginning to emerge.[8]
Modern developments During the development of radio, many scientists and inventors contributed to radio technology and electronics. In his classic UHF experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz transmitted (via a spark-gap transmitter) and detected radio waves using electrical equipment. In 1895, Nikola Tesla was able to detect signals from the transmissions of his New York lab at West Point (a distance of 80.4 km / 49.95 miles).[9] In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode ray tube as part of an oscilloscope, a crucial enabling technology for electronic television.[10] John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode, in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.[11] In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi furthered the art of hertzian wireless methods. Early on, he sent wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901, he sent wireless waves that were not affected by the curvature of the Earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2,100 miles (3,400 km).[12] In 1920, Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer.[13][14] In 1934, the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also used the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936.[15]
In 1941, Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first fully functional and programmable computer.[16] In 1946, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) of John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly followed, beginning the computing era. The arithmetic performance of these machines allowed engineers to develop completely new technologies and achieve new objectives, including the Apollo missions and the NASA moon landing.[17]
The invention of the transistor in 1947 by William B. Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain opened the door for more compact devices and led to the development of the integrated circuit in 1958 by Jack Kilby and, independently in 1959, by Robert Noyce.[18] Starting in 1968, Ted Hoff and a team at Intel invented the first commercial microprocessor, which presaged the personal computer. The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit processor released in 1971 but, in 1973, the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, made the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, possible.[19]
Education Main article: Education and training of electrical and electronics engineers Electrical engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electrical engineering. The length of study for such a degree is usually four or five years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Technology or Bachelor of Applied Science depending upon the university. The degree generally includes units covering physics, mathematics, computer science, project management and specific topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the sub-disciplines of electrical engineering. Students then choose to specialize in one or more sub-disciplines towards the end of the degree.
Since the minimum academic requirements for the Chartered Engineer qualification (in the UK) is the Master of Engineering (MEng), most electrical engineers choose to pursue this qualification or to continue to a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Science (MSc), a Master of Engineering Management, a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering, an Engineering Doctorate (Eng.D.), or an Engineer's degree. The Master and Engineer's degree may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. The Doctor of Philosophy and Engineering Doctorate degrees consist of a significant research component and are often viewed as the entry point to academia. In the United Kingdom and various other European countries, the Master of Engineering is often considered an undergraduate degree of slightly longer duration than the Bachelor of Engineering.[20]
Having obtained the Chartered Engineer qualification, many Engineers will continue their professional development by studying for the MBA which, combined with a CEng, provides a formidable set of qualifications and makes such Engineers highly sought after in their career progression.
Practising engineers In most countries, a Bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards professional certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements (including work experience requirements) before being certified. Once certified, the engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South Africa ), Chartered Engineer (in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, India, Ireland and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia and New Zealand) or European Engineer (in much of the European Union).
The advantages of certification vary depending upon location. For example, in the United States and Canada "only a licensed engineer may seal engineering work for public and private clients".[21] This requirement is enforced by state and provincial legislation such as Quebec's Engineers Act.[22] In other countries, no such legislation exists. Practically all certifying bodies maintain a code of ethics that they expect all members to abide by or risk expulsion.[23] In this way these organizations play an important role in maintaining ethical standards for the profession. Even in jurisdictions where certification has little or no legal bearing on work, engineers are subject to contract law. In cases where an engineer's work fails he or she may be subject to the tort of negligence and, in extreme cases, the charge of criminal negligence. An engineer's work must also comply with numerous other rules and regulations such as building codes and legislation pertaining to environmental law.
Professional bodies of note for electrical engineers include the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IET publishes 21 journals, has a worldwide membership of over 150,000, and claims to be the largest professional engineering society in Europe.[24][25] The IEEE claims to produce 30% of the world's literature in electrical engineering, has over 360,000 members worldwide and holds over 3,000 conferences annually.[26] Obsolescence of technical skills is a serious concern for electrical engineers. Membership and participation in technical societies, regular reviews of periodicals in the field and a habit of continued learning are therefore essential to maintaining proficiency.[27]
In Australia, Canada and the United States, electrical engineers make up around 0.25% of the labour force (see note). Outside of Europe and North America, engineering graduates per-capita, and hence probably electrical engineering graduates also, are most numerous in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.[28]
Tools and work From the Global Positioning System to electric power generation, electrical engineers have contributed to the development of a wide range of technologies. They design, develop, test and supervise the deployment of electrical systems and electronic devices. For example, they may work on the design of telecommunication systems, the operation of electric power stations, the lighting and wiring of buildings, the design of household appliances or the electrical control of industrial machinery.[29]
Satellite communications is one of many projects an electrical engineer might work on. Fundamental to the discipline are the sciences of physics and mathematics as these help to obtain both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will work. Today most engineering work involves the use of computers and it is commonplace to use computer-aided design programs when designing electrical systems. Nevertheless, the ability to sketch ideas is still invaluable for quickly communicating with others.
Although most electrical engineers will understand basic circuit theory (that is the interactions of elements such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors and inductors in a circuit), the theories employed by engineers generally depend upon the work they do. For example, quantum mechanics and solid state physics might be relevant to an engineer working on VLSI (the design of integrated circuits), but are largely irrelevant to engineers working with macroscopic electrical systems. Even circuit theory may not be relevant to a person designing telecommunication systems that use off-the-shelf components. Perhaps the most important technical skills for electrical engineers are reflected in university programs, which emphasize strong numerical skills, computer literacy and the ability to understand the technical language and concepts that relate to electrical engineering.
For many engineers, technical work accounts for only a fraction of the work they do. A lot of time may also be spent on tasks such as discussing proposals with clients, preparing budgets and determining project schedules.[30] Many senior engineers manage a team of technicians or other engineers and for this reason project management skills are important. Most engineering projects involve some form of documentation and strong written communication skills are therefore very important.
The workplaces of electrical engineers are just as varied as the types of work they do. Electrical engineers may be found in the pristine lab environment of a fabrication plant, the offices of a consulting firm or on site at a mine. During their working life, electrical engineers may find themselves supervising a wide range of individuals including scientists, electricians, computer programmers and other engineers.
Sub-disciplines Electrical engineering has many sub-disciplines, the most popular of which are listed below. Although there are electrical engineers who focus exclusively on one of these sub-disciplines, many deal with a combination of them. Sometimes certain fields, such as electronic engineering and computer engineering, are considered separate disciplines in their own right.
Power Main article: Power engineering Power pole Power engineering deals with the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity as well as the design of a range of related devices. These include transformers, electric generators, electric motors, high voltage engineering and power electronics. In many regions of the world, governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects a variety of generators together with users of their energy. Users purchase electrical energy from the grid, avoiding the costly exercise of having to generate their own. Power engineers may work on the design and maintenance of the power grid as well as the power systems that connect to it. Such systems are called on-grid power systems and may supply the grid with additional power, draw power from the grid or do both. Power engineers may also work on systems that do not connect to the grid, called off-grid power systems, which in some cases are preferable to on-grid systems. The future includes Satellite controlled power systems, with feedback in real time to prevent power surges and prevent blackouts.
Control Main article: Control engineering Control systems play a critical role in space flight. Control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. To implement such controllers electrical engineers may use electrical circuits, digital signal processors, microcontrollers and PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles. It also plays an important role in industrial automation.
Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in an automobile with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the motor's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback.
Electronics Main article: Electronic engineering Circuit board Electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuned circuit, which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit. Another example (of a pneumatic signal conditioner) is shown in the adjacent photograph.
Prior to the second world war, the subject was commonly known as radio engineering and basically was restricted to aspects of communications and radar, commercial radio and early television. Later, in post war years, as consumer devices began to be developed, the field grew to include modern television, audio systems, computers and microprocessors. In the mid to late 1950s, the term radio engineering gradually gave way to the name electronic engineering.
Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by humans. These discrete circuits consumed much space and power and were limited in speed, although they are still common in some applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed a large number—often millions—of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors, into a small chip around the size of a coin. This allowed for the powerful computers and other electronic devices we see today.
Microelectronics Main article: Microelectronics Microprocessor Microelectronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of very small electronic circuit components for use in an integrated circuit or sometimes for use on their own as a general electronic component. The most common microelectronic components are semiconductor transistors, although all main electronic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors) can be created at a microscopic level. Nanoelectronics is the further nanometer levels.
Microelectronic components are created by chemically fabricating wafers of semiconductors such as silicon (at higher frequencies, compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide and indium phosphide) to obtain the desired transport of electronic charge and control of current. The field of microelectronics involves a significant amount of chemistry and material science and requires the electronic engineer working in the field to have a very good working knowledge of the effects of quantum mechanics.
Signal processing Main article: Signal processing A Bayer filter on a CCD requires signal processing to get a red, green, and blue value at each pixel. Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analogue, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. For analogue signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve the compression, error detection and error correction of digitally sampled signals.
Signal Processing is a very mathematically oriented and intensive area forming the core of digital signal processing and it is rapidly expanding with new applications in every field of electrical engineering such as communications, control, radar, TV/Audio/Video engineering, power electronics and bio-medical engineering as many already existing analogue systems are replaced with their digital counterparts.
Although in the classical era, analogue signal processing only provided a mathematical description of a system to be designed, which is actually implemented by the analogue hardware engineers, Digital Signal Processing both provides a mathematical description of the systems to be designed and also actually implements them (either by software programming or by hardware embedding) without much dependency on hardware issues, which exponentiates the importance and success of DSP engineering.
The deep and strong relations between signals and the information they carry makes signal processing equivalent of information processing. Which is the reason why the field finds so many diversified applications. DSP processor ICs are found in every type of modern electronic systems and products including, SDTV | HDTV sets, radios and mobile communication devices, Hi-Fi audio equipments, Dolby noise reduction algorithms, GSM mobile phones, mp3 multimedia players, camcorders and digital cameras, automobile control systems, noise cancelling headphones, digital spectrum analyzers, intelligent missile guidance, radar, GPS based cruise control systems and all kinds of image processing, video processing, audio processing and speech processing systems.
Telecommunications Main article: Telecommunications engineering Milstar Telecommunications engineering focuses on the transmission of information across a channel such as a coax cable, optical fiber or free space. Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier wave in order to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission, this is known as modulation. Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer.
Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver. A key consideration in the design of transmitters is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength. If the signal strength of a transmitter is insufficient the signal's information will be corrupted by noise.
Instrumentation Main article: Instrumentation engineering Radar gun Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow and temperature. The design of such instrumentation requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example, radar guns use the Doppler effect to measure the speed of oncoming vehicles. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure the temperature difference between two points.
Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control engineering.
Computers Main article: Computer engineering Personal digital assistant Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new hardware, the design of PDAs or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline. Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of devices including video game consoles and DVD players.
Electrical engineering may include electronic engineering. Where a distinction is made, usually outside of the United States, electrical engineering is considered to deal with the problems associated with large-scale electrical systems such as power transmission and motor control, whereas electronic engineering deals with the study of small-scale electronic systems including computers and integrated circuits.[1] Alternatively, electrical engineers are usually concerned with using electricity to transmit energy, while electronic engineers are concerned with using electricity to process information. More recently, the distinction has become blurred by the growth of power electronics.
History
Electricity has been a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th century. The first electrical engineer was probably William Gilbert who designed the versorium: a device that detected the presence of statically charged objects. He was also the first to draw a clear distinction between magnetism and static electricity and is credited with establishing the term electricity.[2] In 1775, Alessandro Volta's scientific experimentations devised the electrophorus, a device that produced a static electric charge and, by 1800, Volta developed the voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery.[3]
However, it was not until the 19th century that research into the subject started to intensify. Notable developments in this century include the work of Georg Ohm who, in 1827, quantified the relationship between the electric current and potential difference in a conductor, Michael Faraday, the discoverer of electromagnetic induction in 1831 and James Clerk Maxwell who, in 1873, published a unified theory of electricity and magnetism in his treatise Electricity and Magnetism.[4]
The Society of Telegraph Engineers (the forerunner of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, now the Institution of Engineering and Technology) was formed in 1871. This date is preserved by the telephone number of the IET's switchboard at its Savoy Place headquarters being currently 0207 240 1871.
Thomas Edison built the world's first large-scale electrical supply network. During these years, the study of electricity was largely considered to be a subfield of physics. It was not until the late 19th century that universities started to offer degrees in electrical engineering. The Darmstadt University of Technology founded the first chair and the first faculty of electrical engineering worldwide in 1882. In the same year, under Professor Charles Cross, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began offering the first option of Electrical Engineering within a physics department.[5] In 1883, Darmstadt University of Technology and Cornell University introduced the world's first courses of study in electrical engineering and, in 1885, the University College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in the United Kingdom.[6] The University of Missouri subsequently established the first department of electrical engineering in the United States in 1886.[7]
Nikola Tesla made long-distance electrical transmission networks possible. During this period, the work concerning electrical engineering increased dramatically. In 1882, Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electrical supply network that provided 110 volts direct current to fifty-nine customers in lower Manhattan. In 1884, Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine which today generates about 80 percent of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources. In 1887, Nikola Tesla filed a number of patents related to a competing form of power distribution known as alternating current. In the following years, a bitter rivalry between Tesla and Edison, known as the "War of Currents", took place over the preferred method of distribution. AC eventually replaced DC for generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution.
The efforts of the two did much to further electrical engineering—Tesla's work on induction motors and polyphase systems influenced the field for years to come, while Edison's work on telegraphy and his development of the stock ticker proved lucrative for his company, which ultimately became General Electric. However, by the end of the 19th century, other key figures in the progress of electrical engineering were beginning to emerge.[8]
Modern developments During the development of radio, many scientists and inventors contributed to radio technology and electronics. In his classic UHF experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz transmitted (via a spark-gap transmitter) and detected radio waves using electrical equipment. In 1895, Nikola Tesla was able to detect signals from the transmissions of his New York lab at West Point (a distance of 80.4 km / 49.95 miles).[9] In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode ray tube as part of an oscilloscope, a crucial enabling technology for electronic television.[10] John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode, in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.[11] In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi furthered the art of hertzian wireless methods. Early on, he sent wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901, he sent wireless waves that were not affected by the curvature of the Earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2,100 miles (3,400 km).[12] In 1920, Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer.[13][14] In 1934, the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also used the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936.[15]
In 1941, Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first fully functional and programmable computer.[16] In 1946, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) of John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly followed, beginning the computing era. The arithmetic performance of these machines allowed engineers to develop completely new technologies and achieve new objectives, including the Apollo missions and the NASA moon landing.[17]
The invention of the transistor in 1947 by William B. Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain opened the door for more compact devices and led to the development of the integrated circuit in 1958 by Jack Kilby and, independently in 1959, by Robert Noyce.[18] Starting in 1968, Ted Hoff and a team at Intel invented the first commercial microprocessor, which presaged the personal computer. The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit processor released in 1971 but, in 1973, the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, made the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, possible.[19]
Education Main article: Education and training of electrical and electronics engineers Electrical engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electrical engineering. The length of study for such a degree is usually four or five years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Technology or Bachelor of Applied Science depending upon the university. The degree generally includes units covering physics, mathematics, computer science, project management and specific topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the sub-disciplines of electrical engineering. Students then choose to specialize in one or more sub-disciplines towards the end of the degree.
Since the minimum academic requirements for the Chartered Engineer qualification (in the UK) is the Master of Engineering (MEng), most electrical engineers choose to pursue this qualification or to continue to a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Science (MSc), a Master of Engineering Management, a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering, an Engineering Doctorate (Eng.D.), or an Engineer's degree. The Master and Engineer's degree may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. The Doctor of Philosophy and Engineering Doctorate degrees consist of a significant research component and are often viewed as the entry point to academia. In the United Kingdom and various other European countries, the Master of Engineering is often considered an undergraduate degree of slightly longer duration than the Bachelor of Engineering.[20]
Having obtained the Chartered Engineer qualification, many Engineers will continue their professional development by studying for the MBA which, combined with a CEng, provides a formidable set of qualifications and makes such Engineers highly sought after in their career progression.
Practising engineers In most countries, a Bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards professional certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements (including work experience requirements) before being certified. Once certified, the engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South Africa ), Chartered Engineer (in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, India, Ireland and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia and New Zealand) or European Engineer (in much of the European Union).
The advantages of certification vary depending upon location. For example, in the United States and Canada "only a licensed engineer may seal engineering work for public and private clients".[21] This requirement is enforced by state and provincial legislation such as Quebec's Engineers Act.[22] In other countries, no such legislation exists. Practically all certifying bodies maintain a code of ethics that they expect all members to abide by or risk expulsion.[23] In this way these organizations play an important role in maintaining ethical standards for the profession. Even in jurisdictions where certification has little or no legal bearing on work, engineers are subject to contract law. In cases where an engineer's work fails he or she may be subject to the tort of negligence and, in extreme cases, the charge of criminal negligence. An engineer's work must also comply with numerous other rules and regulations such as building codes and legislation pertaining to environmental law.
Professional bodies of note for electrical engineers include the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IET publishes 21 journals, has a worldwide membership of over 150,000, and claims to be the largest professional engineering society in Europe.[24][25] The IEEE claims to produce 30% of the world's literature in electrical engineering, has over 360,000 members worldwide and holds over 3,000 conferences annually.[26] Obsolescence of technical skills is a serious concern for electrical engineers. Membership and participation in technical societies, regular reviews of periodicals in the field and a habit of continued learning are therefore essential to maintaining proficiency.[27]
In Australia, Canada and the United States, electrical engineers make up around 0.25% of the labour force (see note). Outside of Europe and North America, engineering graduates per-capita, and hence probably electrical engineering graduates also, are most numerous in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.[28]
Tools and work From the Global Positioning System to electric power generation, electrical engineers have contributed to the development of a wide range of technologies. They design, develop, test and supervise the deployment of electrical systems and electronic devices. For example, they may work on the design of telecommunication systems, the operation of electric power stations, the lighting and wiring of buildings, the design of household appliances or the electrical control of industrial machinery.[29]
Satellite communications is one of many projects an electrical engineer might work on. Fundamental to the discipline are the sciences of physics and mathematics as these help to obtain both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will work. Today most engineering work involves the use of computers and it is commonplace to use computer-aided design programs when designing electrical systems. Nevertheless, the ability to sketch ideas is still invaluable for quickly communicating with others.
Although most electrical engineers will understand basic circuit theory (that is the interactions of elements such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors and inductors in a circuit), the theories employed by engineers generally depend upon the work they do. For example, quantum mechanics and solid state physics might be relevant to an engineer working on VLSI (the design of integrated circuits), but are largely irrelevant to engineers working with macroscopic electrical systems. Even circuit theory may not be relevant to a person designing telecommunication systems that use off-the-shelf components. Perhaps the most important technical skills for electrical engineers are reflected in university programs, which emphasize strong numerical skills, computer literacy and the ability to understand the technical language and concepts that relate to electrical engineering.
For many engineers, technical work accounts for only a fraction of the work they do. A lot of time may also be spent on tasks such as discussing proposals with clients, preparing budgets and determining project schedules.[30] Many senior engineers manage a team of technicians or other engineers and for this reason project management skills are important. Most engineering projects involve some form of documentation and strong written communication skills are therefore very important.
The workplaces of electrical engineers are just as varied as the types of work they do. Electrical engineers may be found in the pristine lab environment of a fabrication plant, the offices of a consulting firm or on site at a mine. During their working life, electrical engineers may find themselves supervising a wide range of individuals including scientists, electricians, computer programmers and other engineers.
Sub-disciplines Electrical engineering has many sub-disciplines, the most popular of which are listed below. Although there are electrical engineers who focus exclusively on one of these sub-disciplines, many deal with a combination of them. Sometimes certain fields, such as electronic engineering and computer engineering, are considered separate disciplines in their own right.
Power Main article: Power engineering Power pole Power engineering deals with the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity as well as the design of a range of related devices. These include transformers, electric generators, electric motors, high voltage engineering and power electronics. In many regions of the world, governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects a variety of generators together with users of their energy. Users purchase electrical energy from the grid, avoiding the costly exercise of having to generate their own. Power engineers may work on the design and maintenance of the power grid as well as the power systems that connect to it. Such systems are called on-grid power systems and may supply the grid with additional power, draw power from the grid or do both. Power engineers may also work on systems that do not connect to the grid, called off-grid power systems, which in some cases are preferable to on-grid systems. The future includes Satellite controlled power systems, with feedback in real time to prevent power surges and prevent blackouts.
Control Main article: Control engineering Control systems play a critical role in space flight. Control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. To implement such controllers electrical engineers may use electrical circuits, digital signal processors, microcontrollers and PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles. It also plays an important role in industrial automation.
Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in an automobile with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the motor's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback.
Electronics Main article: Electronic engineering Circuit board Electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuned circuit, which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit. Another example (of a pneumatic signal conditioner) is shown in the adjacent photograph.
Prior to the second world war, the subject was commonly known as radio engineering and basically was restricted to aspects of communications and radar, commercial radio and early television. Later, in post war years, as consumer devices began to be developed, the field grew to include modern television, audio systems, computers and microprocessors. In the mid to late 1950s, the term radio engineering gradually gave way to the name electronic engineering.
Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by humans. These discrete circuits consumed much space and power and were limited in speed, although they are still common in some applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed a large number—often millions—of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors, into a small chip around the size of a coin. This allowed for the powerful computers and other electronic devices we see today.
Microelectronics Main article: Microelectronics Microprocessor Microelectronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of very small electronic circuit components for use in an integrated circuit or sometimes for use on their own as a general electronic component. The most common microelectronic components are semiconductor transistors, although all main electronic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors) can be created at a microscopic level. Nanoelectronics is the further nanometer levels.
Microelectronic components are created by chemically fabricating wafers of semiconductors such as silicon (at higher frequencies, compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide and indium phosphide) to obtain the desired transport of electronic charge and control of current. The field of microelectronics involves a significant amount of chemistry and material science and requires the electronic engineer working in the field to have a very good working knowledge of the effects of quantum mechanics.
Signal processing Main article: Signal processing A Bayer filter on a CCD requires signal processing to get a red, green, and blue value at each pixel. Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analogue, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. For analogue signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve the compression, error detection and error correction of digitally sampled signals.
Signal Processing is a very mathematically oriented and intensive area forming the core of digital signal processing and it is rapidly expanding with new applications in every field of electrical engineering such as communications, control, radar, TV/Audio/Video engineering, power electronics and bio-medical engineering as many already existing analogue systems are replaced with their digital counterparts.
Although in the classical era, analogue signal processing only provided a mathematical description of a system to be designed, which is actually implemented by the analogue hardware engineers, Digital Signal Processing both provides a mathematical description of the systems to be designed and also actually implements them (either by software programming or by hardware embedding) without much dependency on hardware issues, which exponentiates the importance and success of DSP engineering.
The deep and strong relations between signals and the information they carry makes signal processing equivalent of information processing. Which is the reason why the field finds so many diversified applications. DSP processor ICs are found in every type of modern electronic systems and products including, SDTV | HDTV sets, radios and mobile communication devices, Hi-Fi audio equipments, Dolby noise reduction algorithms, GSM mobile phones, mp3 multimedia players, camcorders and digital cameras, automobile control systems, noise cancelling headphones, digital spectrum analyzers, intelligent missile guidance, radar, GPS based cruise control systems and all kinds of image processing, video processing, audio processing and speech processing systems.
Telecommunications Main article: Telecommunications engineering Milstar Telecommunications engineering focuses on the transmission of information across a channel such as a coax cable, optical fiber or free space. Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier wave in order to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission, this is known as modulation. Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer.
Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver. A key consideration in the design of transmitters is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength. If the signal strength of a transmitter is insufficient the signal's information will be corrupted by noise.
Instrumentation Main article: Instrumentation engineering Radar gun Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow and temperature. The design of such instrumentation requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example, radar guns use the Doppler effect to measure the speed of oncoming vehicles. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure the temperature difference between two points.
Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control engineering.
Computers Main article: Computer engineering Personal digital assistant Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new hardware, the design of PDAs or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline. Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of devices including video game consoles and DVD players.
Electronic Design Automation
Electronic design automation (EDA or ECAD) is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips.
This article describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits.
History
Early days Before EDA, integrated circuits were designed by hand, and manually laid out. Some advanced shops used geometric software to generate the tapes for the Gerber photoplotter, but even those copied digital recordings of mechanically-drawn components. The process was fundamentally graphic, with the translation from electronics to graphics done manually. The best known company from this era was Calma, whose GDSII format survives.
By the mid-70s, developers started to automate the design, and not just the drafting. The first placement and routing (Place and route) tools were developed. The proceedings of the Design Automation Conference cover much of this era.
The next era began about the time of the publication of "Introduction to VLSI Systems" by Carver Mead and Lynn Conway in 1980. This ground breaking text advocated chip design with programming languages that compiled to silicon. The immediate result was a considerable increase in the complexity of the chips that could be designed, with improved access to design verification tools that used logic simulation. Often the chips were easier to lay out and more likely to function correctly, since their designs could be simulated more thoroughly prior to construction. Although the languages and tools have evolved, this general approach of specifying the desired behavior in a textual programming language and letting the tools derive the detailed physical design remains the basis of digital IC design today.
The earliest EDA tools were produced academically. One of the most famous was the "Berkeley VLSI Tools Tarball", a set of UNIX utilities used to design early VLSI systems. Still widely used is the Espresso heuristic logic minimizer and Magic.
Another crucial development was the formation of MOSIS, a consortium of universities and fabricators that developed an inexpensive way to train student chip designers by producing real integrated circuits. The basic concept was to use reliable, low-cost, relatively low-technology IC processes, and pack a large number of projects per wafer, with just a few copies of each projects' chips. Cooperating fabricators either donated the processed wafers, or sold them at cost, seeing the program as helpful to their own long-term growth.
[edit] Birth of commercial EDA 1981 marks the beginning of EDA as an industry. For many years, the larger electronic companies, such as Hewlett Packard, Tektronix, and Intel, had pursued EDA internally. In 1981, managers and developers spun out of these companies to concentrate on EDA as a business. Daisy Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Valid Logic Systems were all founded around this time, and collectively referred to as DMV. Within a few years there were many companies specializing in EDA, each with a slightly different emphasis. The first trade show for EDA was held at the Design Automation Conference in 1984.
In 1986, Verilog, a popular high-level design language, was first introduced as a hardware description language by Gateway Design Automation. In 1987, the U.S. Department of Defense funded creation of VHDL as a specification language. Simulators quickly followed these introductions, permitting direct simulation of chip designs: executable specifications. In a few more years, back-ends were developed to perform logic synthesis.
3D PCB layout [edit] Current status Current digital flows are extremely modular (see Integrated circuit design, Design closure, and Design flow (EDA)). The front ends produce standardized design descriptions that compile into invocations of "cells,", without regard to the cell technology. Cells implement logic or other electronic functions using a particular integrated circuit technology. Fabricators generally provide libraries of components for their production processes, with simulation models that fit standard simulation tools. Analog EDA tools are far less modular, since many more functions are required, they interact more strongly, and the components are (in general) less ideal.
EDA for electronics has rapidly increased in importance with the continuous scaling of semiconductor technology.[citation needed] Some users are foundry operators, who operate the semiconductor fabrication facilities, or "fabs", and design-service companies who use EDA software to evaluate an incoming design for manufacturing readiness. EDA tools are also used for programming design functionality into FPGAs.
Software focusesDesign Main article: Design flow (EDA)
Note: Market caps current as of October, 2010.[1] EEsof should likely[citation needed] be on this list, but does not have a market cap as it is the EDA division of Agilent.
Acquisitions Many of the EDA companies acquire small companies with software or other technology that can be adapted to their core business.[2] Most of the market leaders are rather incestuous amalgamations of many smaller companies. This trend is helped by the tendency of software companies to design tools as accessories that fit naturally into a larger vendor's suite of programs ( on digital circuitry, many new tools incorporate analog design, and mixed systems. This is happening because there is now a trend to place entire electronic systems on a single chip.
Electronic Engineering
Electronics engineering,[1] also referred to as electronic engineering,[2][3] is an engineering discipline which uses the scientific knowledge of the behavior and effects of electrons to develop components, devices, systems, or equipment (as in electron tubes, transistors, integrated circuits, and printed circuit boards) that uses electricity as part of its driving force. Both terms denote a broad engineering field that encompasses many subfields including those that deal with power, instrumentation engineering, telecommunications, semiconductor circuit design, and many others.[4]
The term also covers a large part of electrical engineering degree courses as studied at most European universities. In the U.S., however, electrical engineering encompasses all electrical disciplines including electronics. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is one of the most important and influential organizations for electronics engineers.
Terminology
The name electrical engineering is still used to cover electronic engineering amongst some of the older (notably American and Australian) universities and graduates there are called electrical engineers.[5] Some people believe the term 'electrical engineer' should be reserved for those having specialized in power and heavy current or high voltage engineering, while others believe that power is just one subset of electrical engineering (and indeed the term 'power engineering' is used in that industry) as well as 'electrical distribution engineering'. Again, in recent years there has been a growth of new separate-entry degree courses such as 'information engineering' and 'communication systems engineering', often followed by academic departments of similar name.[6][7]
Most European universities now refer to electrical engineering as power engineers and make a distinction between Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Beginning in the 1980s, the term computer engineer was often used to refer to electronic or information engineers. However, Computer Engineering is now considered a subset of Electronics Engineering and the term is now becoming archaic. [8]
History of electronic engineering
Electronic engineering as a profession sprang from technological improvements in the telegraph industry in the late 19th century and the radio and the telephone industries in the early 20th century. People were attracted to radio by the technical fascination it inspired, first in receiving and then in transmitting. Many who went into broadcasting in the 1920s were only 'amateurs' in the period before World War I.[9]
The modern discipline of electronic engineering was to a large extent born out of telephone, radio, and television equipment development and the large amount of electronic systems development during World War II of radar, sonar, communication systems, and advanced munitions and weapon systems. In the interwar years, the subject was known as radio engineering and it was only in the late 1950s that the term electronic engineering started to emerge.[10]
The electronic laboratories (Bell Labs in the United States for instance) created and subsidized by large corporations in the industries of radio, television, and telephone equipment began churning out a series of electronic advances. In 1948, came the transistor and in 1960, the IC to revolutionize the electronic industry.[11][12] In the UK, the subject of electronic engineering became distinct from electrical engineering as a university degree subject around 1960. Before this time, students of electronics and related subjects like radio and telecommunications had to enroll in the electrical engineering department of the university as no university had departments of electronics. Electrical engineering was the nearest subject with which electronic engineering could be aligned, although the similarities in subjects covered (except mathematics and electromagnetism) lasted only for the first year of the three-year course.
Early electronics
In 1893, Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail the principles of radio communication.[13] In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi went on to develop a practical and widely used radio system.[14][15] In 1904, John Ambrose Fleming, the first professor of electrical Engineering at University College London, invented the first radio tube, the diode. One year later, in 1906, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.
Electronics is often considered to have begun when Lee De Forest invented the vacuum tube in 1907. Within 10 years, his device was used in radio transmitters and receivers as well as systems for long distance telephone calls. In 1912, Edwin H. Armstrong invented the regenerative feedback amplifier and oscillator; he also invented the superheterodyne radio receiver and could be considered the father of modern radio.[16] Vacuum tubes remained the preferred amplifying device for 40 years, until researchers working for William Shockley at Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947. In the following years, transistors made small portable radios, or transistor radios, possible as well as allowing more powerful mainframe computers to be built. Transistors were smaller and required lower voltages than vacuum tubes to work.
Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by hand. These non-integrated circuits consumed much space and power, were prone to failure and were limited in speed although they are still common in simple applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed a large number — often millions — of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors, into a small chip around the size of a coin.[17]
Tubes or valvesThe vacuum tube detector
The invention of the triode amplifier, generator, and detector made audio communication by radio practical. (Reginald Fessenden's 1906 transmissions used an electro-mechanical alternator.) The first known radio news program was broadcast 31 August 1920 by station 8MK, the unlicensed predecessor of WWJ (AM) in Detroit, Michigan. Regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment commenced in 1922 from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle near Chelmsford, England.
While some early radios used some type of amplification through electric current or battery, through the mid 1920s the most common type of receiver was the crystal set. In the 1920s, amplifying vacuum tubes revolutionized both radio receivers and transmitters.
TelevisionIn 1928 Philo Farnsworth made the first public demonstration of a purely electronic television. During the 1930s several countries began broadcasting, and after World War II it spread to millions of receivers, eventually worldwide. Ever since then, electronics have been fully present in television devices.
Modern televisions and video displays have evolved from bulky electron tube technology to use more compact devices, such as plasma and LCD displays. The trend is for even lower power devices such as the organic light-emitting diode displays, and it is most likely to replace the LCD and plasma technologies.[18]
Radar and radio location
During World War II many efforts were expended in the electronic location of enemy targets and aircraft. These included radio beam guidance of bombers, electronic counter measures, early radar systems etc. During this time very little if any effort was expended on consumer electronics developments.[19]Computers
A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format.
Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). These were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).[1] Modern computers based on integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space.[2] Simple computers are small enough to fit into small pocket devices, and can be powered by a small battery. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "computers". However, the embedded computers found in many devices from MP3 players to fighter aircraft and from toys to industrial robots are the most numerous.
The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile, distinguishing them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore computers ranging from a netbook to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks, given enough time and storage capacity.
Microprocessors
In 1969, Ted Hoff conceived the commercial microprocessor at Intel and thus ignited the development of the personal computer. Hoff's invention was part of an order by a Japanese company for a desktop programmable electronic calculator, which Hoff wanted to build as cheaply as possible. The first realization of the microprocessor was the Intel 4004, a 4-bit processor, in 1969, but only in 1973 did the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, make the building of the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 8800, possible. The first PC was announced to the general public on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.
Many electronics engineers today specialize in the development of programs for microprocessor based electronic systems, known as embedded systems. Due to the detailed knowledge of the hardware that is required for doing this, it is normally done by electronics engineers and not software engineers. Software engineers typically know and use microprocessors only at a conceptual level. Electronics engineers who exclusively carry out the role of programming embedded systems or microprocessors are referred to as "embedded systems engineers", or "firmware engineers".
Electronics
In the field of electronic engineering, engineers design and test circuits that use the electromagnetic properties of electrical components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuner circuit, which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit.
In designing an integrated circuit, electronics engineers first construct circuit schematics that specify the electrical components and describe the interconnections between them. When completed, VLSI engineers convert the schematics into actual layouts, which map the layers of various conductor and semiconductor materials needed to construct the circuit. The conversion from schematics to layouts can be done by software (see electronic design automation) but very often requires human fine-tuning to decrease space and power consumption. Once the layout is complete, it can be sent to a fabrication plant for manufacturing.
Integrated circuits and other electrical components can then be assembled on printed circuit boards to form more complicated circuits. Today, printed circuit boards are found in most electronic devices including televisions, computers and audio players.[20]
Typical electronic engineering undergraduate syllabus
Apart from electromagnetics and network theory, other items in the syllabus are particular to electronics engineering course. Electrical engineering courses have other specialisms such as machines, power generation and distribution. Note that the following list does not include the extensive engineering mathematics curriculum that is a prerequisite to a degree.[21][22]ElectromagneticsElements of vector calculus: divergence and curl; Gauss' and Stokes' theorems, Maxwell's equations: differential and integral forms. Wave equation, Poynting vector. Plane waves: propagation through various media; reflection and refraction; phase and group velocity; skin depth. Transmission lines: characteristic impedance; impedance transformation; Smith chart; impedance matching; pulse excitation. Waveguides: modes in rectangular waveguides; boundary conditions; cut-off frequencies; dispersion relations. Antennas: Dipole antennas; antenna arrays; radiation pattern; reciprocity theorem, antenna gain.[23][24]Network analysisNetwork graphs: matrices associated with graphs; incidence, fundamental cut set and fundamental circuit matrices. Solution methods: nodal and mesh analysis. Network theorems: superposition, Thevenin and Norton's maximum power transfer, Wye-Delta transformation.[25] Steady state sinusoidal analysis using phasors. Linear constant coefficient differential equations; time domain analysis of simple RLC circuits, Solution of network equations using Laplace transform: frequency domain analysis of RLC circuits. 2-port network parameters: driving point and transfer functions. State equations for networks.[26]
Electronic devices and circuitsElectronic devices: Energy bands in silicon, intrinsic and extrinsic silicon. Carrier transport in silicon: diffusion current, drift current, mobility, resistivity. Generation and recombination of carriers. p-n junction diode, Zener diode, tunnel diode, BJT, JFET, MOS capacitor, MOSFET, LED, p-i-n and avalanche photo diode, LASERs. Device technology: integrated circuit fabrication process, oxidation, diffusion, ion implantation, photolithography, n-tub, p-tub and twin-tub CMOS process.[27][28]
Analog circuits: Equivalent circuits (large and small-signal) of diodes, BJTs, JFETs, and MOSFETs. Simple diode circuits, clipping, clamping, rectifier. Biasing and bias stability of transistor and FET amplifiers. Amplifiers: single-and multi-stage, differential, operational, feedback and power. Analysis of amplifiers; frequency response of amplifiers. Simple op-amp circuits. Filters. Sinusoidal oscillators; criterion for oscillation; single-transistor and op-amp configurations. Function generators and wave-shaping circuits, Power supplies.[29]
Digital circuits: of Boolean functions; logic gates digital IC families (DTL, TTL, ECL, MOS, CMOS). Combinational circuits: arithmetic circuits, code converters, multiplexers and decoders. Sequential circuits: latches and flip-flops, counters and shift-registers. Sample and hold circuits, ADCs, DACs. Semiconductor memories. Microprocessor 8086: architecture, programming, memory and I/O interfacing.[30] [31]
Signals and systemsDefinitions and properties of Laplace transform, continuous-time and discrete-time Fourier series, continuous-time and discrete-time Fourier Transform, z-transform. Sampling theorems. Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) Systems: definitions and properties; causality, stability, impulse response, convolution, poles and zeros frequency response, group delay, phase delay. Signal transmission through LTI systems. Random signals and noise: probability, random variables, probability density function, autocorrelation, power spectral density, function analogy between vectors & functions.[32][33]Control systemsBasic control system components; block diagrammatic description, reduction of block diagrams — Mason's rule. Open loop and closed loop (negative unity feedback) systems and stability analysis of these systems. Signal flow graphs and their use in determining transfer functions of systems; transient and steady state analysis of LTI control systems and frequency response. Analysis of steady-state disturbance rejection and noise sensitivity.
Tools and techniques for LTI control system analysis and design: root loci, Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion, Bode and Nyquist plots. Control system compensators: elements of lead and lag compensation, elements of Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller (PID). Discretization of continuous time systems using Zero-order hold (ZOH) and ADCs for digital controller implementation. Limitations of digital controllers: aliasing. State variable representation and solution of state equation of LTI control systems. Linearization of Nonlinear dynamical systems with state-space realizations in both frequency and time domains. Fundamental concepts of controllability and observability for MIMO LTI systems. State space realizations: observable and controllable canonical form. Ackermann's formula for state-feedback pole placement. Design of full order and reduced order estimators. [34][35]
CommunicationsAnalog communication systems: amplitude and angle modulation and demodulation systems, spectral analysis of these operations, superheterodyne noise conditions.
Digital communication systems: pulse code modulation (PCM), Differential Pulse Code Modulation (DPCM), Delta modulation (DM), digital modulation schemes-amplitude, phase and frequency shift keying schemes (ASK, PSK, FSK), matched filter receivers, bandwidth consideration and probability of error calculations for these schemes, GSM, TDMA.[36][37]
Education and trainingElectronics engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electronic engineering. The length of study for such a degree is usually three or four years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Applied Science, or Bachelor of Technology depending upon the university. Many UK universities also offer Master of Engineering (MEng) degrees at undergraduate level.
The degree generally includes units covering physics, chemistry, mathematics, project management and specific topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the subfields of electronic engineering. Students then choose to specialize in one or more subfields towards the end of the degree.
Some electronics engineers also choose to pursue a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Science (MSc), Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD), or an Engineering Doctorate (EngD). The Master degree is being introduced in some European and American Universities as a first degree and the differentiation of an engineer with graduate and postgraduate studies is often difficult. In these cases, experience is taken into account. The Master's degree may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. The Doctor of Philosophy consists of a significant research component and is often viewed as the entry point to academia.
In most countries, a Bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements (including work experience requirements) before being certified. Once certified the engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South Africa), Chartered Engineer or Incorporated Engineer (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia) or European Engineer (in much of the European Union).
Fundamental to the discipline are the sciences of physics and mathematics as these help to obtain both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will work. Today most engineering work involves the use of computers and it is commonplace to use computer-aided design programs when designing electronic systems. Although most electronic engineers will understand basic circuit theory, the theories employed by engineers generally depend upon the work they do. For example, quantum mechanics and solid state physics might be relevant to an engineer working on VLSI but are largely irrelevant to engineers working with macroscopic electrical systems.
Professional bodiesProfessional bodies of note for electrical engineers include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) (now renamed the Institution of Engineering and Technology or IET). The IEEE claims to produce 30 percent of the world's literature in electrical/electronic engineering, has over 370,000 members, and holds more than 450 IEEE sponsored or cosponsored conferences worldwide each year.SubfieldsElectronic engineering has many subfields. This section describes some of the most popular subfields in electronic engineering; although there are engineers who focus exclusively on one subfield, there are also many who focus on a combination of subfields.Overview of electronic engineeringElectronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the electronic properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality.
Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analog, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information.
For analog signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve the compression, error checking and error detection of digital signals.
Telecommunications engineering deals with the transmission of information across a channel such as a co-axial cable, optical fiber or free space.
Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier wave in order to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission, this is known as modulation. Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer.
Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver. A key consideration in the design of transmitters is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength. If the signal strength of a transmitter is insufficient the signal's information will be corrupted by noise.
Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airplanes to the cruise control present in many modern cars. It also plays an important role in industrial automation.
Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in a car with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the engine's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback.
Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow and temperature. These devices are known as instrumentation.
The design of such instrumentation requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example, radar guns use the Doppler effect to measure the speed of oncoming vehicles. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure the temperature difference between two points.
Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control engineering.
Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new hardware, the design of PDAs or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline.
Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of devices including video game consoles and DVD players.
Project engineeringFor most engineers not involved at the cutting edge of system design and development, technical work accounts for only a fraction of the work they do. A lot of time is also spent on tasks such as discussing proposals with clients, preparing budgets and determining project schedules. Many senior engineers manage a team of technicians or other engineers and for this reason project management skills are important. Most engineering projects involve some form of documentation and strong written communication skills are therefore very important.
The workplaces of electronics engineers are just as varied as the types of work they do. Electronics engineers may be found in the pristine laboratory environment of a fabrication plant, the offices of a consulting firm or in a research laboratory. During their working life, electronics engineers may find themselves supervising a wide range of individuals including scientists, electricians, computer programmers and other engineers.
Obsolescence of technical skills is a serious concern for electronics engineers. Membership and participation in technical societies, regular reviews of periodicals in the field and a habit of continued learning are therefore essential to maintaining proficiency. And these are mostly used in the field of consumer electronics products.[38]
Institution of Engineering and Technology
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a British professional body for those working in engineering and technology in the United Kingdom and worldwide. It was formed from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers, dating back to 1871,[1] and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers dating back to 1884. Worldwide membership is in excess of 153,000. As of October 2010, the president was Dr Nigel Burton and the chief executive and secretary was Nigel Fine. The Institution's main offices are in Savoy Place, London, and Michael Faraday House, Stevenage. It also has premises in Birmingham, Glasgow, Edison, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangalore.
The IET is the second largest engineering institution in the world (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of the USA is the largest). The IET has the authority to establish professional registration of engineers through the Engineering Council. The IEEE does not have the authority to replicate the registration process in its complementary environment.
The IET is registered as a charity in England & Wales and in Scotland.
FormationDiscussions started in 2004 between the IEE and the IIE about the formation of the new institution. In September 2005, both institutions put the merger to the vote, and members voted in favour (73.5% IEE, 95.7% IIE). A petition was then made to the Privy Council for a Supplemental Charter, to allow the creation of the new institution. This was approved by the Privy Council on 14 December 2005 and the new institution came into being on 31 March 2006.
The new Charter and Bye-laws itself were approved by Special General Meetings in September 2005; approximately 250 IEE members signed a petition calling for them to be reviewed by a working party. Therefore a further SGM on 22 March 2006 was called by the IEE and this approved the establishment of a working party which reported in December 2006. The working party proposed amendments to the Charter and Bye-laws, which were approved at an SGM on 17 May 2007 and ratified by the Privy Council in November 2007.
History of the IEEThe Society of Telegraph Engineers (STE) was formed on 17 May 1871 and published the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers from 1872 to 1880. On 22 December 1880, the STE was renamed as the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians and, as part of this change, renamed their journal the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians (1881–1882) and later the Journal of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians (1883–1888). Following a meeting of its Council on 10 November 1887, it was decided to adopt the name of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). The name of the Institution of Electrical Engineers remains engraved in the marble façade of its headquarters at Savoy Place. As part of this change, their Journal was renamed Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1889 and kept this title until 1963. In 1921, the Institution was Incorporated by Royal Charter and, following mergers with the former Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE) in 1988 and the former Institution of Manufacturing Engineers (IMfgE) in 1990, eventually had a worldwide membership of around 120,000. The IEE represented the engineering profession, operated Professional Networks (worldwide groups of engineers sharing common technical and professional interests), had an educational role including the accreditation of degree courses and operated schemes to provide awards scholarships, grants and prizes. It was well known for publication of the "IEE Wiring Regulations" which now continue to be written by the IET and published by the British Standards Institution as BS 7671.
The IET hosts the archive for the Women's Engineering Society (WES) and has also provided office space for WES since 2005.
History of the IIEThe modern Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) traced its heritage to The Vulcanic Society that was founded in 1884 and became the Junior Institution of Engineers in 1902, which became the Institution of General Technician Engineers in 1970. It changed its name in 1976 to the Institution of Mechanical and General Technician Engineers. At this point it merged with the Institution of Technician Engineers in Mechanical Engineering and formed the Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers in 1988. The Institution of Engineers in Charge, which was founded in 1895, amalgamated into the Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers (IMechIE) in 1990.
The Institution of Electrical and Electronic Technician Engineers, the Society of Electronic and Radio Technicians, and the Institute of Practitioners in Radio and Electronics merged in 1990 to form the Institution of Electronics and Electrical Incorporated Engineers (IEEIE).
The modern IIE was formed in April 1998 by the merger of The Institution of Electronic and Electrical Incorporated Engineers (IEEIE), The Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers (IMechIE), and The Institute of Engineers and Technicians (IET). In 1999 there was a further merger with The Institution of Incorporated Executive Engineers (IIExE). The IIE had a worldwide membership of approximately 40,000.
JournalsThe IET has a dynamic and expanding journals publishing program, increasing to 22 titles in March 2011 with the addition of IET Electrical Systems in Transportation and IET Wireless Sensor Systems. The internationally renowned journals contain both original and review papers relating to all disciplines in electrical, electronics, computing, control, biomedical and communications technologies.
Electronics Letters is an internationally renowned peer-reviewed rapid-communication journal, which publishes short original research papers every two weeks. The broad and interdisciplinary scope covers the latest developments in all electronic and electrical engineering related fields. Also available exclusively to Electronics Letters are the new Insight Letters. Read these visionary papers written by renowned experts, which predict the grand research challenges facing future generations of engineers.
Micro & Nano Letters, launched in 2006, specialises in the express online publication of short research papers concentrating on the latest advances in miniature and ultraminiature structures and systems that have at least one dimension ranging from a few tens of micrometres to a few nanometres. It offers a rapid route for international dissemination of high-quality research findings generated by researchers from both the micro and nano communities.
Purpose and functionThe IET represents the engineering profession in matters of public concern and assists governments to make the public aware of technological issues. It also provides advice on all areas of engineering, regularly advising Parliament and other agencies.
The IET also grants Chartered Engineer and Incorporated Engineer professional designations on behalf of the Engineering Council UK. IEng is roughly equivalent to North American Professional Engineer designations and CEng is set at a higher level. Both designations have far greater geographical recognition.
This is made possible through a number of networks for engineers established by the IET including the Professional Networks, worldwide groups of engineers sharing common technical and professional interests. Through the IET website, these networks provide up-to-date sector-specific news, stock a library of technical articles and give members the opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas with peer groups through dedicated discussion forums. Particular areas of focus include education, IT, energy and the environment.
The IET has an educational role, seeking to support its members through their careers, producing advice and guidance at all levels to secure the future of engineering.
For example, the IET accredits degree courses worldwide in subjects relevant to electrical, electronic, manufacturing and information engineering. In addition, it secures funding for professional development schemes for engineering graduates including awards scholarships, grants and prizes.
For the public, the IET website provides factsheets on topics such as solar power, nuclear power, fuel cells, micro-generation and the possible effects on health of mobile phones and power lines.
The IET runs the bibliographic information service Inspec, which is a major indexing database of scientific and technical literature and publishes books, journals such as Electronics Letters, magazines such as Engineering & Technology and conference proceedings. Over 80,000 technical articles are available via the IET Digital Library.
Categories of membershipThe IET has several categories of membership, some with designatory postnominals:
Honorary Fellow (HonFIET) The highest membership category, awarded to persons of particular distinction. Fellow (FIET) This category is open to persons who have demonstrated significant individual responsibility, sustained achievement and professionalism in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution. Member (MIET or TMIET) This category is open to professional engineers (MIET) and technicians (TMIET) with suitable qualifications and involvement in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution. MIET is a regulated professional title recognised in Europe by the Directive 2005/36. http://www.ukncp.org.uk/index.asp?page=14 http://www.ukncp.org.uk/index.asp?page=24&professionID=146
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/qualifications/regprof/index.cfm?fuseaction=regprof.show&RPId=12286
MIET is listed on the part 2 professions regulated by professional bodies incorporated by Royal Charter-Statutory Instruments 2007 No. 2781 Professional Qualifications-The European Communities (Recognition of Professional Qualifications) Regulations 2007. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20072781_en_1
Associate Open to persons with an interest in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution who do not qualify for the Member category. Student Open to persons studying to become professional engineers and technicians. The IET outside the United KingdomAustralia IET Australia is the Australian Local Network (formerly branch) of the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). The Australian Local Network of the IET has representation in all the states and territories of Australia. They include the state branches, their associated Younger Members Sections and university sections in Australia. The Younger Members Sections are divided in categories based on each state, e.g. IET YMS New South Wales (IET YMS NSW).
Hong KongIET Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Local Network (formerly Branch) of the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). The Hong Kong Local Network of the IET has representations in the Asian region and provides a critical link into mainland China. It includes six sections, i.e. Electronics & Communications Section (ECS); Informatics and Control Technologies Section (ICTS); Management Section(MS); Power and Energy Section (PES); Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering (MIES); Railway Section( RS), as well as the Younger Members Section. It has over 5,000 members and activities are coordinated locally. It is one of the professional organisations for chartered engineers in Hong Kong. Link: http://www.iee.org.hk/iee/eng/main/home.jspItalyIET Italy Local Network was established in 2007 by a group of active members led by Dr M Fiorini with the purpose to represent locally the aims and services of the IET. The vision of sharing and advancing knowledge throughout the global science, engineering and technology community to enhance people’s lives is achieved building-up an open, flexible and global knowledge network supported by individuals, companies and institutions and facilitated by the IET and its members. Website: www.theiet.org/local/Europe/ItalyIndiaIET India Office has been set up in 2006, India has five major local networks Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (read I-Triple-E) is a non-profit professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation related to electricity. It has more than 395,000 members in more than 160 countries, 45% outside the United States.[2][3]
HistoryThe IEEE is incorporated under the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law of the state of New York, United States.[4] It was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, founded 1912) and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, founded 1884).
The major interests of the AIEE were wire communications (telegraph and telephony) and light and power systems. The IRE concerned mostly radio engineering, and was formed from two smaller organizations, the Society of Wireless and Telegraph Engineers and the Wireless Institute. With the rise of electronics in the 1930s, electronics engineers usually became members of the IRE, but the applications of electron tube technology became so extensive that the technical boundaries differentiating the IRE and the AIEE became difficult to distinguish. After World War II, the two organizations became increasingly competitive, and in 1961, the leadership of both the IRE and the AIEE resolved to consolidate the two organizations. The two organizations formally merged as the IEEE on January 1, 1963.
Notable Presidents of IEEE and its founding organizations include Elihu Thomson (AIEE, 1889–1890), Alexander Graham Bell (AIEE, 1891–1892), Charles Proteus Steinmetz (AIEE, 1901–1902), Lee De Forest (IRE, 1930), Frederick E. Terman (IRE, 1941), William R. Hewlett (IRE, 1954), Ernst Weber (IRE, 1959; IEEE, 1963), and Ivan Getting (IEEE, 1978).
IEEE's Constitution defines the purposes of the organization as "scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of Electrical, Electronics, Communications and Computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences."[1] In pursuing these goals, the IEEE serves as a major publisher of scientific journals and a conference organizer. It is also a leading developer of industrial standard (having developed over 900 active industry standards) in a broad range of disciplines, including electric power and energy, biomedical technology and healthcare, information technology, information assurance, telecommunications, consumer electronics, transportation, aerospace, and nanotechnology. IEEE develops and participates in educational activities such as accreditation of electrical engineering programs in institutes of higher learning. The IEEE logo is a diamond-shaped design which illustrates the right hand grip rule embedded in Benjamin Franklin's kite. It is properly presented as a master brand with the letter "IEEE" to the right. IEEE also sponsors or cosponsors more than 1000 international technical conferences each year.
IEEE has a dual complementary regional and technical structure - with organizational units based on geography (e.g., for example the IEEE Philadelphia Section, IEEE South Africa Section [1]) and technical focus (e.g., the IEEE Computer Society). It manages a separate organizational unit (IEEE-USA) which recommends policies and implements programs specifically intended to benefit the members, the profession and the public in the United States.
The IEEE consists of 38 societies, organized around specialized technical fields, with more than 300 local organizations that hold regular meetings.
The IEEE Standards Association is in charge of the standardization activities of the IEEE.
PublicationsIEEE produces 30% of the world's literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, publishing well over 100 peer-reviewed journals.[5]
The content in these journals as well as the content from several hundred annual conferences are available in the IEEE's online digital library.[6]
IEEE publications have received a Green[7] rating the from SHERPA/RoMEO guide[8] for affirming "authors and/or their companies shall have the right to post their IEEE-copyrighted material on their own servers without permission" (IEEE Publication Policy 8.1.9.D[9]). This effectively allows authors, at their choice, to make their article openly available. Roughly 1/3 of the IEEE authors take this route.
Like most other standards bodies, IEEE distributes its standards documents for a fee.
Educational opportunitiesThe IEEE provides learning opportunities within the engineering sciences, research, and technology. The goal of the IEEE education programs is to ensure the growth of skill and knowledge in the electricity-related technical professions and to foster individual commitment to continuing education among IEEE members, the engineering and scientific communities, and the general public.
IEEE offers educational opportunities such as IEEE eLearning Library, [10] the Education Partners Program,[11] Standards in Education[12] and Continuing Education Units (CEUs).[13]
IEEE eLearning Library is a collection of online educational courses designed for self-paced learning. Education Partners, exclusive for IEEE members, offers on-line degree programs, certifications and courses at a 10% discount. The Standards in Education website explains what standards are and the importance of developing and using them. The site includes tutorial modules and case illustrations to introduce the history of standards, the basic terminology, their applications and impact on products, as well as news related to standards, book reviews and links to other sites that contain information on standards. Currently, twenty-nine states require Professional Development Hours (PDH) to maintain P.E. licensure, encouraging engineers to seek Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for their participation in continuing education programs. CEUs readily translate into Professional Development Hours (PDHs) (1 CEU is equivalent to 10 PDHs). Countries outside the United States, such as South Africa, also require continuing professional development (CPD) credits. In South Africa, the IEEE South Africa Section is a voluntary association of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), a signatory of Washington Accord. To maintain registration with ECSA, professional engineers (Pr Eng) must pursue CPD, and now the IEEE, via its local reflection in South Africa, can enable CPD provision. In 2010, it is anticipated that IEEE Expert Now courses will feature in the CPD listing for the IEEE membership in South Africa to derive benefit.
IEEE also sponsors a website[14] designed to help young people understand better what engineering means, and how an engineering career can be made part of their future. Students (ages 8–18), parents, and teachers can explore the site to prepare for an engineering career, ask experts engineering-related questions, play interactive games, explore curriculum links, and review lesson plans. This website also allows students to search for accredited engineering degree programs in Canada and the United States; visitors are able to search by state/province/territory, country, degree field, tuition ranges, room and board ranges, size of student body, and location (rural, suburban, or urban).
Standards and development processIEEE is one of the leading standards-making organizations in the world. IEEE performs its standards making and maintaining functions through the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA). IEEE standards affect a wide range of industries including: power and energy, biomedical and healthcare, Information Technology (IT), telecommunications, transportation, nanotechnology, information assurance, and many more. In 2005, IEEE had close to 900 active standards, with 500 standards under development. One of the more notable IEEE standards is the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN group of standards which includes the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard and the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networking standard.
Membership and member gradesMost IEEE members are electrical engineers, computer engineers, and computer scientists, but the organization's wide scope of interests has attracted engineers in other disciplines (e.g., mechanical and civil) as well as biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. There are several membership grades. In order to qualify for membership, an individual must meet certain academic or experience requirements. Associate membership is available to those who don't meet such requirements. Student memberships are available with a reduced membership fee. Students and Associates have all the privileges of members, except the right to vote and hold certain offices. Upon meeting certain additional requirements, a member can apply automatically for senior membership. Finally, a member who has made a significant contribution to any of the IEEE fields of interest may be elevated to the grade IEEE Fellow, a distinctive honor. Some societies allow "affiliate" members, i.e. members of the society that are not members of IEEE itself.AwardsThrough its awards program, the IEEE advances the interests of its members by recognizing their contributions in advancing the fields of interest to IEEE to the benefit of society. By this means, the image and prestige of the organization, its members, and the profession are all enhanced. The IEEE Awards Program honors members and other professionals for their service to the society.
For nearly a century, the IEEE Awards Program has paid tribute to technical professionals whose exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions have made a lasting impact on technology, society and the engineering profession.
Medals
Recognitions
Scholarships
This article describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits.
History
Early days Before EDA, integrated circuits were designed by hand, and manually laid out. Some advanced shops used geometric software to generate the tapes for the Gerber photoplotter, but even those copied digital recordings of mechanically-drawn components. The process was fundamentally graphic, with the translation from electronics to graphics done manually. The best known company from this era was Calma, whose GDSII format survives.
By the mid-70s, developers started to automate the design, and not just the drafting. The first placement and routing (Place and route) tools were developed. The proceedings of the Design Automation Conference cover much of this era.
The next era began about the time of the publication of "Introduction to VLSI Systems" by Carver Mead and Lynn Conway in 1980. This ground breaking text advocated chip design with programming languages that compiled to silicon. The immediate result was a considerable increase in the complexity of the chips that could be designed, with improved access to design verification tools that used logic simulation. Often the chips were easier to lay out and more likely to function correctly, since their designs could be simulated more thoroughly prior to construction. Although the languages and tools have evolved, this general approach of specifying the desired behavior in a textual programming language and letting the tools derive the detailed physical design remains the basis of digital IC design today.
The earliest EDA tools were produced academically. One of the most famous was the "Berkeley VLSI Tools Tarball", a set of UNIX utilities used to design early VLSI systems. Still widely used is the Espresso heuristic logic minimizer and Magic.
Another crucial development was the formation of MOSIS, a consortium of universities and fabricators that developed an inexpensive way to train student chip designers by producing real integrated circuits. The basic concept was to use reliable, low-cost, relatively low-technology IC processes, and pack a large number of projects per wafer, with just a few copies of each projects' chips. Cooperating fabricators either donated the processed wafers, or sold them at cost, seeing the program as helpful to their own long-term growth.
[edit] Birth of commercial EDA 1981 marks the beginning of EDA as an industry. For many years, the larger electronic companies, such as Hewlett Packard, Tektronix, and Intel, had pursued EDA internally. In 1981, managers and developers spun out of these companies to concentrate on EDA as a business. Daisy Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Valid Logic Systems were all founded around this time, and collectively referred to as DMV. Within a few years there were many companies specializing in EDA, each with a slightly different emphasis. The first trade show for EDA was held at the Design Automation Conference in 1984.
In 1986, Verilog, a popular high-level design language, was first introduced as a hardware description language by Gateway Design Automation. In 1987, the U.S. Department of Defense funded creation of VHDL as a specification language. Simulators quickly followed these introductions, permitting direct simulation of chip designs: executable specifications. In a few more years, back-ends were developed to perform logic synthesis.
3D PCB layout [edit] Current status Current digital flows are extremely modular (see Integrated circuit design, Design closure, and Design flow (EDA)). The front ends produce standardized design descriptions that compile into invocations of "cells,", without regard to the cell technology. Cells implement logic or other electronic functions using a particular integrated circuit technology. Fabricators generally provide libraries of components for their production processes, with simulation models that fit standard simulation tools. Analog EDA tools are far less modular, since many more functions are required, they interact more strongly, and the components are (in general) less ideal.
EDA for electronics has rapidly increased in importance with the continuous scaling of semiconductor technology.[citation needed] Some users are foundry operators, who operate the semiconductor fabrication facilities, or "fabs", and design-service companies who use EDA software to evaluate an incoming design for manufacturing readiness. EDA tools are also used for programming design functionality into FPGAs.
Software focusesDesign Main article: Design flow (EDA)
- High-level synthesis(syn. behavioural synthesis, algorithmic synthesis) For digital chips
- Logic synthesis translation of abstract, logical language such as Verilog or VHDL into a discrete netlist of logic-gates
- Schematic Capture For standard cell digital, analog, rf like Capture CIS in Orcad by CADENCE and ISIS in Proteus
- Layout like Layout in Orcad by Cadence, ARES in Proteus
- Transistor simulation – low-level transistor-simulation of a schematic/layout's behavior, accurate at device-level.
- Logic simulation – digital-simulation of an RTL or gate-netlist's digital (boolean 0/1) behavior, accurate at boolean-level.
- Behavioral Simulation – high-level simulation of a design's architectural operation, accurate at cycle-level or interface-level.
- Hardware emulation – Use of special purpose hardware to emulate the logic of a proposed design. Can sometimes be plugged into a system in place of a yet-to-be-built chip; this is called in-circuit emulation.
- Technology CAD simulate and analyze the underlying process technology. Electrical properties of devices are derived directly from device physics.
- Electromagnetic field solvers, or just field solvers, solve Maxwell's equations directly for cases of interest in IC and PCB design. They are known for being slower but more accurate than the layout extraction above.
- Functional verification
- Clock Domain Crossing Verification (CDC check): Similar to linting, but these checks/tools specialize in detecting and reporting potential issues like data loss, meta-stability due to use of multiple clock domains in the design.
- Formal verification, also model checking: Attempts to prove, by mathematical methods, that the system has certain desired properties, and that certain undesired effects (such as deadlock) cannot occur.
- Equivalence checking: algorithmic comparison between a chip's RTL-description and synthesized gate-netlist, to ensure functional equivalence at the logical level.
- Static timing analysis: Analysis of the timing of a circuit in an input-independent manner, hence finding a worst case over all possible inputs.
- Physical verification, PV: checking if a design is physically manufacturable, and that the resulting chips will not have any function-preventing physical defects, and will meet original specifications.
- Mask data preparation, MDP: generation of actual lithography photomask used to physically manufacture the chip.
- Resolution enhancement techniques, RET – methods of increasing of quality of final photomask.
- Optical proximity correction, OPC – up-front compensation for diffraction and interference effects occurring later when chip is manufactured using this mask.
- Mask generation – generation of flat mask image from hierarchical design.
- Automatic test pattern generation, ATPG – generates pattern-data to systematically exercise as many logic-gates, and other components, as possible.
- Built-in self-test, or BIST – installs self-contained test-controllers to automatically test a logic (or memory) structure in the design
- $3.73 billion - Synopsys
- $2.06 billion - Cadence
- $1.18 billion - Mentor Graphics
- $233 million - Magma Design Automation
- $157 million - Zuken Inc.
Note: Market caps current as of October, 2010.[1] EEsof should likely[citation needed] be on this list, but does not have a market cap as it is the EDA division of Agilent.
Acquisitions Many of the EDA companies acquire small companies with software or other technology that can be adapted to their core business.[2] Most of the market leaders are rather incestuous amalgamations of many smaller companies. This trend is helped by the tendency of software companies to design tools as accessories that fit naturally into a larger vendor's suite of programs ( on digital circuitry, many new tools incorporate analog design, and mixed systems. This is happening because there is now a trend to place entire electronic systems on a single chip.
Electronic Engineering
Electronics engineering,[1] also referred to as electronic engineering,[2][3] is an engineering discipline which uses the scientific knowledge of the behavior and effects of electrons to develop components, devices, systems, or equipment (as in electron tubes, transistors, integrated circuits, and printed circuit boards) that uses electricity as part of its driving force. Both terms denote a broad engineering field that encompasses many subfields including those that deal with power, instrumentation engineering, telecommunications, semiconductor circuit design, and many others.[4]
The term also covers a large part of electrical engineering degree courses as studied at most European universities. In the U.S., however, electrical engineering encompasses all electrical disciplines including electronics. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is one of the most important and influential organizations for electronics engineers.
Terminology
The name electrical engineering is still used to cover electronic engineering amongst some of the older (notably American and Australian) universities and graduates there are called electrical engineers.[5] Some people believe the term 'electrical engineer' should be reserved for those having specialized in power and heavy current or high voltage engineering, while others believe that power is just one subset of electrical engineering (and indeed the term 'power engineering' is used in that industry) as well as 'electrical distribution engineering'. Again, in recent years there has been a growth of new separate-entry degree courses such as 'information engineering' and 'communication systems engineering', often followed by academic departments of similar name.[6][7]
Most European universities now refer to electrical engineering as power engineers and make a distinction between Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Beginning in the 1980s, the term computer engineer was often used to refer to electronic or information engineers. However, Computer Engineering is now considered a subset of Electronics Engineering and the term is now becoming archaic. [8]
History of electronic engineering
Electronic engineering as a profession sprang from technological improvements in the telegraph industry in the late 19th century and the radio and the telephone industries in the early 20th century. People were attracted to radio by the technical fascination it inspired, first in receiving and then in transmitting. Many who went into broadcasting in the 1920s were only 'amateurs' in the period before World War I.[9]
The modern discipline of electronic engineering was to a large extent born out of telephone, radio, and television equipment development and the large amount of electronic systems development during World War II of radar, sonar, communication systems, and advanced munitions and weapon systems. In the interwar years, the subject was known as radio engineering and it was only in the late 1950s that the term electronic engineering started to emerge.[10]
The electronic laboratories (Bell Labs in the United States for instance) created and subsidized by large corporations in the industries of radio, television, and telephone equipment began churning out a series of electronic advances. In 1948, came the transistor and in 1960, the IC to revolutionize the electronic industry.[11][12] In the UK, the subject of electronic engineering became distinct from electrical engineering as a university degree subject around 1960. Before this time, students of electronics and related subjects like radio and telecommunications had to enroll in the electrical engineering department of the university as no university had departments of electronics. Electrical engineering was the nearest subject with which electronic engineering could be aligned, although the similarities in subjects covered (except mathematics and electromagnetism) lasted only for the first year of the three-year course.
Early electronics
In 1893, Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail the principles of radio communication.[13] In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi went on to develop a practical and widely used radio system.[14][15] In 1904, John Ambrose Fleming, the first professor of electrical Engineering at University College London, invented the first radio tube, the diode. One year later, in 1906, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode.
Electronics is often considered to have begun when Lee De Forest invented the vacuum tube in 1907. Within 10 years, his device was used in radio transmitters and receivers as well as systems for long distance telephone calls. In 1912, Edwin H. Armstrong invented the regenerative feedback amplifier and oscillator; he also invented the superheterodyne radio receiver and could be considered the father of modern radio.[16] Vacuum tubes remained the preferred amplifying device for 40 years, until researchers working for William Shockley at Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947. In the following years, transistors made small portable radios, or transistor radios, possible as well as allowing more powerful mainframe computers to be built. Transistors were smaller and required lower voltages than vacuum tubes to work.
Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by hand. These non-integrated circuits consumed much space and power, were prone to failure and were limited in speed although they are still common in simple applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed a large number — often millions — of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors, into a small chip around the size of a coin.[17]
Tubes or valvesThe vacuum tube detector
The invention of the triode amplifier, generator, and detector made audio communication by radio practical. (Reginald Fessenden's 1906 transmissions used an electro-mechanical alternator.) The first known radio news program was broadcast 31 August 1920 by station 8MK, the unlicensed predecessor of WWJ (AM) in Detroit, Michigan. Regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment commenced in 1922 from the Marconi Research Centre at Writtle near Chelmsford, England.
While some early radios used some type of amplification through electric current or battery, through the mid 1920s the most common type of receiver was the crystal set. In the 1920s, amplifying vacuum tubes revolutionized both radio receivers and transmitters.
TelevisionIn 1928 Philo Farnsworth made the first public demonstration of a purely electronic television. During the 1930s several countries began broadcasting, and after World War II it spread to millions of receivers, eventually worldwide. Ever since then, electronics have been fully present in television devices.
Modern televisions and video displays have evolved from bulky electron tube technology to use more compact devices, such as plasma and LCD displays. The trend is for even lower power devices such as the organic light-emitting diode displays, and it is most likely to replace the LCD and plasma technologies.[18]
Radar and radio location
During World War II many efforts were expended in the electronic location of enemy targets and aircraft. These included radio beam guidance of bombers, electronic counter measures, early radar systems etc. During this time very little if any effort was expended on consumer electronics developments.[19]Computers
A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format.
Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). These were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).[1] Modern computers based on integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space.[2] Simple computers are small enough to fit into small pocket devices, and can be powered by a small battery. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "computers". However, the embedded computers found in many devices from MP3 players to fighter aircraft and from toys to industrial robots are the most numerous.
The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile, distinguishing them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore computers ranging from a netbook to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks, given enough time and storage capacity.
Microprocessors
In 1969, Ted Hoff conceived the commercial microprocessor at Intel and thus ignited the development of the personal computer. Hoff's invention was part of an order by a Japanese company for a desktop programmable electronic calculator, which Hoff wanted to build as cheaply as possible. The first realization of the microprocessor was the Intel 4004, a 4-bit processor, in 1969, but only in 1973 did the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, make the building of the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 8800, possible. The first PC was announced to the general public on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.
Many electronics engineers today specialize in the development of programs for microprocessor based electronic systems, known as embedded systems. Due to the detailed knowledge of the hardware that is required for doing this, it is normally done by electronics engineers and not software engineers. Software engineers typically know and use microprocessors only at a conceptual level. Electronics engineers who exclusively carry out the role of programming embedded systems or microprocessors are referred to as "embedded systems engineers", or "firmware engineers".
Electronics
In the field of electronic engineering, engineers design and test circuits that use the electromagnetic properties of electrical components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuner circuit, which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit.
In designing an integrated circuit, electronics engineers first construct circuit schematics that specify the electrical components and describe the interconnections between them. When completed, VLSI engineers convert the schematics into actual layouts, which map the layers of various conductor and semiconductor materials needed to construct the circuit. The conversion from schematics to layouts can be done by software (see electronic design automation) but very often requires human fine-tuning to decrease space and power consumption. Once the layout is complete, it can be sent to a fabrication plant for manufacturing.
Integrated circuits and other electrical components can then be assembled on printed circuit boards to form more complicated circuits. Today, printed circuit boards are found in most electronic devices including televisions, computers and audio players.[20]
Typical electronic engineering undergraduate syllabus
Apart from electromagnetics and network theory, other items in the syllabus are particular to electronics engineering course. Electrical engineering courses have other specialisms such as machines, power generation and distribution. Note that the following list does not include the extensive engineering mathematics curriculum that is a prerequisite to a degree.[21][22]ElectromagneticsElements of vector calculus: divergence and curl; Gauss' and Stokes' theorems, Maxwell's equations: differential and integral forms. Wave equation, Poynting vector. Plane waves: propagation through various media; reflection and refraction; phase and group velocity; skin depth. Transmission lines: characteristic impedance; impedance transformation; Smith chart; impedance matching; pulse excitation. Waveguides: modes in rectangular waveguides; boundary conditions; cut-off frequencies; dispersion relations. Antennas: Dipole antennas; antenna arrays; radiation pattern; reciprocity theorem, antenna gain.[23][24]Network analysisNetwork graphs: matrices associated with graphs; incidence, fundamental cut set and fundamental circuit matrices. Solution methods: nodal and mesh analysis. Network theorems: superposition, Thevenin and Norton's maximum power transfer, Wye-Delta transformation.[25] Steady state sinusoidal analysis using phasors. Linear constant coefficient differential equations; time domain analysis of simple RLC circuits, Solution of network equations using Laplace transform: frequency domain analysis of RLC circuits. 2-port network parameters: driving point and transfer functions. State equations for networks.[26]
Electronic devices and circuitsElectronic devices: Energy bands in silicon, intrinsic and extrinsic silicon. Carrier transport in silicon: diffusion current, drift current, mobility, resistivity. Generation and recombination of carriers. p-n junction diode, Zener diode, tunnel diode, BJT, JFET, MOS capacitor, MOSFET, LED, p-i-n and avalanche photo diode, LASERs. Device technology: integrated circuit fabrication process, oxidation, diffusion, ion implantation, photolithography, n-tub, p-tub and twin-tub CMOS process.[27][28]
Analog circuits: Equivalent circuits (large and small-signal) of diodes, BJTs, JFETs, and MOSFETs. Simple diode circuits, clipping, clamping, rectifier. Biasing and bias stability of transistor and FET amplifiers. Amplifiers: single-and multi-stage, differential, operational, feedback and power. Analysis of amplifiers; frequency response of amplifiers. Simple op-amp circuits. Filters. Sinusoidal oscillators; criterion for oscillation; single-transistor and op-amp configurations. Function generators and wave-shaping circuits, Power supplies.[29]
Digital circuits: of Boolean functions; logic gates digital IC families (DTL, TTL, ECL, MOS, CMOS). Combinational circuits: arithmetic circuits, code converters, multiplexers and decoders. Sequential circuits: latches and flip-flops, counters and shift-registers. Sample and hold circuits, ADCs, DACs. Semiconductor memories. Microprocessor 8086: architecture, programming, memory and I/O interfacing.[30] [31]
Signals and systemsDefinitions and properties of Laplace transform, continuous-time and discrete-time Fourier series, continuous-time and discrete-time Fourier Transform, z-transform. Sampling theorems. Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) Systems: definitions and properties; causality, stability, impulse response, convolution, poles and zeros frequency response, group delay, phase delay. Signal transmission through LTI systems. Random signals and noise: probability, random variables, probability density function, autocorrelation, power spectral density, function analogy between vectors & functions.[32][33]Control systemsBasic control system components; block diagrammatic description, reduction of block diagrams — Mason's rule. Open loop and closed loop (negative unity feedback) systems and stability analysis of these systems. Signal flow graphs and their use in determining transfer functions of systems; transient and steady state analysis of LTI control systems and frequency response. Analysis of steady-state disturbance rejection and noise sensitivity.
Tools and techniques for LTI control system analysis and design: root loci, Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion, Bode and Nyquist plots. Control system compensators: elements of lead and lag compensation, elements of Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller (PID). Discretization of continuous time systems using Zero-order hold (ZOH) and ADCs for digital controller implementation. Limitations of digital controllers: aliasing. State variable representation and solution of state equation of LTI control systems. Linearization of Nonlinear dynamical systems with state-space realizations in both frequency and time domains. Fundamental concepts of controllability and observability for MIMO LTI systems. State space realizations: observable and controllable canonical form. Ackermann's formula for state-feedback pole placement. Design of full order and reduced order estimators. [34][35]
CommunicationsAnalog communication systems: amplitude and angle modulation and demodulation systems, spectral analysis of these operations, superheterodyne noise conditions.
Digital communication systems: pulse code modulation (PCM), Differential Pulse Code Modulation (DPCM), Delta modulation (DM), digital modulation schemes-amplitude, phase and frequency shift keying schemes (ASK, PSK, FSK), matched filter receivers, bandwidth consideration and probability of error calculations for these schemes, GSM, TDMA.[36][37]
Education and trainingElectronics engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electronic engineering. The length of study for such a degree is usually three or four years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Applied Science, or Bachelor of Technology depending upon the university. Many UK universities also offer Master of Engineering (MEng) degrees at undergraduate level.
The degree generally includes units covering physics, chemistry, mathematics, project management and specific topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the subfields of electronic engineering. Students then choose to specialize in one or more subfields towards the end of the degree.
Some electronics engineers also choose to pursue a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Science (MSc), Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD), or an Engineering Doctorate (EngD). The Master degree is being introduced in some European and American Universities as a first degree and the differentiation of an engineer with graduate and postgraduate studies is often difficult. In these cases, experience is taken into account. The Master's degree may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. The Doctor of Philosophy consists of a significant research component and is often viewed as the entry point to academia.
In most countries, a Bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements (including work experience requirements) before being certified. Once certified the engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South Africa), Chartered Engineer or Incorporated Engineer (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia) or European Engineer (in much of the European Union).
Fundamental to the discipline are the sciences of physics and mathematics as these help to obtain both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will work. Today most engineering work involves the use of computers and it is commonplace to use computer-aided design programs when designing electronic systems. Although most electronic engineers will understand basic circuit theory, the theories employed by engineers generally depend upon the work they do. For example, quantum mechanics and solid state physics might be relevant to an engineer working on VLSI but are largely irrelevant to engineers working with macroscopic electrical systems.
Professional bodiesProfessional bodies of note for electrical engineers include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) (now renamed the Institution of Engineering and Technology or IET). The IEEE claims to produce 30 percent of the world's literature in electrical/electronic engineering, has over 370,000 members, and holds more than 450 IEEE sponsored or cosponsored conferences worldwide each year.SubfieldsElectronic engineering has many subfields. This section describes some of the most popular subfields in electronic engineering; although there are engineers who focus exclusively on one subfield, there are also many who focus on a combination of subfields.Overview of electronic engineeringElectronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the electronic properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and transistors to achieve a particular functionality.
Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analog, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information.
For analog signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve the compression, error checking and error detection of digital signals.
Telecommunications engineering deals with the transmission of information across a channel such as a co-axial cable, optical fiber or free space.
Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier wave in order to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission, this is known as modulation. Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer.
Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver. A key consideration in the design of transmitters is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength. If the signal strength of a transmitter is insufficient the signal's information will be corrupted by noise.
Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airplanes to the cruise control present in many modern cars. It also plays an important role in industrial automation.
Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in a car with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the engine's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback.
Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow and temperature. These devices are known as instrumentation.
The design of such instrumentation requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example, radar guns use the Doppler effect to measure the speed of oncoming vehicles. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure the temperature difference between two points.
Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control engineering.
Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new hardware, the design of PDAs or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline.
Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of devices including video game consoles and DVD players.
Project engineeringFor most engineers not involved at the cutting edge of system design and development, technical work accounts for only a fraction of the work they do. A lot of time is also spent on tasks such as discussing proposals with clients, preparing budgets and determining project schedules. Many senior engineers manage a team of technicians or other engineers and for this reason project management skills are important. Most engineering projects involve some form of documentation and strong written communication skills are therefore very important.
The workplaces of electronics engineers are just as varied as the types of work they do. Electronics engineers may be found in the pristine laboratory environment of a fabrication plant, the offices of a consulting firm or in a research laboratory. During their working life, electronics engineers may find themselves supervising a wide range of individuals including scientists, electricians, computer programmers and other engineers.
Obsolescence of technical skills is a serious concern for electronics engineers. Membership and participation in technical societies, regular reviews of periodicals in the field and a habit of continued learning are therefore essential to maintaining proficiency. And these are mostly used in the field of consumer electronics products.[38]
Institution of Engineering and Technology
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a British professional body for those working in engineering and technology in the United Kingdom and worldwide. It was formed from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers, dating back to 1871,[1] and the Institution of Incorporated Engineers dating back to 1884. Worldwide membership is in excess of 153,000. As of October 2010, the president was Dr Nigel Burton and the chief executive and secretary was Nigel Fine. The Institution's main offices are in Savoy Place, London, and Michael Faraday House, Stevenage. It also has premises in Birmingham, Glasgow, Edison, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangalore.
The IET is the second largest engineering institution in the world (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) of the USA is the largest). The IET has the authority to establish professional registration of engineers through the Engineering Council. The IEEE does not have the authority to replicate the registration process in its complementary environment.
The IET is registered as a charity in England & Wales and in Scotland.
FormationDiscussions started in 2004 between the IEE and the IIE about the formation of the new institution. In September 2005, both institutions put the merger to the vote, and members voted in favour (73.5% IEE, 95.7% IIE). A petition was then made to the Privy Council for a Supplemental Charter, to allow the creation of the new institution. This was approved by the Privy Council on 14 December 2005 and the new institution came into being on 31 March 2006.
The new Charter and Bye-laws itself were approved by Special General Meetings in September 2005; approximately 250 IEE members signed a petition calling for them to be reviewed by a working party. Therefore a further SGM on 22 March 2006 was called by the IEE and this approved the establishment of a working party which reported in December 2006. The working party proposed amendments to the Charter and Bye-laws, which were approved at an SGM on 17 May 2007 and ratified by the Privy Council in November 2007.
History of the IEEThe Society of Telegraph Engineers (STE) was formed on 17 May 1871 and published the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers from 1872 to 1880. On 22 December 1880, the STE was renamed as the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians and, as part of this change, renamed their journal the Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and of Electricians (1881–1882) and later the Journal of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians (1883–1888). Following a meeting of its Council on 10 November 1887, it was decided to adopt the name of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). The name of the Institution of Electrical Engineers remains engraved in the marble façade of its headquarters at Savoy Place. As part of this change, their Journal was renamed Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1889 and kept this title until 1963. In 1921, the Institution was Incorporated by Royal Charter and, following mergers with the former Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE) in 1988 and the former Institution of Manufacturing Engineers (IMfgE) in 1990, eventually had a worldwide membership of around 120,000. The IEE represented the engineering profession, operated Professional Networks (worldwide groups of engineers sharing common technical and professional interests), had an educational role including the accreditation of degree courses and operated schemes to provide awards scholarships, grants and prizes. It was well known for publication of the "IEE Wiring Regulations" which now continue to be written by the IET and published by the British Standards Institution as BS 7671.
The IET hosts the archive for the Women's Engineering Society (WES) and has also provided office space for WES since 2005.
History of the IIEThe modern Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) traced its heritage to The Vulcanic Society that was founded in 1884 and became the Junior Institution of Engineers in 1902, which became the Institution of General Technician Engineers in 1970. It changed its name in 1976 to the Institution of Mechanical and General Technician Engineers. At this point it merged with the Institution of Technician Engineers in Mechanical Engineering and formed the Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers in 1988. The Institution of Engineers in Charge, which was founded in 1895, amalgamated into the Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers (IMechIE) in 1990.
The Institution of Electrical and Electronic Technician Engineers, the Society of Electronic and Radio Technicians, and the Institute of Practitioners in Radio and Electronics merged in 1990 to form the Institution of Electronics and Electrical Incorporated Engineers (IEEIE).
The modern IIE was formed in April 1998 by the merger of The Institution of Electronic and Electrical Incorporated Engineers (IEEIE), The Institution of Mechanical Incorporated Engineers (IMechIE), and The Institute of Engineers and Technicians (IET). In 1999 there was a further merger with The Institution of Incorporated Executive Engineers (IIExE). The IIE had a worldwide membership of approximately 40,000.
JournalsThe IET has a dynamic and expanding journals publishing program, increasing to 22 titles in March 2011 with the addition of IET Electrical Systems in Transportation and IET Wireless Sensor Systems. The internationally renowned journals contain both original and review papers relating to all disciplines in electrical, electronics, computing, control, biomedical and communications technologies.
Electronics Letters is an internationally renowned peer-reviewed rapid-communication journal, which publishes short original research papers every two weeks. The broad and interdisciplinary scope covers the latest developments in all electronic and electrical engineering related fields. Also available exclusively to Electronics Letters are the new Insight Letters. Read these visionary papers written by renowned experts, which predict the grand research challenges facing future generations of engineers.
Micro & Nano Letters, launched in 2006, specialises in the express online publication of short research papers concentrating on the latest advances in miniature and ultraminiature structures and systems that have at least one dimension ranging from a few tens of micrometres to a few nanometres. It offers a rapid route for international dissemination of high-quality research findings generated by researchers from both the micro and nano communities.
Purpose and functionThe IET represents the engineering profession in matters of public concern and assists governments to make the public aware of technological issues. It also provides advice on all areas of engineering, regularly advising Parliament and other agencies.
The IET also grants Chartered Engineer and Incorporated Engineer professional designations on behalf of the Engineering Council UK. IEng is roughly equivalent to North American Professional Engineer designations and CEng is set at a higher level. Both designations have far greater geographical recognition.
This is made possible through a number of networks for engineers established by the IET including the Professional Networks, worldwide groups of engineers sharing common technical and professional interests. Through the IET website, these networks provide up-to-date sector-specific news, stock a library of technical articles and give members the opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas with peer groups through dedicated discussion forums. Particular areas of focus include education, IT, energy and the environment.
The IET has an educational role, seeking to support its members through their careers, producing advice and guidance at all levels to secure the future of engineering.
For example, the IET accredits degree courses worldwide in subjects relevant to electrical, electronic, manufacturing and information engineering. In addition, it secures funding for professional development schemes for engineering graduates including awards scholarships, grants and prizes.
For the public, the IET website provides factsheets on topics such as solar power, nuclear power, fuel cells, micro-generation and the possible effects on health of mobile phones and power lines.
The IET runs the bibliographic information service Inspec, which is a major indexing database of scientific and technical literature and publishes books, journals such as Electronics Letters, magazines such as Engineering & Technology and conference proceedings. Over 80,000 technical articles are available via the IET Digital Library.
Categories of membershipThe IET has several categories of membership, some with designatory postnominals:
Honorary Fellow (HonFIET) The highest membership category, awarded to persons of particular distinction. Fellow (FIET) This category is open to persons who have demonstrated significant individual responsibility, sustained achievement and professionalism in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution. Member (MIET or TMIET) This category is open to professional engineers (MIET) and technicians (TMIET) with suitable qualifications and involvement in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution. MIET is a regulated professional title recognised in Europe by the Directive 2005/36. http://www.ukncp.org.uk/index.asp?page=14 http://www.ukncp.org.uk/index.asp?page=24&professionID=146
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/qualifications/regprof/index.cfm?fuseaction=regprof.show&RPId=12286
MIET is listed on the part 2 professions regulated by professional bodies incorporated by Royal Charter-Statutory Instruments 2007 No. 2781 Professional Qualifications-The European Communities (Recognition of Professional Qualifications) Regulations 2007. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20072781_en_1
Associate Open to persons with an interest in areas relevant to the interests of the Institution who do not qualify for the Member category. Student Open to persons studying to become professional engineers and technicians. The IET outside the United KingdomAustralia IET Australia is the Australian Local Network (formerly branch) of the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). The Australian Local Network of the IET has representation in all the states and territories of Australia. They include the state branches, their associated Younger Members Sections and university sections in Australia. The Younger Members Sections are divided in categories based on each state, e.g. IET YMS New South Wales (IET YMS NSW).
Hong KongIET Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Local Network (formerly Branch) of the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). The Hong Kong Local Network of the IET has representations in the Asian region and provides a critical link into mainland China. It includes six sections, i.e. Electronics & Communications Section (ECS); Informatics and Control Technologies Section (ICTS); Management Section(MS); Power and Energy Section (PES); Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering (MIES); Railway Section( RS), as well as the Younger Members Section. It has over 5,000 members and activities are coordinated locally. It is one of the professional organisations for chartered engineers in Hong Kong. Link: http://www.iee.org.hk/iee/eng/main/home.jspItalyIET Italy Local Network was established in 2007 by a group of active members led by Dr M Fiorini with the purpose to represent locally the aims and services of the IET. The vision of sharing and advancing knowledge throughout the global science, engineering and technology community to enhance people’s lives is achieved building-up an open, flexible and global knowledge network supported by individuals, companies and institutions and facilitated by the IET and its members. Website: www.theiet.org/local/Europe/ItalyIndiaIET India Office has been set up in 2006, India has five major local networks Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (read I-Triple-E) is a non-profit professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation related to electricity. It has more than 395,000 members in more than 160 countries, 45% outside the United States.[2][3]
HistoryThe IEEE is incorporated under the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law of the state of New York, United States.[4] It was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, founded 1912) and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, founded 1884).
The major interests of the AIEE were wire communications (telegraph and telephony) and light and power systems. The IRE concerned mostly radio engineering, and was formed from two smaller organizations, the Society of Wireless and Telegraph Engineers and the Wireless Institute. With the rise of electronics in the 1930s, electronics engineers usually became members of the IRE, but the applications of electron tube technology became so extensive that the technical boundaries differentiating the IRE and the AIEE became difficult to distinguish. After World War II, the two organizations became increasingly competitive, and in 1961, the leadership of both the IRE and the AIEE resolved to consolidate the two organizations. The two organizations formally merged as the IEEE on January 1, 1963.
Notable Presidents of IEEE and its founding organizations include Elihu Thomson (AIEE, 1889–1890), Alexander Graham Bell (AIEE, 1891–1892), Charles Proteus Steinmetz (AIEE, 1901–1902), Lee De Forest (IRE, 1930), Frederick E. Terman (IRE, 1941), William R. Hewlett (IRE, 1954), Ernst Weber (IRE, 1959; IEEE, 1963), and Ivan Getting (IEEE, 1978).
IEEE's Constitution defines the purposes of the organization as "scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of Electrical, Electronics, Communications and Computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences."[1] In pursuing these goals, the IEEE serves as a major publisher of scientific journals and a conference organizer. It is also a leading developer of industrial standard (having developed over 900 active industry standards) in a broad range of disciplines, including electric power and energy, biomedical technology and healthcare, information technology, information assurance, telecommunications, consumer electronics, transportation, aerospace, and nanotechnology. IEEE develops and participates in educational activities such as accreditation of electrical engineering programs in institutes of higher learning. The IEEE logo is a diamond-shaped design which illustrates the right hand grip rule embedded in Benjamin Franklin's kite. It is properly presented as a master brand with the letter "IEEE" to the right. IEEE also sponsors or cosponsors more than 1000 international technical conferences each year.
IEEE has a dual complementary regional and technical structure - with organizational units based on geography (e.g., for example the IEEE Philadelphia Section, IEEE South Africa Section [1]) and technical focus (e.g., the IEEE Computer Society). It manages a separate organizational unit (IEEE-USA) which recommends policies and implements programs specifically intended to benefit the members, the profession and the public in the United States.
The IEEE consists of 38 societies, organized around specialized technical fields, with more than 300 local organizations that hold regular meetings.
The IEEE Standards Association is in charge of the standardization activities of the IEEE.
PublicationsIEEE produces 30% of the world's literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, publishing well over 100 peer-reviewed journals.[5]
The content in these journals as well as the content from several hundred annual conferences are available in the IEEE's online digital library.[6]
IEEE publications have received a Green[7] rating the from SHERPA/RoMEO guide[8] for affirming "authors and/or their companies shall have the right to post their IEEE-copyrighted material on their own servers without permission" (IEEE Publication Policy 8.1.9.D[9]). This effectively allows authors, at their choice, to make their article openly available. Roughly 1/3 of the IEEE authors take this route.
Like most other standards bodies, IEEE distributes its standards documents for a fee.
Educational opportunitiesThe IEEE provides learning opportunities within the engineering sciences, research, and technology. The goal of the IEEE education programs is to ensure the growth of skill and knowledge in the electricity-related technical professions and to foster individual commitment to continuing education among IEEE members, the engineering and scientific communities, and the general public.
IEEE offers educational opportunities such as IEEE eLearning Library, [10] the Education Partners Program,[11] Standards in Education[12] and Continuing Education Units (CEUs).[13]
IEEE eLearning Library is a collection of online educational courses designed for self-paced learning. Education Partners, exclusive for IEEE members, offers on-line degree programs, certifications and courses at a 10% discount. The Standards in Education website explains what standards are and the importance of developing and using them. The site includes tutorial modules and case illustrations to introduce the history of standards, the basic terminology, their applications and impact on products, as well as news related to standards, book reviews and links to other sites that contain information on standards. Currently, twenty-nine states require Professional Development Hours (PDH) to maintain P.E. licensure, encouraging engineers to seek Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for their participation in continuing education programs. CEUs readily translate into Professional Development Hours (PDHs) (1 CEU is equivalent to 10 PDHs). Countries outside the United States, such as South Africa, also require continuing professional development (CPD) credits. In South Africa, the IEEE South Africa Section is a voluntary association of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), a signatory of Washington Accord. To maintain registration with ECSA, professional engineers (Pr Eng) must pursue CPD, and now the IEEE, via its local reflection in South Africa, can enable CPD provision. In 2010, it is anticipated that IEEE Expert Now courses will feature in the CPD listing for the IEEE membership in South Africa to derive benefit.
IEEE also sponsors a website[14] designed to help young people understand better what engineering means, and how an engineering career can be made part of their future. Students (ages 8–18), parents, and teachers can explore the site to prepare for an engineering career, ask experts engineering-related questions, play interactive games, explore curriculum links, and review lesson plans. This website also allows students to search for accredited engineering degree programs in Canada and the United States; visitors are able to search by state/province/territory, country, degree field, tuition ranges, room and board ranges, size of student body, and location (rural, suburban, or urban).
Standards and development processIEEE is one of the leading standards-making organizations in the world. IEEE performs its standards making and maintaining functions through the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA). IEEE standards affect a wide range of industries including: power and energy, biomedical and healthcare, Information Technology (IT), telecommunications, transportation, nanotechnology, information assurance, and many more. In 2005, IEEE had close to 900 active standards, with 500 standards under development. One of the more notable IEEE standards is the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN group of standards which includes the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard and the IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networking standard.
Membership and member gradesMost IEEE members are electrical engineers, computer engineers, and computer scientists, but the organization's wide scope of interests has attracted engineers in other disciplines (e.g., mechanical and civil) as well as biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. There are several membership grades. In order to qualify for membership, an individual must meet certain academic or experience requirements. Associate membership is available to those who don't meet such requirements. Student memberships are available with a reduced membership fee. Students and Associates have all the privileges of members, except the right to vote and hold certain offices. Upon meeting certain additional requirements, a member can apply automatically for senior membership. Finally, a member who has made a significant contribution to any of the IEEE fields of interest may be elevated to the grade IEEE Fellow, a distinctive honor. Some societies allow "affiliate" members, i.e. members of the society that are not members of IEEE itself.AwardsThrough its awards program, the IEEE advances the interests of its members by recognizing their contributions in advancing the fields of interest to IEEE to the benefit of society. By this means, the image and prestige of the organization, its members, and the profession are all enhanced. The IEEE Awards Program honors members and other professionals for their service to the society.
For nearly a century, the IEEE Awards Program has paid tribute to technical professionals whose exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions have made a lasting impact on technology, society and the engineering profession.
Medals
- IEEE Medal of Honor
- IEEE Edison Medal
- IEEE Founders Medal
- IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal
- IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal
- IEEE Simon Ramo Medal
- IEEE Medal for Engineering Excellence
- IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies
- IEEE Medal in Power Engineering
- IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal
- IEEE Heinrich Hertz Medal
- IEEE John von Neumann Medal
- IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal
- IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications
- IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal
- IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology
Technical field awards - IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award
- IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technologies Award
- IEEE Control Systems Award
- IEEE Electromagnetics Award
- IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award
- IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award
- IEEE Herman Halperin Electric Transmission and Distribution Award
- IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award
- IEEE Internet Award
- IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology Award
- IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award
- IEEE Richard Harold Kaufmann Award
- IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in Instrumentation and Measurement
- IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award
- IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award
- IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award
- IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award
- IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award
- IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits
- IEEE Frederik Philips Award
- IEEE Photonics Award
- IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award
- IEEE Judith A. Resnik Award
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Award
- IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award
- IEEE David Sarnoff Award
- IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award
- IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award
- IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award
- IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award
- IEEE Nikola Tesla Award
- IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award
Recognitions
- IEEE Haraden Pratt Award
- IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award
- IEEE Corporate Innovation Recognition
- IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition
- IEEE Honorary Membership
Scholarships
- IEEE Life Members Graduate Study Fellowship in Electrical Engineering was established by the IEEE in 2000. The fellowship is awarded annually to a first year, full time graduate student obtaining their masters for work in the area of electrical engineering, at an engineering school/program of recognized standing worldwide.[15]
- IEEE Charles LeGeyt Fortescue Graduate Scholarship was established by the IRE in 1939 to commemorate Charles Legeyt Fortescue's contributions to electrical engineering. The scholarship is awarded for one year of full-time graduate work obtaining their masters in electrical engineering an ANE engineering school of recognized standing in the United States.[16]
Follow this link:
- IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society
- IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society
- IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
- IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
- IEEE Communications Society
- IEEE Components, Packaging & Manufacturing Technology Society
- IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
- IEEE Computer Society
- IEEE Consumer Electronics Society
- IEEE Control Systems Society
- IEEE Dielectrics & Electrical Insulation Society
- IEEE Education Society
- IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society
- IEEE Electron Devices Society
- IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
- IEEE Geoscience & Remote Sensing Society
- IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
- IEEE Industry Applications Society
- IEEE Information Theory Society
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- IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society
- IEEE Magnetics Society
- IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society
- IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society
- IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society
- IEEE Photonics Society
- IEEE Power Electronics Society
- IEEE Power & Energy Society
- IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society
- IEEE Professional Communication Society
- IEEE Reliability Society
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
- IEEE Signal Processing Society
- IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology
- IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
- IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society
- IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics & Frequency Control Society
- IEEE Vehicular Technology Society
