Syllabus to prepare for Hardware Profile

If you are preparing for a job process for on-campus placements or as a fresher in Electronics domain, this post will guide you through the topics you should cover and some resources from where it can be done. If you aiming to be a part of companies like Qualcomm, NXP, ST Microelectronics, Texas Instruments, Nvidia, Intel, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics and many other for hardware profile, they expect you to have a deep understanding of the following topics. 

The selection process for these companies usually consists of three rounds(on-campus placements). First round is a test, online/offline depending on the company. This test consists of questions related to general Aptitude and Core Subjects. After that technical interviews are there. Mostly more than one technical interviews are there. Finally, HR round. The topics mentioned below will cover your first two rounds. 

1. Basic R, L, C (Network theory):
Usually, intuition based questions are asked on this topic during interviews. There is no specific content that I can suggest for this topic, but I personally found the below course by Anant Aggarwal very helpful.
-- edX course: Circuits and electronics 1,2 and 3  

2. MOSFETs:
Working of MOSFETs, its current-voltage characteristics, small signal, large signal, etc. You should be thorough with this device because of a majority of the electronics companies at present work on MOSFETs only, so they expect from you that you know this topic in detail.
-- Microelectronics by Adel S.Sedra and Kenneth C.Smith, Fifth edition - chapter 4
  
3. Diodes, BJTs:
-- Microelectronics by Adel S.Sedra and Kenneth C.Smith, Fifth edition - chapter 3 and 5

4. Basic Digital:
Boolean algebra, codes, logic gates, k-map, Combinational logic, sequential logic, registers, counters, logic families. 
-- Digital Design by Morris Mano
-- Fundamentals of Digital Circuits by Anand Kumar (This book has lots of questions to practice)

5. FSM:
This is one of the most important topics for an interview in digital profile. You should be capable of solving a question using both Mealy and Moore machines. 
-- Fundamentals of Digital Circuits by Anand Kumar (practice as many questions as possible)
-- Digital Design and Computer Architecture by David Money Harris and Sarah L. Harris

6. CMOS :
CMOS based Inverter design (static and dynamic operation), pass transistors, CMOS based NAND, NOR and general logic design.
-- Microelectronics by Adel S.Sedra and Kenneth C.Smith, Fifth edition - chapter 10 (Have a detailed understanding of each and every concept of this chapter) 

7. Microprocessors:
-- 8085 Microprocessor by Ramesh S Gaonkar

8. Computer Architecture:
Memory Organization(RAM, cache memory, Virtual memory) in a system should also be covered
-- Computer System Architecture by Morris Mano
-- Digital Design and Computer Architecture by David Money Harris and Sarah L. Harris (reads memories from this)

9. Op-amps, Filters: 
-- edX course: Circuits and electronics 3 
-- Microelectronics by Adel S.Sedra and Kenneth C.Smith, Fifth edition - chapter 3 and 5

10. Static Timing Analysis (STA):
You can refer to my video lectures on this topic that will guide you through the complete basics and few of the most commonly asked interview questions related to STA. 
-- ElectroTuts Playlist on STA
 -- or you can refer to the vlsi-expert blog

11. VHDL/Verilog:

You must be familiar with coding in one of these two popular hardware description languages. I would say that you should learn the same language your college follows in its curriculum as it will be easier for you to follow. You can refer to books from your course or just read from google.

Apart from these topics knowledge of bode plot, basics of control engineering may also be helpful. Aptitude must also be prepared to clear the first round and you can expect some puzzles also during the technical interviews.

I would personally recommend you to read "Digital Design and Computer Architecture by David Money Harris and Sarah L. Harris" as it helped me a lot during my interviews. 

I hope you find this post useful! Best of luck with your interviews!

No comments:

Post a Comment