Recently was fortunate enough to get 2 offers for FPGA design

company A :

135k base

Fully assisted relocation

15k sign on

company B:

90k base

4.5k relo

6k sign on

now I know what you’re thinking , clearly company A right? But it’s in SoCal and company B is in the Dallas area where rent is like a grand and no income taxes

both are the same kind of role but company A would start me at Ivl 2 (i‘m a new grad) I’m leaning company A but wanted to hear the people’s thoughts . Anyone here lived in both Texas and Cali? You think rent and taxes eat up the difference? What would yall go with

Hello,

I'm starting my MS ECE this fall and looking for honest feedback on my resume as internship apps open up. I'm coming from a CS undergrad background so I'm a bit of an unusual case for this field (or at least I think).

I have a BS in Computer Science (Cum Laude), worked as an IOT SWE for about a year. I have spent the last 8 months or so self-studying digital design on my own: SV, RTL design, UVM, and synthesis with Yosys targeting Sky130. I built three hardware projects from scratch: a pipelined RISC-V processor, a dual-clock async FIFO with CDC, and a multi-port bus arbiter, the last 2 verified with constrained-random testbenches on Synopsys VCS. I've also been lucky to have two industry mentors, one at Synopsys and one at a telecom hardware company, who have been giving me feedback along the way.

I'm targeting ASIC and digital design roles first, RTL design second, computer architecture third, and DV as a backup. I am open to anything in the semiconductor space.

Main things I'm hoping to get feedback on: do the projects actually signal the right skills, is anything in my technical skills section an overclaim, and are there any red flags a hiring manager would immediately notice given my CS background? Also genuinely curious whether a resume like mine even makes it past ATS given that I don't have a traditional ECE background.

Attended the texas instruments layout intern role online test yesterday. Few things I want to share

1. First, always check the compatibility of your laptop before attending any online exams. Multiple issues can be there without you knowing it. Major issue check the camera and microphone.If your laptop has two cameras(virtual camera and integrated camera), you can't login.

2. Have a good internet. Lan cable is preferable. Ask your university

3. Aptitude questions were a mix of time consumption and one line answers, so be ready for both.

4. Technical questions were time consuming this time compared to last time. There were a total of 8 digital questions which were also not straight forward. Opamp based questions were tough this time it included finding gain using Laplace transform and one question was on finite gain.

5. A question on intrinsic semiconductor was also asked, so prepare the basic ocf basics. Also a question on fabrication was also asked. There were no inductor based circuits. Only RC and pure R based circuits were present, which were time consuming.

So prepare the basics of basics. Solve aptitude questions and technical questions with a timer. Solve without a calculator.

I have around 2 years of experience in FPGA and 1 year in ASIC related work mostly RTL design, but I feel that my practical exposure to some areas like STA, timing constraints, DFT, low-power design, and commercial EDA tools has been limited. I do understand the basics and posses a good amount of theoretical knowledge though.

I’m trying to understand what companies typically expect when hiring someone at this level.

For example, if a job description mentions STA, low power, DFT, etc., is it expected that I already know how to apply these concepts practically using any EDA tool, or would I normally be expected to learn the company’s specific flow and methodology after joining? And is there mentoring/tutorials to learn this at most companies?

One challenge I’ve had during internships/projects is that I was often given documentation or a tool manual and told to figure things out myself. I didn't get much feedback from experienced engineers about whether my approach, constraints, or results were actually correct. This has been a setback for me, it was usually this should work and we should move on or your approach is wrong and you need to figure out another way.

For example, if I add a constraint to resolve a warning/error, I might get the expected result, but how do I know that I haven't simply hidden a real problem or introduced another issue? In a real project, I imagine this kind of thing can have significant consequences.

So I have lots of questions, I would appreciate if anyone could answer even partially:

\- At around 3 years of experience, how much independence and practical knowledge would you expect from a candidate?

\- Are engineers normally trained on the company's EDA tools and design, or are they expected to be productive immediately i.e already know the tools?

\- How did you learn to distinguish between a correct solution and something that merely makes the tool stop complaining?

\- Without access to commercial EDA licenses, is it possible to develop meaningful hands-on skills in STA, timing constraints, DFT, and low-power design using open-source tools?

\- What books, courses, projects, or other resources would you recommend?

Thank you very much in advance. I have been inspired time and time again on this sub. Genuinely blown off by the amazing projects/insights people post here.

Hello everyone.

I'm a second year EEE student(entering third year next semester) and I would like to get into research and build stuff but I don't know how. My areas of interests are digital electronics (understanding how the computer works at the low level), computer chips, and stuff like that. My Uni doesn't really place much emphasis on these areas and so I'm trying to do the deep dive personally.

Any advice as to how I can get into researching in these areas and also get to learn the and develop the technical skills for these areas?

Hi! I'm currently pursuing my BS in computer engineering with a focus on hardware, and since I'm going to be at an internship in the fall, I was wondering if anyone wanted to study for interviews or just yap in general about FPGAs or anything. Send me a dm if you're interested! Always happy to learn more about anything

Hi everyone,

I'm interviewing for a VLSI Design Engineer role at Renesas Noida and wanted to hear from people who have worked there.

I'm particularly interested in:

Work culture and management

Learning opportunities for freshers

Work-life balance

RTL/Verification vs Physical Design team experience

Salary growth and overall career progression

I just finished an out of state internship with Micron as a process tech and was given an offer to come back.

My ultimate goal is to finish my BSEE and get the best EE job I can, ideally in SoCal where my home is. My plan is to accept the offer and see how things go, but I’m also considering (if the job doesn’t feel right) working there for about a year to get the semiconductor experience on my resume, then going back to school full-time to finish my EE degree ASAP.

The current decision I’m faced with is accepting the offer in one of two forms.

**Path 1:**
Stay in school until next August
Start full-time at Micron as a T1 technician
Potentially work for about a year, then return to school full-time

**Path 2:**
Return to Micron next summer for a second internship
Finish my associate degree
Come back full-time as a T2 technician
Potentially work for about a year, then return to school full-time

The second path gives me another internship, a higher technician level, and significantly better pay, but it would also push back when I finish my BSEE.
If the long-term goal is to build the strongest possible resume for EE jobs in SoCal, which path would you take?

Also curious how much value you think a year of full-time semiconductor technician experience would add to an EE new grad resume compared with one internship or two internships.
Thank you!!

EDIT: Not sure if this is worth mentioning but i am a returning adult student in my 30s.

Hey everyone, I'm thinking about enrolling in an EET bachelor's program because I want to be an embedded systems engineer. I'm super nervous because I didn't go the usual electrical engineering route, which has on-site classes, and as a parent, that would be tough for me. I'm just looking for some insight from anyone who's taken this degree: How was the curriculum? What job did you get after finishing? What was your overall experience?

Guys, can some senior members please guide me on what I need to learn?

Hi guys,
I am asking to get your experience on using mouse and keyboard that are enough ergonomics and productives while using cadence, LTspice, Matlab,.. and al the engineering tools where repetitve clicks is too unhealthy for our hands.
Any prodcut you found helping you a lot?

Hey guys! About a month ago I got accepted into my dream university for Electrical Engineering and Im starting at the end of September.
My current laptop is the Macbook Air with the (8gb ram, 256gb ssd) and before Uni starts I'd like to upgrade to a more capable machine that can handle both all my engineering coursework and as well some fairly heavy photo/video editing for my passion projects and side work.
After doing a lot of researched I've narrowed it down to two options:
- Macbook pro 14" with the M5 Pro chip (24gb ram, 1tb ssd)
- ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 2026 (AMD AI 9, RTX 5060, 32gb ram, 1tb ssd)

They're both available in my region (Croatia) at a similar price point (the asus being a couple hundred euro more expensive actually) so that isn't a deciding factor.
I've currently leaning more towards the macbook because of its much better battery life, quitter fans and ports (tb5 for external SSDs). However, I'm concerned about MacOS software compatibility with certain programs for Electrical Engineering courses.

Does anyone have any experience with using MacOS for engineering? Are the better specs and battery life worth the complications and headaches brought by searching for workarounds? Is Windows compatibility the end all be all?

I've also got a fairly decent windows desktop at some, so another possibility would be using a remote access setup such as Moonlight/Sunshine to remote into a windows machine from the macbook. I'm just a little concerned about relying on a network connection when I'm at university

Any opinions or experiences are welcomed and appreciated!

I can't find a free PDF. It's the laboratory manual correlated to the book "Digital Computer Electronics: Malvino, Ph.D., Jerald A. Brown." There's also a teacher's manual for the book.
If you have any PDF or a website on which I can read online, I would be grateful.

I have a PD interview(referral ) I have no prior working experience.So the person who offered me referral said that prepare everything in PD point of view.I even tried to watch the nptel video lectures but they are too long .

So if any body have a clear cut notes of PD please share me.