Tinkerer to Serious Electrical Engineer
I graduated from UC Berkeley with a pretty good education in electrical engineering (EE). I learned everything from the basics to the optimization of the power and noise margins of an 8-bit FPGA. I made my own guitar amplifier from BJT’s and I used Cadence to lay out and simulate the transistors for the FPGA. Yet after school had ended, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Everything significant I had done was either in simulation or on breadboard. Other things, I had done in impractical (albeit technically correct) ways. I was basically a Tinkerer.
So, after I graduated I started my journey of learning all the practical, real world things it takes to make a device that is reliable and can be made in large quantities. I want to describe how I got there and what helped me during that journey.
- Genuine interest in Electronics and EEVBlog
I think one of the most important things that helped me become better is being a genuine electronics nerd. Soon after I graduated and I had some free time, I would sometimes spend my time watching youtube videos on EE. Guys like electronupdate, and especially EEVblog helped me learn a lot. They were veteran EE’s and their vocabulary, comments, and teardowns were hugely helpful in teaching me what’s required for consumer devices. I would literally watch every second of videos like these. Plus, EEVblog’s opinionated view on quality gave me high standards for myself. If this guy were to teardown my device, I wouldn’t want him to say it’s crap.
I’m also the kind of guy that just likes to ogle at device specs. Sometimes I would procrastinate by reading the documentation on the TI ina826 because of how sexy it was. Right out of school, this helped me learn more about the practical considerations when choosing a device. E.g. that single supply amplifiers exists, the typical supply voltage range of these devices, most devices require a bit of decoupling on the power supply, and how layout can be used for better thermal management.
2. Curiosity
Interest is great, but I don’t believe it’s enough. I think my engineering/scientific curiosity helps me continue learning. Interest is what kept my attention, but curiosity is what got me to explore/learn new and more difficult things.
Back when I was using parts from Sparkfun, I would often look at how they built out their circuit. I wasn’t satisfied with just having this piece that worked, I wanted to know more so I could learn how to do it myself or simply to make sure they weren’t screwing around and learn the limitations of their design. Sometimes, I would discover that they didn’t follow the recommendations in the device documentation. Often times, this appeared to be just for simplicity or cost.
This same curiosity continued to more advanced devices. I’m thankful for NXP providing the full schematic, layout, and BOM for their FRDM-K64F board. It made me ask a lot of questions: why does the board need 4 layers? Why are there 0-Ohm resistors? Why are some things on the schematic marked as ‘DNP’? How can I utilize an ESD diode and ferrite beads? I learned a lot about good EMI design, but also how a lot of design decisions are unrelated to EE.
When reading documentation, I would sometimes see recommendations that I didn’t quite understand, like decoupling the power supply with one 2uF as well as a 0.01uF capacitor, how I should probably separate the analog and digital ground planes, and that some of my capacitors should be X7R grade. I could have just implemented this and had things work, but I wanted to know why I did this. I actually had the EE knowledge to understand why but I actually never had to directly deal with these real life considerations.
3. A bit of humility
The final piece of my journey is my continued humility. I believe that I can always improve and I can always learn more. No matter what I create and how well it works, I should always learn to make it even better. I also know that I owe a lot of what I know to other giants, whether it’s my professors, mentors, friends, or EEVblog. I hope to continue to learn and get better for the rest of my career.
