5 Reasons: VLSI Industry Not For You

5 Reasons: VLSI Industry Not For You.

 

I am sure, you may be surprised that why this topic! But point is everyone tells you why to join semiconductor industry, what’s good in this industry but no one tells you why this is not good for you. Or Say why it’s specific to certain type of people not for everyone.

Here are 5 reason of not joining VLSI industry if you…

1. Want “Huge Money in Short time”:
• There was a time when Semiconductor industry was on boom and that was the time when this industry was hiring a lot and paying a lot. But now this industry becomes matured.
• That’s the reason, with almost zero experience or at fresher level; it’s difficult for a candidate to start with high package.
• There are few exceptions in case of your graduate college is at rank 1 or 2, but that the something you can’t take as reference for all people.
• Now-a-days, 20%-25% Hike in India and 4%-5% Hike in US annually is on higher side, so if you will start with low package, then it will be difficult for you to earn huge money in short time in this Industry.
2. Are “Not Passionate about Electronics”
• VLSI has the base of electronics. So if you are not passionate about digital circuits / gates / holes /electrons / current / voltage all other electronics terminology, then you will face a lot of problem in this field.
• You may be in the EDA industry and toward the R&D side, where you have to work mostly on software side, but believe me if you have base of electronics then it will be easy for you to grow in that profile also. Else one day you will realize that this industry is not for you.
• Think in this way that if everyone around you will talk in terms of gates / Metals / Diffusion / Power / area , and you don’t have dam idea what are these things, then how you feel!
3. Want to “Sit back and relax in long run”.
• If you think that you will learn one technology, few basics, some electronics fundamental, some scripting language and that’s all. Now you can sit back and relax. It’s not possible in this field.
• Let me give you an example - every 3 month there is a new technology in the market. It will take 3 months to mature, further 3 month for everyone to adopt it. Finally, in next 3 month you will notice a lot of product in the market on the basis of new technology and in another 3 month, it’s going to replace old technology completely. So over all the life time of a technology in today’s world is approximate 1 year.
• So if you know something, you can easily survive for 1 year or max 2 year on the basis of that. But after that someone will replace you if you will not update yourself. And this update also takes approx 6 months. So effectively, you have to upgrade yourself after every 6-9 months.
• So in short – No Time to sit back and relax.
• Yes, that’s the different thing, that as you gain experience, you will be automatically updated because base is there and you know how to update yourself.
4. Want to “Start your own (business) with zero investment”:
• If you have somewhere in your mind that, later you will start your own business or say independent work in this industry, then you have to think seriously.
• In this industry, most of the tools are still not available in market free of cost. And if you want to purchase, then you have to invest a lot.
• Another thing- as I have mentioned previously, technology is changing very fast, so you have to upgrade yourself also. And there is upgradation cost.
• So basically, it’s not a piece of cake which anyone can eat. You have to invest a lot for starting your own work/business in this field.
5. Are “Not Interested In coding/automation”:
• If you don’t want to do any sort of coding / programming / scripting /automation, then this field is not for you. 90% work of this industry is based on scripting and automation.
• Whatever be your profile, Customer support Engineer/ EDA Engineer / CAD Engineer /R&D Engineer / Designer Engineer… etc but scripting and automation is necessary and requirement of every profile.
• It may be different that working language or scripting may be different for different people like C/C++ , Java scripting, Perl/TCL scripting , ksh/sh or other unix scripting language , VHDL/Verilog/SystemC/RTL coding etc. But everyone has to spend most of their time with coding or automation.

So before joining this industry, think about these points and then plan your future. There is a know probe – “The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side” J