Electronic engineering:

Introduction:

The early 20th century saw the emergence of the subfield of electrical engineering known as electronics engineering. It is defined by the extra use of active components like semiconductor devices to amplify and regulate electric current flow. Until recently, passive components like mechanical switches, resistors, inductors, and capacitors were the only ones utilised in electrical engineering.

 

Electronic engineering

It includes topics like power electronics, embedded systems, consumer electronics, digital electronics, and analogue electronics. It also has a significant presence in a number of allied subjects, including solid-state physics, radio engineering, telecommunications, control systems, signal processing, systems engineering, computer engineering, instrumentation engineering, electric power control, and robotics.

 

One of the most significant professional organisations for electronics professionals is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is also known as the Institution of Engineering and Technology in the UK (IET). Electronic engineering electrical standards are published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

 

The past and present:

Following the discovery of the electron in 1897 and the subsequent development of the vacuum tube, which could amplify and rectify minuscule electrical impulses, the discipline of electronics was introduced, and electronic engineering as a career arose. Ambrose Fleming and Lee De Forest's inventions of the diode and triode in the early 1900s opened the door for practical applications since they allowed for the non-mechanical detection of modest electrical voltages like radio signals from a radio antenna. Electronics experienced a quick expansion. Early in the 1920s, commercial radio broadcasting and communications had spread widely, and a variety of uses for electronic amplifiers had emerged, including long-distance telephony and the music recording industry.

 

The extensive development of electronic equipment during World War II, including radar and sonar, as well as the ensuing consumer revolution during peacetime, significantly improved the discipline.

 

Specialized fields:

There are numerous subfields in electronic engineering. The most well-known are described in this section.

 

Analyzing and modifying signals is the subject of electronic signal processing. Signals can be either analogue or digital, with the former varying continuously in accordance with the information while the latter fluctuates in accordance with a series of discrete values that correspond to the information.

 

 

 

Signal processing for analogue signals can include radio frequency signal modulation and demodulation for telecommunications as well as audio signal amplification and filtering for audio equipment. Signal processing for digital transmissions may include compression, error checking, error detection, and error correction.

 

Information transfer via a medium, such as a coaxial cable, an optical fibre, or free space, is the subject of telecommunications engineering. Information must be encoded in a carrier wave for transmission across empty space; this process is referred to as modulation. Amplitude modulation and frequency modulation are two common types of analogue modulation.

 

Telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers required for such systems after the transmission characteristics of a system are established. A transceiver, a two-way communication device, is occasionally created by combining these two. The power consumption of transmitters is an important factor to take into account throughout the design process because it is closely related to the signal intensity.A transmitter's insufficient signal strength will cause noise to tamper with the signal's information.

 

Aerospace applications are the focus of aviation-electronic engineering and aviation-telecommunications engineering. Engineers in aviation and telecommunications may also be experts in ground-based or airborne avionics. Computer, networking, IT, and sensor knowledge are the most important skills for specialists in this industry. Such colleges as Civil Aviation Technology Colleges provide these courses.

 

From the flight and propulsion systems of commercial aeroplanes to the cruise control found in many contemporary cars, control engineering is used in a wide variety of electronic applications. It is crucial to industrial automation as well. Feedback is a common tool used by control engineers while creating control systems.

 

Designing instruments to monitor things like pressure, flow, and temperature is the domain of instrumentation engineering.

 

Such instruments need to be designed with a solid understanding of electronic engineering and physics; radar guns, for instance, use the Doppler effect to gauge the speed of approaching vehicles. The Peltier-Seebeck effect is also used by thermocouples to gauge temperature differences between two sites.

 

Instrumentation is frequently utilised as the sensors of bigger electrical systems rather than by itself. For instance, a thermocouple could be used to help maintain a furnace's constant temperature. Because of this, control engineering and instrumentation engineering are frequently seen as complementary disciplines.

 

Designing computers and computer systems is the focus of computer engineering. This could involve developing new computer gear, creating PDAs, or using computers to manage an industrial facility. This field also includes the creation of embedded systems, or systems designed for particular purposes (such as mobile phones). The microcontroller and its applications fall under this category. The software of a system may also be developed by computer engineers.

 

Engineering VLSI design Very large scale integration is known as VLSI. It deals with the production of ICs and different electronic parts. Electronics engineers first create circuit schematics, which list the electrical components and explain how they are connected, before building an integrated circuit. Once finished, VLSI experts turn the schematics into layouts that depict the layers of different semiconductor and conductor materials required to build the circuit.

 

Electronic engineering

 

Education and training:

A branch of the larger academic field of electrical engineering is called electronics. Electronic engineering is a common major for academic degrees held by electronics engineers. Depending on the university, the degree earned after completing the required three or four years of study may be known as a Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Applied Science, or Bachelor of Technology. Graduate-level Master of Engineering (MEng) degrees are also offered by many UK universities.

 

Some electronics engineers additionally decide to pursue a postgraduate degree, such as an engineering doctorate, master of science, or doctor of philosophy in engineering. In several American and European universities, the master's degree is being offered as the first degree, and it might be challenging to distinguish between an engineer with graduate and postgraduate studies. Experience is taken into consideration in certain situations. Research, coursework, or a combination of the two may make up a master's degree. The doctor of philosophy degree, which frequently serves as a stepping stone into academia, includes a sizeable portion of research.

 

The initial step for certification in the majority of nations is a bachelor's degree in engineering, and the degree programme itself is accredited by a professional body. Engineers can legally certify designs for initiatives compromising public safety when they are certified. The engineer must fulfil a number of requirements after finishing a certified degree programme, including work experience requirements, before being certified. Professional Engineer (in the US, Canada, and South Africa), Chartered Engineer or Incorporated Engineer (in the UK, Ireland, India, and Zimbabwe), Chartered Professional Engineer (in Australia and New Zealand), or European Engineer are the titles given to engineers when they have been certified (in much of the European Union).

 

The majority of degrees in electronics contain courses in physics, chemistry, arithmetic, project management, and certain areas of electrical engineering. These subjects initially cover the majority, if not all, of the electronic engineering subfields. Towards the end of their degree, students then decide whether to specialise in one or more subfields.

 

Physics and mathematics are fundamental to the field since they aid in obtaining both a qualitative and quantitative description of how such systems will function. Nowadays, computers are used for the majority of engineering labour, and building electrical systems frequently makes use of computer-aided design and simulation tools. Although the majority of electronic engineers are familiar with fundamental circuit theory, engineers typically use different theories depending on the type of work they conduct. For instance, whereas solid state physics and quantum mechanics may be pertinent to an engineer working on VLSI, they are generally unimportant to engineers working with embedded systems.

 

Electronic engineering

Other topics on the syllabus, besides electromagnetics and network theory, are exclusive to the electronics engineering degree. Other areas of focus in electrical engineering courses include machines, power generation, and distribution. The substantial engineering mathematics programme that is a requirement for a degree is not included in this list.