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I've been paying attention to this question for a while, and I want to find a longer free time to answer it properly.
First of all, I am a hardware engineer. I have worked for 6 years and have been engaged in the hardware research and development of products such as the Internet of Things, automotive, smart hardware, mobile phones and tablets. I think I still have some say.
The differences between hardware engineers in different industries are also quite large, but they are not invisible, and many things are also the same.
The core idea is the same, and hardware engineers work around circuit design and PCB design.
In the whole product development process, it can be said that circuit design and PCB design can only account for a small part , and more is the preparatory work in the early stage, as well as the debugging and maintenance in the later stage.
As a past person, it is recommended to take a good look at the following contents, I believe you will gain a lot.
1. Book reading
To get started with hardware, you need to read basic books first, and courses closely integrated with engineering practice include: circuit analysis, digital circuits, analog circuits, high-frequency electronics, etc.
For those with poor foundation, look at circuit analysis first, then look at analog and digital power.
I also wrote a separate article before and recommended some good books.
Such as switching power supply design, recommend the following book.
For example, high-speed circuit design, the following book is recommended.
The complete article link is as follows: What books do I need to read to learn hardware design?
2. Website recommendation
In addition to daily books, we also search for some information on the Internet, because the network resources are very complex, and it takes time to filter high-quality information. It may take a long time to find the information that is of poor quality and misleading.
The website recommendation station has also written a separate article: learning electronics, what website can you recommend?
3. Free teaching course recommendation
For some students, there will be great financial pressure to buy expensive teaching videos, and it is not necessarily suitable for Xiaobai to watch.
The videos below are all produced by big manufacturers, the course quality is very high, and more importantly, it is free! free! free! Important things are said three times.
Click to read: These video courses directly blow up
4. Building a knowledge system
Knowing what books to read, what websites to study, and equipped with good teaching videos, the next step is to build your own knowledge system and constantly improve it .
Because hardware engineers have a lot to learn, I put together a mind map.
4.1 Knowledge learning of electronic components
Electronic products are composed of electronic components, and it is the basic skill to understand their characteristics, principles, and learn to select models.
Passive devices, such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors, are the most used devices. A high-end mobile phone needs to use thousands of capacitors, and the resistance is slightly less.
Transistors, such as diodes, triodes, and MOS tubes, are also used in many applications, second only to resistors and capacitors.
Power chips, such as DC-DC, LDO, charging chips.
Others, such as crystal oscillators, magnetic beads, memories, relays, sensors, RTC, ESD protection devices, etc., all need to be mastered.
If you don't know which electronic components to learn, it doesn't matter, I have sorted it out: Hardware Design - Knowledge System Mind Map
4.2 Use of hardware development tools
There are three commonly used computer software, such as schematic & PCB drawing tools: Altium Designer, PADS, and Cadence. For beginners, Altium Designer is recommended, and it will be faster to get started.
If you don't know how to use it, that's okay, I've put together an instructional video: AD Software Video Tutorial
Some of the original PADS chips are used by many manufacturers. Communication factories and mobile phone factories also use PADS. Cadence is very powerful, and it is a little difficult to get started. After getting started, it is very smooth to use, and many large companies are using it.
Then there is the schematic simulation tool. In the early stage of development, for some new circuit solutions, we can choose simulation to determine the circuit parameters and the correctness of the circuit.
TI's Tina is recommended here. The tool is very small and powerful.
I have also written an article before, if you are interested, you can take a look: Tina-TI - a small, easy-to-use and efficient schematic simulation software
Measurement tools, such as multimeters, oscilloscopes, power supplies, electronic loads, etc., are all instruments that hardware engineers must know, and will help us analyze and solve problems more.
You can refer to the picture below.
4.3 PCB Design and Circuit Design
After learning the knowledge of tools and electronic components, the next step is to carry out circuit design and PCB design .
Xiaobai will say, how did you learn so many circuits? Of course, here are some common and commonly used circuits. By learning these circuits, you can improve your ability to analyze and understand circuits. You can read and imitate them before you can design circuits.
I wrote a column on hardware design, which ranked 89th on the hot-selling column list. If you are interested, you can take a look.
4.3 Bus interface protocol learning
The next step is to learn the interface protocol.
Why do you want to learn these things? An interface is like a bridge between two cars. If you don’t even build a bridge, the car will definitely not be able to drive. An agreement is like traffic rules. Both parties abide by the rules, so there will be no problems. , the car here is the chip inside the electronics.
4.4 Advanced Content Learning
Hardware engineer is a job that combines theory and practice very closely, and both are indispensable.
All skills serve the product, and the following advanced content is also very important.
Like English ability, because most of the specifications of electronic components are all in English, if English is not good enough, it is very difficult to select basic electronic components.
Like EMC electromagnetic compatibility, the requirements of electronic products are getting higher and higher now, and the impact on the environment, the impact on people, including exported products, many require various certifications, and the EMC design of products at this time is abnormal. importance.
Wide sea diving, sky high the birds to fly.