Hi Rampat,

It is always risky to predict the future. However, the following things are likely to keep analog designers busy:

1. Ever faster operating speed requirements.
2. Ever tighter power consumption constraints.
3. Ever higher levels of integration, eliminating external components.
4. Increasing amount of on-chip sensors and need to drive these => more data converters, on-chip dc-dc converters/power management.

If you wish to prepare for the future, then you would do well to sharpen your understanding of the fundamental concepts. That would allow you to work in about any field, provided that you are motivated enough.

Regards,

Vivek

What are "custom made variability limits"???

In my experience the variability never gets any better. It is the circuit that must fit within the variability and still meet the expected performance. It is up to the engineer to argue or determine what performance variation is reasonable given the variability of a specific process.

I tend not to rely on Monte Carlo for absolute performance. I simply don't have time to let 100+ simulations run just to find a deficiency in my design. Corner simulations help find fatal errors while Monte Carlo helps with yield analysis.

But I must say that Monte Carlo is very valuable for mismatch analysis; although, I have always wanted a way to run Monte Carlo where the mismatch parameters simply toggle randomly +/- between some worst case or specified deviation (maybe 2-3 sigma) just to quickly reveal the true mismatch sensitivities in the circuit