Electronic Engineering

Electronic engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with solving engineering problems such as the control of industrial processes and electronic power systems, instrumentation and control, as well as the transformation of electricity for the operation of various electrical appliances. It has applications in industry, in telecommunications, in the design and analysis of electronic instrumentation, microcontrollers and microprocessors. It is one of the branches of engineering that revolutionized civilization the most, being also one of the most technical engineering along with nuclear, civil, and that referred to large constructions and telecommunications.

Areas of knowledge

Electronic engineering is the set of technical knowledge, both theoretical and practical, whose objective is the application of electronic technology to solve practical problems.

Electronics is a branch of physics that deals with the use and usefulness of the behavior of electrical charges in different materials and elements such as semiconductors. Electronic engineering is the practical application of electronics for which it incorporates, in addition to theoretical and scientific knowledge, other technical and practical knowledge about semiconductors as well as many electrical devices, as well as other fields of human knowledge such as drawing and planning techniques. among others.

Between electronic engineering and electrical engineering there are fundamental similarities, since both are based on the study of electrical phenomena. However, the first specializes in low-voltage circuits, including semiconductors, which have the transistor as a fundamental component or the behavior of charges in a vacuum, as in the case of the old thermoionic valves, and electrical engineering specializes in circuits. high-voltage electrical equipment as seen on transmission lines and at power stations. Both engineering have common aspects such as mathematical and physical foundations, circuit theory, the study of electromagnetism and project planning. Another fundamental difference lies in the fact that electronic engineering studies the use of electrical energy to transmit, receive and process information, this being the basis of telecommunication engineering, computer engineering and automatic control engineering. The concordant point of electrical and electronic engineering is the area of power. Electronics is used to convert the waveform of the voltages that are used to transmit electrical energy; electrical engineering studies and designs systems for the generation, distribution and conversion of electrical energy, in sufficient proportions to feed and activate equipment, electricity networks of buildings and cities, among others. All this knowledge is given by science in its field of work.

Fields of action

The main areas in which the electronic engineer can contribute to development can be summarized as follows:

Power electronics

This branch is responsible for the conversion of the way in which electrical energy is manifested, through electronic power circuits, as well as the control systems involved, for its subsequent use in other electrical and electronic devices . In this way, power electronic circuits are implemented in rectifiers, inverters and other types of converters, as well as other more complex devices, frequently based on the former, such as power supplies, UPS, grid injection systems, power controllers, etc. electric motors, battery chargers, etc. In this area, electronic components such as diode, thyristor, BJT, MOSFET, IGBT, TRIAC, etc. are often used.

Digital electronics

Digital electronics is responsible for electronic systems in which all information is encoded in binary form, that is, there are only two possible levels or values . Fundamental logic systems are built based on semiconductor devices used as switches (BJT and MOS transistors), which allows work to represent binary data as on and off. These fundamental logic systems are the so-called logic gates (OR, NOR, AND, NAND, and XOR). These are used in more complex systems ranging from flip flops, memories, multiplexers/demultiplexers, and encoders/decoders, to microcontrollers/microprocessors and modern computers.

Industrial process control

The activity is focused here on the planning, design, administration, supervision and operation of instrumentation, automation and control systems in assembly lines and processes of industrial systems, such as paper, fishing, textile, manufacturing, mining companies and services.

The control of everything modern intensively and increasingly uses computers in various schemes. Likewise, the discipline involves systems of unconventional nature such as robotics, expert systems, neural systems, fuzzy systems, evolutionary artificial systems and other types of advanced control.

Telecommunications

The massive processing and transmission of information requires the planning, design and administration of broadcasting, television, telephone systems, computer networks, fiber optic networks, satellite networks and, increasingly, systems wireless communications, such as mobile and personal telephony.

Component engineering

Much of the production process in electrical and electronics companies is related to circuit design. Specialized knowledge of components is of great importance in this process, which has given rise to a specialty within electronic engineering called “component engineering”.

In this specialty, the engineer must be in charge of a series of functions in which it is worth highlighting:

• Advising designers: To do this, you must have deep knowledge about components both theoretically and practically. It should also be constantly up to date to learn about market developments and trends.
• Drafting standards: Related to the handling of components from entering the company until they pass to the assembly chain.
• Develop a list of preferred components.
• Select components: You should choose from the preferred list and if not, perform a study of potential candidates. This seeks to improve designs.
• Related to suppliers: To solve technical or other problems.

In component engineering, the materials used as well as the manufacturing processes are taken into account, so the engineer must have knowledge in this regard.

History

The experiments carried out by different scientists at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in terms of electrical and electromagnetic phenomena were laying the foundations for what would soon be a new specialty, first of physics, and then of engineering. In 1884 Thomas Alva Edison, in his work to improve the incandescent lamp, detected the thermionic phenomenon, a phenomenon that bears his name. This fact would give rise to the first electronic valve (or electronic bulb) and the birth of new engineering. This first valve was the diode. In 1893, Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication. In 1912, Edwin Armstrong developed the Regenerative Circuit, the Armstrong Oscillator and the Superheterodyne Receiver. In 1907 Lee de Forest, trying to perfect telegraph receivers, added a grid between the cathode and anode of a diode. With this addition he could control the flow current between the primitive diode plates, the new element received the name of triode and was the basis of modern electronics. Until the birth of transistors, and even long after, thermionic tubes have been used for electronic circuits. In 1947, William Bradford Shockley together with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain developed the Transistor at Bell Laboratories. This much more versatile, inexpensive, and smaller device would eventually replace tubes in virtually all electronic applications except high-fidelity, high-power audio applications. The birth of the transistor, at the end of the 50s of the 20th century, came to revolutionize electronics. In the third phase of development we have integrated circuit (chip) technology, initially based on bipolar transistors and later on MOSFET transistors. Finally, the development in materials technologies and in the manufacturing processes of semiconductor devices (Microelectronics), allowed to achieve high scales of integration and to expand the flexibility and versatility of electronic devices. This made it possible to expand the scale of production of electronic systems and the range of products, while reducing the cost of equipment purchased by it.