Electronics engineering, or electronic engineering, is an engineering discipline where non-linear and active electrical components such as electron tubes,

and semiconductor devices, especially transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, are utilized to design electronic circuits, devices and systems, typically also including passive electrical components and based on printed circuit boards. The term denotes a broad engineering field that covers important subfields such as analog electronics, digital electronics, consumer electronics, embedded systems and power electronics. Electronics engineering deals with implementation of applications, principles and algorithms developed within many related fields, for example solid-state physics, radio engineering, telecommunications, control systems, signal processing, systems engineering, computer engineering, instrumentation engineering, electric power control, robotics, and many others. Semiconductor devices are electronic components that exploit the electronic properties of semiconductor materials, principally silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors. Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones, and other digital home appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the low cost of producing integrated circuits. An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow. Operations to be performed: signals can be amplified, computations can be performed, and data can be moved from one place to another. A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals. Signals can be either analog, in which case the signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital, in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. Telecommunications engineering deals with the transmission of information across a channel such as a co-axial cable, optical fiber or free space. Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier wave in order to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission, this is known as modulation. Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airplanes to the cruise control present in many modern cars. Control engineers often utilize feedback when designing control systems. For example, in a car with cruise control the vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the engine's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback. Instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure, flow and temperature. Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems. This may involve the design of new computer hardware, the design of PDAs or the use of computers to control an industrial plant. Development of embeddedsystems made for specific tasks (e.g., mobile phones) is also included in this field. This field includes the micro controller and its applications. Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline. VLSI Design Engineering VLSI stands for very large scale integration. It deals with fabrication of ICs and various electronics components.