Mehul Chanda - Texas Instruments

Hi everyone, I am Mehul, a final-year student in the Department of Physics. I am from Bhopal, a city famous for its gas tragedy lakes.

I did my 3rd-year summer internship as an analog design engineer at Texas Instruments (TI), Bangalore. I obtained the internship opportunity via the PT cell. TI is a frequent company at IITB and one of the most popular for people pursuing core EE. I enjoyed the various EE courses and labs that EP does as part of its core curriculum. Also, after getting a flavor of academic research in my 2nd year, I wanted more exposure. I am looking for a dynamic, non-monotonous, and challenging lifestyle, and I doubt academia can offer it. But then, I always have enjoyed solving problems. Corporate R&D in EE seemed like the perfect middle ground.

Moving onto the selection procedure, TI has three steps - resume filtering, technical test(s), and interview(s). I am still determining how important resumes are for TI since the interviewers did not ask any questions about my resume. TI is looking for people who intuitively understand electronics, which is reflected in the questions they ask in the tests and interviews. Being thorough with fundamentals is of paramount importance. It is a good idea to practice questions from whatever resources are available since it helps develop intuition and speed.

My time in Bangalore (no one calls it Bengaluru) was excellent. The city is lovely if you are not stuck in traffic. Bangalore's 30-minute-long rainfalls will be scarier than Mumbai's day-long ones simply because it will result in you being stuck in a 2-hour-long traffic jam. TI provided a week of hotel stay, after which the interns had to find accommodation. It can be an arduous task if you start late since May is when interns and college graduates joining as full-time employees flood into Bangalore. I recommend listing PGs near the office and contacting them to bargain for prices beforehand.

But the best part about my stay in Bangalore was the work, unlike many others. I designed and characterized a sub-circuit of an eFuse (You can have a look at the following link to learn what an eFuse is link ). The work involved a lot of thinking, a fair bit of math, and many simulations. Understanding the working of MOSFETs and standard circuits like differential amplifiers and current mirrors was very much needed. I had to spend some time doing this at the start of the internship. My project was thought-provoking and did not involve much grunt work (which a few of my co-interns had to endure). The team and the manager I worked with were enthusiastic and intelligent. They helped me with whatever issues I faced at work and were ready to help with accommodation and other such matters too.

A big challenge I faced was getting used to the fact that one can no longer refer to some book or Google to find answers to issues one might face. People who work in R&D are the ones who answer the questions posted on the internet. You, your team, and the company will compete with other companies to develop cutting-edge products that might secure markets worth billions of dollars! Even a day's delay can result in you losing out on the opportunity.

I would like to end by providing four pieces of advice, the latter three applicable to all internships.

Learn the basics of MOSFETs and BJTs if you will be interning at TI in the analog domain. Although TI does not set any prerequisites, being thorough with the basics helps get a head start and allows you to appreciate the work being done at TI much more.

Talk to people around you! Talking to different people will help you better understand TI and the semiconductor industry in general. Do not hesitate and reach out to your manager, the people on your team, your co-interns, or any other person you believe is doing exciting work.

Internships are all about getting exposure and learning more about the world (not even kidding). Never be disheartened! During the intern season, during your internship, you will probably struggle a lot. Trivial things might hamper your process. But do not feel down; things will eventually work out. All you can do is strive hard and hope for the best.

Feel free to try out different things. Do not question your abilities. Explore as much as possible and keep jumping to something you feel is better than what you were doing before. Do not wait and try to figure out what is best for you; keep moving through things, and you will find it eventually.