Interview with Rick Faehnrich

Featured Engineer

Rick Faehnrich

Rick Faehnrich - Product Development Engineer at Eagle Test Systems (Part of Teradyne)

What do you enjoy about your job?

Being an analog designer, I’ve always been fascinated with circuits. It amazes me that the same basic DNA (resistors, capacitors, transistors) gives rise to the vast number of circuit functions in diverse fields springing from the minds of circuit designers.

What specifically do you like about your industry?

In the ATE industry, the terrain is very varied over the topics within the EE field. You typically encounter precision, high-speed, low-noise, power and control theory in a single design. There’s plenty of satisfaction (and sometimes headaches) along the way.

Describe an engaging engineering task.

One of the most engrossing tasks is coming across a new circuit and discovering how it works. You feel like a detective digging for clues from the schematic itself. The story unfolds in moments of “Aha, this is what the functional block does” or in finally understanding how a collection of components implement a particular function.

What is satisfying as a design engineer?

Adapting or creating a circuit for your design can be rewarding. Given your new understanding of a circuit type, you modify the circuit where necessary to fit your need. You feel some mastery growing from the experience. Of course, this feeling can be quickly tempered by memories of unexpected behaviors to be solved during a past design.

What motivates you to take time and write topics for your website?

Having learned how a circuit works, something inside me makes me want to grab somebody and share with them how cool this circuit is. Maybe I just want the reader to enjoy the same discovery experience as I had. So I try to write topics on http://www.ecircuitcenter.com as a bit of a mystery to solve together. I hope it succeeds on some level.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

I confess I’m addicted to SPICE. It’s fun to see if your circuit topology works as expected. The results can hold some surprises. Although a simulation can’t tell you exactly how circuits behave, it helps develop an intuitive understanding of circuits.

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

It’s a shame that some schools are cutting science fairs from the program. That’s where I built a simple radio from a coil of wire, a diode, wire (antenna) and head phones. It amazed me how a handful of components could extract an invisible voice from the air. It really started a lifelong passion of learning how things work.

What’s on your bookshelf?

The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill. What better source than hearing from smart folks who spent hours in the lab actually building circuits?

An old HP Power Supply Manual. What a beautiful job creating a guide to a product. You can see from the block diagrams and schematics that the designers really had a solid understanding of basic circuit principles.

Did you have an experience you would like to share?

My best experience had to be attending a trade school to learn electronics even before the thought of college entered the picture. Lots of labs and intuitive explanations developed a gut feel for real circuits. Then, once in college, I was like a kid in a candy store absorbing the engineering theories and fitting them into a hands-on background. Also, I also had fun answering my fellow student’s typical question – what is this circuit good for? I now feel that the trade school experience, even shop classes in high school, should be an essential part of our education.

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