>>> but if you want to do digital circuit design for a job there are 
>>> plenty of opportunities in a vast range of industries.
>>
>> Seriously... Doing what? Everything seems to be made of off-the-shelf 
>> parts (which, by definition, already exist). What's to design?
> 
> I guarantee you that if you open up any phone/monitor/TV/camera there 
> will be at least one custom IC that is not an off-the-shelf part.

Phones I can believe. (They have to be as tiny as possible, after all. 
And battery performance is critical.) But other stuff? I'd be a little 
surprised if, say, my LCD TV at home has any nonstandard components in 
it. (Other than the LCD panel itself of course.)

> It's 
> not just IC makers that design ICs, any company that has a relatively 
> high-tec product does it.

 From what I understand, any device that has more than about three 
buttons on it probably contains a microprocessor. (That includes my 
washing machine, and my toaster.) But it'll be a Z80, straight off the 
shelf. Bolt it in there with a standard low-voltage power supply and 
write some firmware. No call for any custom ICs there. (Aren't ASICs 
prohibitively expensive to make anyway?)

> For example we design our own driver and 
> controller ICs for LCD panels, I know Canon designs their DIGIC image 
> processing IC, I imagine all other camera and display makers do 
> similar.

I'm no expect, but I would have thought an LCD driver is more an 
exercise in analogue rather than digital electronics.

It actually surprises me that somebody can make money just designing new 
LCDs. To the untrained eye, they all appear to be identical, except for 
size and resolution. Not sure why you'd ever need to design a new one...

> What about specialist electronic test equipment?

This exists?

> How about network cards and 
> routers, someone needs to design the chipsets for those which are always 
> being improved.

I was under the impression that a router is simply a board with an 
off-the-shelf microprocessor, off-the-shelf RAM and a bunch of 
off-the-shelf NIC driver chips. Somebody needs to design the PCB, the 
power supply, and write the OS (which is usually performance and 
security critical), but I don't see much requirement for any chip design.

> What about the thousands of companies that offer FPGA and ASIC 
> design services - who are they doing work for?  Who is working for them?

It's news to me that anybody is in this line of work. I have no idea who 
their clients would be.

>>> If you were degree qualified I could point you to an opening we have 
>>> at the moment.
>>
>> Really? Are you ser- oh, wait, you work in Germany, don't you?
> 
> Yes, but this job is at our Oxford lab.

Mmm, that's not bad...

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