Texas Instruments

Role: Embedded System Intern

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: August 2020

Interview Type: On-Campus, Internship

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 5 rounds (Online Test, 2 Technical Interviews, Programming Interview, HR Interview)

Topics Asked: Analog Circuits (RC circuits, op-amps, voltage multipliers, full-wave rectifiers, filters), Digital Electronics (setup/hold time, counters, boolean algebra, 8051 assembly, Verilog, CMOS inverter, mux logics, flip-flops, FSMs), Aptitude, Programming (Fibonacci recursion, code walkthrough), Circuit Analysis

Experience:

This candidate's experience was for an Embedded System Intern role at Texas Instruments, through campus recruitment in August 2020, with the hiring process being completely virtual due to quarantine.

Round 1 (Online Test):

The first round was an objective-type online test with three sections, each containing 20 questions.

• **Analog Section:** Questions on RC circuits, op-amps, etc.
• **Digital Section:** Questions from setup/hold time, counters, boolean algebra, 8051 controller's assembly language, and Verilog programming topics.
• **Aptitude Section:** Medium-level questions.

After two days, shortlists for three different roles (one analog, two digital) were released. The candidate was shortlisted for a digital role.

Round 2 (Technical Interview 1):

This interview was conducted by three panel members.

• Initially, questions were asked about designing filters using RC circuits (Low pass, High pass, Band pass). The candidate insisted on digital domain questions due to more experience there.
• Digital questions then included CMOS inverter (VTC), setup and hold time, mux-based logics, and counters.

Round 3 (Technical Interview 2):

This interview was conducted by a single experienced person and lasted for 1 hour.

• Questions were asked about flip-flops, counters, frequency doubling, frequency halving, and FSMs.

The candidate also mentioned previous experiences with drawing circuits (e.g., voltage multipliers, full-wave rectifiers), explaining functions, drawing waveforms, and performing circuit analysis on given schematics.

Round 4 (Programming Interview):

After some time, the candidate was called for a programming interview with one interviewer.

• The interviewer asked to write a program for a Fibonacci series using recursion.
• Since the candidate was not strong in programming, the interviewer then wrote a code and asked the candidate to walk through it using a sample test case.

Round 5 (HR Interview):

Finally, an HR interview was conducted, which was a 10-minute telephonic conversation with the HR manager.