Energy Management and
Hi, my name is Yamil and I am a product engineer for the energy management and transfer group at TI. Energy transfer is how you move energy from one place to another. For example, how you move energy from the wall outlet and store it in a battery. Energy management is what you do with the energy that you receive – such as charging batteries on a smartphone.
On the job
My team works on multiple energy management and transfer chips that perform different functions. I work on chips used to charge batteries while protecting them from overheating, chips used to transmit and receive energy with no wires (wireless charging) and chips used to connect to solar cells to extract energy from the cell and store it in a battery.
As part of my role, I work in the lab to perform qualification tests on TI devices to make sure they will work for many years and are a quality product. I also am a project manager for test spins and also perform bench validation — both of these are important to the semiconductor industry because they allow us to help customers solve their problems and needs by guaranteeing a safe and long lasting product.
How does coding play a role in your job?
When we work with computers and equipment in the lab, we write computer code that automatically controls all the lab equipment. The code also allows us to make measurements and save the data on Excel files or text files automatically. This is very helpful because by coding you can make a lot of things faster and avoid making mistakes.
How did you learn to code on your calculator?
I got interested in coding when I took my first coding class in college while I was studying electrical engineering. I then got even more interested when I took a course in which I learned to program a TI MSP430™ microcontroller. It was around my third to fourth year of university when I learned that I could program my TI calculator. I quickly started to learn how to program it and wrote a few programs that also helped me in the classes I was taking.
Why do you think learning to code is important?
Learning to code is important because it teaches you logic to help solve problems, is a practical way to apply math skills and can help you in your future job to make some tasks faster and easier.
What is one piece of advice you would give to students?
Take time to identify your strengths and the activities you love and are most passionate about, and then find a career where you get to pursue that passion and use your strengths. When you love and have passion for what you do, you will enjoy every bit of it.