The company came to our campus for this profile. There was a written test first. It had three sections: Aptitude, Programming, and Systems & hardware.

Aptitude section had 10 typical questions on time and work, probability, averages, etc.

Programming section had 10 questions from C and two subjective questions (a swapping question and a program to calculate roots of a quadratic equation).

Third section had 10 very basic questions from cache, virtual memory, ring oscillator, op amp, interrupts, etc. There were two descriptive questions also (an FSM question and a question on performance of a memory system).

There were two interview rounds.

In the first one, they asked me about my family background, topics that interest me (I said microcontrollers), and then there were a lot of basic questions from that topic (I had mentioned 8051 on my CV). The interviewer also asked me some C programming questions.

The second interview was more thorough, and I was asked basic digital questions, some logic puzzles, and a discussion on my learning experiences in my college life.

How many interrupts are there in 8051? Name them. What is their priority and how can it be modified?

What happens when an interrupt occurs? How is an interrupt better than other methods of I/O?

What is the difference between a timer and a counter? How many timers are there in 8051? What is their size? In how many modes do they operate and how can you program them? What is split mode?

How many register banks are there in 8051?

How can you convert a decimal number to a number in base 6? Write a C program for this conversion.

There is a function like this: int convert (int dec, int bit_pos, int set/clr) For an 8-bit dec number, complete this function so that the bit specified by bit_pos is cleared or set depending on the variable set/clr.

What are the various codes in digital systems? How is Gray code different than other codes? In what applications do we use Gray codes?

Why is a K-map used? Why do you want to reduce the number of gates in the implementation of a Boolean function?

How does power dissipation take place in a gate? Write the expression for dynamic power dissipation in a CMOS gate.

Design a circuit to multiply clock frequency by 2.

Give examples of Moore machines.

A bear climbs up a very tall tree up to 5 meters and then falls to the ground in a second. What is the color of the bear?

A person with a height of x inches stands up on a table of height y inches. What is his height now?

A glass of water is filled with water. How do you check if the glass is exactly half-filled with water, provided that you do not have any measuring device?

Describe yourself. Where do you see yourself ten years from now? What extracurricular activities have you been involved in?

Do you have any questions for us?