A worsening shortage of analogue engineers has Freescale Semiconductor Inc. redoubling efforts to recruit and groom practitioners skilled in the alchemy of mixed-signal processing.

"Analogue IC design remains something of an art," said Gary Grandbois, principal analyst for iSuppli Corp.'s "Analogue ICs and Semiconductor Forecast." He added, "Today, analogue designers have to be comfortable in both analogue and digital designs—a demanding task that makes them rare, highly regarded and well paid."