Preethi Ashwath has moved from the test bench to public forums, translating complex chip design into plain language for audiences curious about emerging hearables and wearables. The IEEE member, an analog integrated circuit designer in the consumer division at Analog Devices in Wilmington, Massachusetts, is among a small cohort of women in the specialty.
Preethi Ashwath and emerging hearables
Preethi Ashwath
Employer
Analog Devices, in Boston
Title
Integrated circuit designer
Member grade
Member
Alma maters
SJB Institute of Technology in Bengaluru, India; University of California, Irvine
Last year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, she demonstrated new earbuds from Analog Devices that monitor heart and lung function by sensing tiny vibrations in the ear canal. After proving she could clearly explain the technology, she was tapped to represent the company at additional industry events.
She says she now views public speaking as part of contributing to the field. She also gives technical talks on electrostatic discharge, known as ESD, and related topics, and joins panel discussions to reach engineers outside her immediate team. She volunteers with the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.
“Whether through designing semiconductor products, publishing technical articles, reviewing conference papers, or speaking at industry events, I try to contribute to the growth of the engineering community and the advancement of the field,” she says.
Discovering circuit design at Intel
Raised in Bengaluru, India, Ashwath was introduced to electronics by a high school physics tutor, which led her to take electronics as a core subject. With an older sister already pursuing engineering, she decided to follow that path.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering at the SJB Institute of Technology in Bengaluru, she initially aimed for very-large-scale integration. Her focus shifted during her master’s program in electrical engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
An internship at Intel in Santa Clara exposed her to circuit design, package design, and reliability verification tools such as Ansys Totem. She says seeing the entire chip development stack clarified that design was where she felt most connected.
The process of moving from specifications to simulation and then waiting for silicon reinforced the patience and perseverance the discipline demands. After receiving her master’s degree, she joined Intel as an analog design engineer, gaining experience in mixed-signal circuits before moving to Analog Devices.
She now works on consumer hearables, including earbuds, and wearables such as fitness trackers and health monitors. Her specialty is designing ESD pad rings, the protective structures around a chip’s perimeter that safeguard against damaging discharges and potential latent failures.
On chips with multiple voltage domains, planning the placement and connections across the pad ring is critical to long-term reliability. The work requires a grasp of device physics and how the complete system integrates.
She creates analog building blocks, including ESD protection and mixed-signal elements, verifies their behavior, and supports their integration. Her collaborations span ESD advisors, layout teams, and digital designers to ensure analog and digital blocks operate together as intended.
In 2024 she received the company’s Impact Award for her work on a critical, cross-functional project.
Presenting the final product
A senior leader encouraged Ashwath to seek high-visibility roles, and she soon found herself explaining technology to customers, engineers, and reporters at CES. The earbuds she demonstrated, according to the company, measure subtle vibrations to help detect conditions such as arrhythmia, a leaky heart valve, or fluid in the lungs.
She says hearables are evolving from simple audio playback to health-monitoring platforms, with the ear providing a strong site for physiological signals. Capturing high-quality signals amid motion and environmental noise is difficult, and she notes that analog front-end design is central to extracting meaningful information.
Meeting users face-to-face helped connect the design work with real-world impact, something not always visible from the lab. Since CES, she has presented other technologies, including the A2B Automotive Audio Bus at the National Association of Music Merchants show in Anaheim, California.
According to the company, A2B carries multichannel digital audio, control data, synchronized clocks, and power over low-cost unshielded twisted-pair cable with sub-50-microsecond latency. At the company’s Global Technology Conference in Boston, she led a demonstration of solutions for augmented reality smart glasses.
She says learning to tailor explanations for different audiences has become an important skill. The most rewarding moments come when lab measurements match simulations and when her circuits ship in products people use every day.
Giving back to the community
Ashwath joined IEEE for access to research in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library and soon discovered the value of networking and continuing education. She says IEEE connects engineers to a broader community and exposes them to diverse approaches and problems beyond their day-to-day work.
She sought volunteer roles with IEEE conferences and journals to stay current on the direction of circuits and systems. She serves as a peer reviewer for the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems and the IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems.
She says reviewers help determine whether work is technically sound and merits presentation, a task that relies on practicing engineers. For Ashwath, the combination of learning and service makes membership worthwhile.
She says analog design demands constant learning, and involvement with IEEE helps maintain that momentum. Reviewing papers also keeps her connected to academia, offering perspectives that often differ from product-focused approaches, a link she considers valuable in both directions.
IEEE leadership stories, such as Manfred “Fred” Schindler named 2027 IEEE president-elect, reflect the broader community she engages with through her volunteer work.