So I found these awesome Current Sensors but I don't know how effective they are. Help! here's the link <a href="http://www.magnelab.com/products/Current-Voltage-Sensors/three-phase-ropect%C2%AE-ac-current-sensor-rogowski-coil-rcs-1800">rogowski coils</a>
Gotta run guys---I really would love to do this again!
I'm off to a conference call to pick the brain of another expert for an upcoming article---Once we think we know everything and cannot learn anything new----we are lost!
Farhood Moraveji, technical director at TI commented to me, "Kludge boxes were a necessity in that test equipment did not exist that could measure the performance of the IC. These boxes often used some clever measurement tricks, which would also find their way into the data sheet."
Erroll Dietz said this about early IC designers, "Using design rules that they made up as they went along, these designers worked from transistor-kit parts, used copper-clad breadboards with sockets as design tools, and employed discrete resistors and capacitor"
Synthesis ability comes from real experience and practice that they don't get at undergrad level. The genesis, I believe, is an intuitive understanding of how circuits work.
An example is designing a super-het radio. 40 years ago it was done with discrete transistors, or at best an RF amplifier with lots of surrounding support components. In 2013, I can find a fully integrated super-het radio on a chip.
That's nice because of faster time to market, but what does that do to the designer's understanding of all the intricacies of the super-het architecture?
Bruce made some good points in his commentary regarding mentoring folks still in college - part of a work/study program or an internship. Good way to set it up. And to your point about transistor level IC design, the mentoring work TI is doing should help a lot so the knowledge isn't lost.
Another area that most younger engineers have difficulties in design is a good, in-depth understanding of the transistor down into the physics of the device. Dennis Monticelli, TI Fellow and Erroll Dietz, CTO at TI remember the early days of analog IC design in my article "Analog: Back to the future, Part one" http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4374684/Analog--back-to-the-future--part-one
They designed IC's using discrete transistors and sometimes had to customize the transistor itself to get the best performance---it's that depth of understanding that is, in great part, lost to modern designers.
I was looking over the list of contributing editors - you're right - lots of experience and knowledge. Jim Williams and Bob Pease quality know-how in some cases.
I envision editors like you and me as the mentors of cyberspace. In addition to our 70 years of combined electronics experience, we also have some really great readers that will contribute as mentors by commenting on our articles, blogs, etc----these are all mentoring channels on EDN and Planet Analog
And again, you don'tknow how to deal w/ those issues coming right out of school. I may blog about just that sort of design compromising in a future blog. I think there is a triangle pictogram that speaks to that. An oversimplification, of course. I recal the triangle has "Quality" "Price" and "Design Time" at its 3 corners. The caption beneath says "Pick Two"
It's an ongoing learning process to make these decisions after all the facts are analyzed and the choices that we have are scrutinized to see what the consequences will be to the original design goals
Exactly - I've fond when explaining concepts to s/o else, my understanding is clarified. Maybe for my next job, I'll become a university professor. All I need is my PhD. And my Masters degree. Shouldn't take too long.
Yes your point about what is taught at university is good - they don't always teach the real world aspects of design engineering.
Engineering schools teach design concepts and some have good labs, but the process of encountering a need to compromise in a design happen quite frequently and that thinking process is usually given to us by good mentors during our career.
Ah - so your describing the process you go thru when doing a design - what you have to give and take to get the design where you want it; by the time its due; and at or around the right cost. Then, you're refering to teaching s/o else how to do this. And did you have reasonable success in this teaching process?
I feel very strongly about mentoring in the area of the design process thinking and decisions/compromises we need to make as designers. What are the right choices when we are faced with a compromise in a design?
Here too. In my previous job as an FAE, I had to educate customers on devices that I was supposed to promote. And I had to educate a cadre of sales reps an distributor reps on the devices. So a lot of my time was spent as a teacher. They all seemed to learn fairly well, so I guess I was doing it right.
Hi Steve, glad you could make it. I thought we might kick around some thoughts on mentoring fellow engineers to help develop new or better analog engineers.
Steve Taranovich, Senior Editor, Analog, Power and Design Ideas for EDN, will join me for a live chat at 1:00PM on Wednesday, 16 Jan 2013. We will be discussing ways to impart our knowledge (or the knowledge of other analog experts) to all levels of EE's from newbies to seasoned veterans. Everyone can learn something every day, so this should be a good interchange of ideas.
Join us at 1:00PM on Wednesday, 16 Jan 2013. Here's the link to get to us:
General purpose voltage references, quad op-amps, and quad comparators are almost as cheap as dirt. Is it possible that a microcontroller plus software could compete economically?
The techniques that are used to great advantage to integrate much digital functionality work far less well when attempting to integrate analog technology. Exciting new research opens the door to new ways of integrating analog building blocks for optimum performance.
As technology evolves, the definition of "programmable" analog/mixed-signal ICs has evolved as well; most users find the change to be a very good thing, despite any limitations it may impose.
Design engineers design and build things as part of product development. Sometimes, it's better to buy a subsystem already fabricated -- but which subsystem and when?
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