24: Holding up the walls of society

In 2011 the NMI, instructed by its Board of Directors, announced an expansion of its remit to open membership to companies involved in Electronics Systems. In this article, Prof. Ian Phillips gives a personal account of why he sees it as a natural progression for NMI and what’s in it for existing and new members.

NMI’s role has always been to deliver personal value to you, through the catalysis of non-competitive domain knowledge and experience from others in our community; and by representing your wishes and concerns to Government and other policy makers, using the mandate you entrust in us. At this level our mission today is the same as it was yesterday.
 

However there has never been a domain in human history that changes as much and as quickly as the electronic-based one 'we' have created. The simplest valve radios appeared around a hundred years ago and just fifty years later the discrete transistor was replacing it in commercial products. But it was the integrated circuit exploding onto the scene in the late 1960s which started the flood of new consumer products, many of which had simply not been possible before. It started the 'electronics revolution' that continues to this day; giving us all exciting careers and great business opportunities; whilst delivering huge value to society at large.
  

So today electronics is everywhere; but like sand, whilst it holds up the very walls of our society, it has lost its individual value! As we have striven to make technology less intrusive in our products, we have at each baby-step, taken away its public identity. What is out of sight; is out of mind. Today’s people buy functionality: The "where" and the "how" is unimportant; it's the "what" that matters! They buy tangible products like Phones, TVs, Cameras, PCs, Lights, Cars, White-Goods, etc; but also intangible ones like Security, Food/Water, Money, Jobs, Transport, Reliability, Environment, Safety and so on. The technology behind all of which has disappeared from public perception.
 

In some ways what 'we' do hasn't really changed in this time; we are still designing circuits with transistors. However those circuits have grown from 2 (two) to 20 billion on a 'chip', and not surprisingly, what can be done with them has also changed a lot. With two transistors applications were more or less limited to the super-alpha pair, the cascode and a local oscillator/mixer pair; but that was enough to allow transistors to replace valves and truly enable portable radio. By the time we got to 16 transistors it enabled the majority of the 74 series logic devices and the first transistor based computers. By a thousand transistors (LSI!), it was push-button telephones, pocket calculators, digital watches; digital memory and the first super computers. The pattern of doubling transistors every 12-18mth was established; an exponential growth rate ... exceeded only by the higher order growth of their applications! And through the increased deployment of ever more sophisticated Electronic Systems every delivered function or service was superior to its predecessors.
  

Whilst these Electronic Systems are undoubtedly dependent on the monolithic transistor, there are now many new high-order skills and disciplines involved throughout their creation, reproduction, installation, configuration and maintenance. And whilst in no way under-valuing the skills involved in producing ever smaller transistors in ever increasing quantities; these additional roles face technical challenges just as great and with a contribution just as significant, in delivering that final product functionality, whose ultimate sale ‘pays’ for all of us. Today’s Electronic Systems are the result of multi-discipline, trans-national, team-working; and the NMI Board & Management believe that we can now offer the greatest valuable opportunities to you and all of our members by improving the networking of those parts of this community in the UK. Bring the technology researchers together with the manufacturers; the software developers with the chip developers; the system companies with the PCB manufacturers; the developers with their customers; etc. As well as the business people to understand aspects of 21c innovative business models, legal issues, finance and international operation. Whilst NMI has an overtly UK focus, we are not insular. We specifically recognise the roles and value the UK operations of international businesses, and recognise the needs for all of our businesses to operate in international markets. We also recognise the important role of Research communities in establishing the Technologies and Capabilities that our businesses will need to maintain their growth.
  

... At present we divide ourselves in many directions. Some around long-standing traditions of our own making (HW, SW, etc) and some institutional (SIC Codes, Academia, etc). Some the result of being embedded in businesses with ‘Foreign’ owners; or business’s with a higher-level or service product (Logistics, Aeronautics, Defence, Telecoms, IT, etc). Some through association with the demise of long gone UK manufacturing industries; or with different business models which do not align with those of a simpler, non-globalised, era. Fragmentation to this degree is not constructive to the wellbeing of this UK community; and yet by all accounts, we are doing quite well in our global markets ... Just think how much better could we be!
 

So Electronic Systems is a new flag beneath which we can all gather. If you are involved in science, technology, products or services which contribute to their creation, then you know you are part of this community. But equally important, Electronic Systems describes a level of 'technology' whose significance can be expressed to the consumer at large ... A label to illustrate the importance of our technologies to society; and through its context, the significance of our many and varied roles within them. Of course there are other terms in common use across this space like IT, ICT, Manufacturing, Computer, Embedded, (Micro)Electronic, Transport, Aeronautics, Logistics, Security and Space; but none so accurately bounds the domain that we are trying to encourage here in the UK. 
  

No doubt by now you will understand why NMI is the Industry Association for all those operations in the UK who make their business within the life-cycle of Electronic Systems. And also how through this evolution of our networking, facilitating and representing activities, we will enable the development of this already globally successful, but largely invisible UK community.
  

So please, take a closer look through these pages and the NMI website to see what's going on. But I'm not asking you to get involved ... I am asking you to grasp the opportunity that we are presenting for you to help yourself. 
  

Together we really are better!

23: When is a rock, not a rock?

Of course you love your new phone's cool, steel bound obsidian line. But any thoughts it might be cut from raw volcanic rock are soon dismissed when a gesture brings commanding images to its face. A few more and you talk 'through' it to people anywhere, or conjure up memories of your family and hobbies. Small print on the back reveals it was designed in American and assembled in China ... by magicians no doubt; how else do you explain it!

Fortunately humans did not need to know how grass grows, to grow grass. A little more knowledge was required to make a lawn; a lot more to make a modern iGadget...

Its creation involved re-ordering and manipulation of the same basic atoms it shares with that rock; to deliver a function of value to our Cro-Magnon needs. It demonstrates the power of human ingenuity, but it is not magic, neither is it a fraction of complexity of the simplest plant or insect.

It is based on the transistor, a concept only discovered in 1947, where putting two materials together in a certain way enables their electrical properties to be manipulated. The 64 years that followed took early circuits of just one or two transistors, to the hundreds of billions that ‘power’ you phone today. That evolution was created by the independent, global, baby-steps of thousands of researchers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, chemists and production engineers; and continues today. But a simple concept multiplied by hundreds of billions, represents a colossal design challenge; and one growing rapidly every year with that continued evolution and the race to deploy ever more of them in smaller/better/cheaper products, demanded by the insatiable end-customer ... you!

      ... Inside that phone, the billions of transistors are distributed amongst tens of Components none of which grew on trees, so each needed a team of specialist engineers for its design and manufacture. Many Components have smaller Components within them, which also had specialist design and manufacture. This mesh of specialist capabilities is too great to be bounded by any single company or nation today; but thanks to the Internet, the WTO and International Contract Law; designers and manufacturers can use their specialist knowledge or abilities on their piece of the puzzle wherever they are; contributing to their local economy as they do so ... which is what ARM does. Such iGadgets are "children of the world". They are examples of the Smart Electronic Systems our modern world has become dependent on: Visible ones like Phones, Cameras, TV's, Card readers, GPS’s and Computers; with many more invisibly managing Energy, Transport, Logistics , Finance, etc.

Let’s look for ARM's Intellectual Property (IP) inside a product like this. Prise the front from the back and all is exposed. Ignore the flat re-chargeable ‘plastic’ battery, the micro-miniature vibrator, the tiny 5x8x8mm camera and lens module, the active matrix LCD display, the capacitive touch sensor ... each a wonder in itself ... and focus on the Control Board. This small slim circuit board has about 20 Integrated Circuits (ICs or Chips) and 100 small components densely affixed on both sides. I select one Chip. Like all the others, it has a specific role to fulfil and its architects decided that the best way to achieve it, was to use an efficient configuration of transistors known as a Compute-Engine (CPU or Processor).

      ... Like the card-loom, the Processor reads instructions then acts on them, but it does so more than 100 million times per second; fetching its instructions from another Chip with an efficient configuration of transistors called Memory. Creating the Processor and the Memory are both complex design challenges, but ones that can be shared across many products. Creating the correct sequence of instructions to make the Processor do something useful is another challenge and special languages and tools are created to make this easier and more productive. People spend years becoming expert in parts of this process! The Processor; the way to put it into the chip; the way to program it; and tools and utilities to make it all as easy as possible ... is the highly valued IP Product that ARM contributes to their Life-Cycle.

But one Processor doesn’t fill a Chip these days, in fact a large one takes just a few million transistors, of a Chip with an economic capacity of a few hundred million. So the chip designer will include other functions as well, and will use other sources of IP to achieve it. It is not uncommon for one such Chip to have 10 large Processors, whilst another might have just one small one. Typically such a Chip will incorporate IP licensed or purchased from 5 suppliers, as well as re-using IP from earlier designs.

So such a Chip has many parents as well :-

• Parts of it designed in the UK; with other parts designed in Europe, India or the USA.
• Software that runs on it (most is “embedded” and inaccessible to the user) written in the UK, Europe, and America; frequently using tools independently designed and produced in as many different locations.
• Fabricated in Japan, USA, China or Europe; and packaged in Malaysia, Japan or Taiwan, on equipment of European, Japanese and American origin.

      ... By the time we include manufacture, around 10 companies will have been involved in its creation. The other Chips in the system will have similar but individual stories, and many will also include ARM IP!

More than 30B ARM Processors have been shipped to-date ... That's more than 5 for every person on the planet. How many you can touch right now?

There's just time for an experiment. Pick up a rock, set it on the table next to your phone ... and wait! When one rings, hold one to each ear and say hello ... I bet the rock doesn't tell you something that you didn't already know! (Unless it was a large rock and you brought it to your ear rather too quickly!)

Developments in bridges and sky-scrapers can be seen and appreciated; whilst advances in Electronic Systems technologies are invisible, but much much greater. These are at any time the peak of human achievement; but a stellar accolade only held briefly as year by year they are eclipsed by their successors.

      ... And as we rush to incorporate them in our lives and services, our economic and personal dependence on them just grows and grows.

Cheers.ian

22: The case for "Electronic Systems"

The EngineeringUK 2011 Report highlighted that whilst 60% of people surveyed couldn't think of a single thing that engineers had done in the last 50yrs to effect their lives; more than 90% considered they would be instrumental in finding the cure for climate change! Clearly a significant failure of the education system ... Or is it? It has always been the case that more successful we are at our jobs, the less troublesome the raw science/technology is, and the more invisible (and undervalued) it becomes to its users. Yet we scientists are as guilty as the next of under-valuing the contribution made to our lives by the skills of others; and thank goodness it isn't necessary to know how grass grows, to grow grass.

... These people are your children, spouses, economists, teachers, politicians, bus drivers (etc); the things they buy pay our wages and set the priority for future investment; and they base their purchasing decisions around form and function, not technology. The counter-intuitive conclusion is that we need them to understand us; but they don't need to understand technology!

So if we want our activities to be recognised, valued and supported, then we have to sell them to Joe/Jane Public in a context they will want to engage with and in a manner they will understand. They need to know inside, that supporting them is the right thing to do! Nanotechnology, global warming, big-physics and bio-tech have all succeeded in creating a compelling public image, and many and varied sub-activities profit by aligning with their respective parent.

So whilst the Atomistic Modelling of transistors; Deposited oxides; Asynchronous logic; TCP-IP stacks; CMP; Moore's law; Operating systems; Compilers; Communications protocols; SoC Architectures; Components; Design & Automation Tools ... and Business Models inside the various design-cycles ... are very exciting to us (well some of us :-), but they have has no real meaning to more than 99.99% of the population. But if we link them to the things that they value: their iPhones, Digital TVs, Computers; their Food, Heating, Transport, the Economy, etc; then they will understand their context. We know that all these are dependent on underlying Electronic Systems, so it is a logical stage on which to create a compelling story and captivate that audience. It is an exciting story of how these immensely complex things are the result of an international cooperation of teams of people across many disciplines; how our 'detailed roles' are an important part of this today, and how they will be even more-so tomorrow.

The term Electronic Systems is particularly good, because it is not over-used and its intuitive public meaning is more-or-less correct (Other terms like IT, ICT, Electronics, Software, Systems, and Manufacturing are either erroneous type-cast or excessively technical). It is a broad term allowing a wide range of disciplines to feel included, as long as they contribute to the life-cycle somewhere. That's engineers, scientists and businesses working at the System-Level, but also on the technology; Hardware, Software, Systems, Sub-Systems, Components, PCB's, RF, Analogue, Electro-chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, etc.

... Electronic Systems doesn't trivialise the underlying technologies but gives them a context, so its message should resonate through all our work and work-programmes: Electronic Systems are our raison d'être!

Cheers.i@n

21: Christmas comes but once a year ...

It's the last week before Christmas so time for me to put pen to paper (In a manner of speaking) once again ...

As I sit here year after year whittling the still-warm core of another year's experience, I create personal punctuation marks in this billion year, day-follows-night-follows-day odyssey that we share. This semi-colon draws my attention to the recurrence of the counter-intuitive 'unseasonable cold' effects of global warming, as it settles deep, crisp and evenly oer the castles of England. Yet in this idyllic picture-postcard, deep white, snow white; double glazed, insulated and efficiently lit scene, something ugly stirs ... 'Tis the ire of Christmas Past, which lashes hot and fast on those who blaspheme by their casual observations of this ... "Weather is not climate!". It seems that even a secular society still needs its Gods. But as another freedom falls quietly by the wayside, another fairy dies ... Especially cruel when it's the freedom of the English to talk about the weather.

Outside there is a snow-clad winter wonderland. Bedecked trees bow under their burden, shrieking children slide precariously down glistening hillsides and the population of villages and towns double as the snowmen hiding in the shadows since last winter, creep out under the cover of darkness to stand in any open space, arms akimbo in silent homage to the cold and frosty morn. With the combined snick of a million butterfly sneezes, billions of transistors convinced of their own importance since their recent creation from the very sand of time; are assigned to holding in perpetuity the value of a pixel never ever to be noticed. A transistor is not aware, it is just a dumb collection of materials! ... But what then of a virus? The smallest transistors today are the same size as the smallest virus, and they are clearly demonstrating their individual identity and independence; no longer are they the well behaved transistors of the past, these nano-revolutionaries are the bellwethers of the future. Indeed it may be that they become so unruly that the only way to progress Moore's law is to use viruses in their stead. So it may not be long till we have to consider the self-actualisation of our circuits ... Viruses have rights too you know!

So it seems likely that we will have a white Christmas this year ... or does it. There's more to statistics than chance. You know that if enough people wish for something, then perversity steps in and it doesn't happen. So somewhere out there, a butterfly with a wicked streak is adjusting the weather so that a warm-front (a relative term in the UK) arrives to assures we have cold-rain for Christmas and the bookies rest easy on their profits. Of course Christmas is not really about gambling, or indeed any of the commercial motivations that strive to part us from our financial present and future. It is an opportunity to remember that we are people living amongst people in a most improbable situation of beauty in a majestic and awesome; but predominantly empty and hostile universe. And more; to value the relationships and feelings we share with others. A good time to thank whatever you attribute for giving you the opportunity to do so ... But then go out and spend something because the Chancellor needs you to help pay-off his gambling debts.

Of course it wouldn't be right for me to get so far and not mention anything about my 2010. Well I suppose my experiments with time-travel are proceeding quite well. These days I can manage a stately progress forward in time, though backward or even minor variation from the day/day proves intractable. Perhaps more disappointing is the realisation that increasingly more of you didn't start as early as I did, so are generally further from the finishing line ... but such is life. So that I am still here to launch this missive into the ethereal odyssey is the greatest fortune (to me); doubled by the fact that you clearly still have an ISP! From this sound beginning, I'm expecting around 400 or so of our fellow time-travellers to further swell this coffer of happiness.

... As you know there were a lot of seconds in 2010, so I did a lot of things. I and my wife (Frances) are well, we walked and talked, and did and saw; and we travelled the globe and saw children and grandchildren who are well and delightful (of course). My work is great, and through it I have met you, new and old like-minded friends who find satisfaction in the challenge of mastering and utilising the interaction of just a few of the 115 elements ... we have such a long way to go. What else ... Well Fame and Fortune still prove elusive, and Beauty Sleep just isn't working. Late Great (as in the late great Ian Phillips!) is coming along nicely, though late seems to be the easiest part. But overall I would say it has been a good year ... Which throws serious doubt on my old adage, that life is AC-Coupled.

Time to finish now; the central-heating boiler is making a funny noise so I'd better go and laugh at it, lest it sulks over Christmas. So time to hang up the penknife and sweep up the discarded shards ... Just Christmas then we're off again, full-tilt into a brand new year.

" ... and when it comes it brings great cheer!" ... So have a very merry Christmas, and I (we) wish you the best of fortune for 2011.

Cheers.i@n(And Frances)

20: Heresy in the 21C

I'm just about to fly to Australia, a journey 10,000 miles horizontally but just 6 miles vertically?! To prove my SI credentials, I could build a 10km square structure, but a cubic one would be impossible?! With such a huge energy differential between the two horizontal dimensions and the single vertical one how can we really doubt that we live in a 2D world! I could settle for two-and-a-bit dimensions; but no-way three!

Scientists tell us that the world is a sphere, and it does conveniently explains some of those nasty day-to-day visual effects like ships sailing over a horizon ... but we swallowed it; hook, line and sinker ... despite the fact that it doesn't really explain what holds the world 'up' or where space 'is'. In fact to suggest it might be as we see it, would be 21C heresy!

... Now 'up' there is Space, it is a different story. There, I can believe every direction is equally 'easy'; There I could build my 10km cube no-problemo. So are we really experiencing the interface between a 2D Earth and a 3D Space? Are living on a pile of detritus that has landed on our 2D domain over the aeons, elevating us a little into the third dimension. Enough that we are aware of it and can even manipulate it in small quantities? (Time is another dimension we are aware of, though in that case we have not learned to manipulate it in any significant way).

"But wait, if you carried on when you get to Australia you would end up back where you started ... surely that means the world must be round? And as you could do it in any direction, it must be a sphere!" Ok, but another explanation is that we live in a finite 2D space, such that any dimension beyond the horizontal limits of that finite space has no meaning (!), so attempts to travel beyond it brings you back to the start. Like an "Infinity Mirror" ... or The Universe. Those same scientists tell us the universe is actually "curved" back on itself (Explaining the uniformity of the background microwave radiation from the big-bang), and there is nothing outside it because outside it has no meaning. Hmm ... so why should this only happen at the macro scale? It suggest that gravity isn't a force, just the requirement for extra energy necessary to move an object from the 2D plane toward a 3D space ... Which might explain the difficulty detecting gravity waves, and also hints at the energy required to time-travel!

Actually a more famous frizzy haired guy said that planets do not travel on curved paths around the Sun, but along a straight paths. The presence of the large mass of the sun distorts space such that the straight path returned to an earlier point on itself ... ie behaves as if it was circular ... sound familiar? Of course 3D space is bound to be distorted in the presence of 2D space ... keil surprise; and you would expect big 2D spaces distort space more than small ones! So that puts planets as 2D surfaces progressing along 1D trajectories above other 2D surfaces; mostly unable to deviate from their 1D paths because to do so would require an increase of energy ... we see it as orbits!

"Now wait a minute ... Look at the Moon, you can see that that is a sphere!" No you don't, you see a flat surface ... The moon and the stars are on a flat plane ... or at least the inside of a large dome! And we see the effects of the 2D to 3D interface at the edges as the light travelling to us along a curved trajectory whilst travelling its straight path ... The same mechanism incidentally, which makes boats disappear 'over' a horizon. So it is actually quite reasonable that a 2D space which has no 3rd dimension (ie it has no "back") would appear spherical when located in and observed from a 3D space ... it is 2 dimensional from every perspective. As it is reasonable that a 3D space would appear 2D when observed from a 2D space.

1, 2, 3 and 4D spaces all occupying the same universe with nothing (whatsoever) outside it ... Inside we have Dimensions and Time alternate forms of energy in a vast emptiness. Periodically standing waves form in this energy and particles of matter spontaneously appear ... most promptly disappear, but some cluster together to produce us. Net energy ... no-change! The big bang just produced Dimensions and Time, stuff appeared in it because of ripples ... and because it had nowhere else to appear. And because all dimensions and time are its domain, then the stuff appeared in it wherever and whenever it felt like it.

... What noise does a Dimension/Time big-bang make? Because it is still happening today!

'They' say that truth is stranger than fiction; they also say to trust your own eyes. Science is littered with heretics who turned out to be heroes. Heretics see the same world that everybody else sees, but question the standard interpretation.

So even in these enlightened times, it takes courage to be a good scientist ... to stand in front of your peers and propose an orthogonal approach ... to risk ridicule or rejection as you do it. It still takes courage to tell the Emperor he is naked. But time and again scientific (and business) heroes emerge from re-statements of the blindingly obvious!

Cheers.ian

19: Present at the Birth of an Adage

I bought my 5yr old granddaughter a children's encyclopaedia; I was in Australia at the time so I was able to experience her first exploration of it. I've always loved Encyclopaedias, they are my favourite books (closely followed by Dictionaries). There is something very wonderful about holding a single book that contains knowledgeable answers to most questions. It's sad I know, but for many years I contrived to buy an Encyclopaedia Britannica who's 20 odd volumes I knew would contain all the answers worth having ... alas that knowledge was to remain beyond my finances.

Meanwhile in Australia, my Granddaughter sits beside me ... Cars; "I know about those". Elephants; " I know about those". Fish; "know about those". Mountains; "know about those" ... Zebras; "know about those". Book closes! So I opened the book on one of the things and read something about it that she didn't know. It was a wonderful to be at the dawn when she realised that though she knew, she knew about lots of things; she realised she didn't know everything about any of them! The rest of the day followed the format ..."Granddad. Tell me something I don't know about Elephants!". The pursuit of knowledge is a hard taskmaster ...

last year [1] I pondered the sufferings of Engineers who whilst striving to understand, discovers how little he/she actually knows. And thus how difficult it is for a knowledgeable person to provide an answer, whilst it is easy for one less skilled to do so. Our forefathers warned us about this in the old adage: "If you think it is easy; you don't understand the question". They also coined a word to use for those who pretended to have knowledge for their own gain; Charlatan.

So how does the unskilled person tell if an answer is from: a knowledgeable person; one pretending to be so; or one who simply has insufficient knowledge to make a judgement?

So those same wise forefathers helped us with this as well, they created the concept of the Professional; one versed in the speciality concerned and responsible enough to identify his/her own limitations. And in conjunction with his/her peers, able to confer professional recognition on others; and denounce charlatans. Professionals earn their rank, and behave accordingly. There was a time when their opinion mattered and they were trusted for that. Nowerdays, political correctness requires everybody to be equal, so everybody is an expert! As the man in the street can be poled on issues of immense depth and gravity, who needs professionals?

Alas, spray-on-knowledge; the sort gained from a quick science course, a search on the Internet, or propagated by a sensational seeking media; is not enough. This does not equip the recipient to make professional judgements, merely moves him/her into the category of those who think the answer is easy. Though they may have enough understanding of the terminology, they don't understand the depth of the question. A little knowledge, really is a dangerous thing. Too often the media are the charlatans in this. Feigning their own knowledge they empower the layman to make judgements on complex issues, by presenting limited or misleading contexts and Yes/No answers ... when in fact such simplification is not possible. (Have you stopped beating your wife?) The priorities of audience ratings, will seldom align with wider public good.

"Somebody's going to get hurt", "I wouldn't if I were you", "Never a borrower or a lender be!" Parents are so patronising! ... Let's face it, they are so unadventurous: They can never have been young; they can never have seen the world in the same vibrant colours that 'we' do ... it was all so different back then! So it is no surprise that we listen to our forefathers even less ... even when something goes wrong and the 'I told you so' rings so loudly for us; we prefer not to reflect on their other wise words. Human nature, but a very slippery slope ...

So now is the time, before the waste product and rotational air moving machine come together unnecessarily, it is wise to ponder a while on those wonderful experience based messages handed down through countless generations of caring parents to their offspring ... About the ways of the world and the behaviour of the Cro-Magnons [2] we spend our lives amongst ...

Lest the only thing we learn from history, is that we learn nothing from history?

Cheers.i@n

1: The more I learn, the less I know
2: Somewhere over the Rainbow

18: Life at the Threshold of Magic

Just Imagine living in a world where the behaviour of everything more complex than a tungsten filament light - is driven by magic!

Imagine it, because that is the world where most people ... The Estate Agents, Teachers, Hairdressers, Shop Assistants, PAs ... Financiers, Lawyers, Accountants, Spouses, Mangers, Leaders and Politicians ... actually live today! [1]

As science professionals our threshold-of-magic is relatively high; we either understand most of the technology around us, or have sufficient knowledge to know that we could; and we assume, incorrectly, that everybody around us has the same appreciation. But even 'we' are not immune to a threshold-of-magic, there are things we don't understand: Energy, Space, Matter, Time and Life for example ... Magic happens for us when we flick their switch; we don't really know how, we just accept that it does. (And Does anyone really understand the magic of Finance and Money??)

If a tungsten filament light bulb is beyond the man in the street, then what can possibly be 'his' understanding of the chemistry in an integrated circuit, mathematics of embedded computation, or the intricacies of Boolean logic and HDLs; or the internal workings of a Blackberry, iPod, Car or Aeroplane. They work when they flick the switch ... magic happens.

Yet one way or another these non-scientific humans are so frequently the targets for our presentations, our appeals for support and requests for intervention. If we fail to express ourselves in terms they can understand, the outcome is inevitable!

We see our silos well enough; Microelectronics, Design, Software, Hardware, Process, Factory, Support, etc. We know which family we belong to, and for whose wellbeing which we will fight religiously. But our paymasters just don't see it ... to them it is all shades of magic ... very colourful, but as meaningless as mythical wars between fairies, goblins, elves, trolls and wizards (& witches ;-).

Of course Executives/Politicians want to make the right decision, so will follow past strategy and listen to the key-words from other pundits, but to really influence them it has to be in their language. It shouldn't be that difficult we live amongst them and talk to them every day ... just not about the technical stuff.

So, how do you feel about "Smart Electronic Systems" [2] then? In some ways it is just another classification; yet in others it is a relatively rare bridge between cultures. It is a just three words, but its intuitive meaning is broadly aligned between the scientific and lay communities; it is a concept we can all understand :-

So which business of any hue, would not agree its future prosperity would be depended on the increased use of Smart Electronic Systems: To improve the functionality of their product; to improve production of their product; and/or to improve their business process?

And who active in the supply-side of this technology, would be so short sighted as to deny their particular role (research, design, manufacturing, support, installation, methodology, etc) was not contributory to Smart Electronic Systems?

... It is intuitively important, inclusive (multi-disciplines) and scalable (hierarchical); and to be seen to be working on them brings professional and public, acclaim and recognition. It is a banner to which all can comfortably rally.

So whatever your scientific discipline micro/nano-electronic process development and fabrication; design and manufacture of chips, boards and systems; methods and tools; IP, Hardware, Software and Services (Including IT/ICT and 'The Digital World'); Installation, Configuration and Maintenance ... all fit. It turns out (as we already knew!), that we are all equally important cogs in the Smart Electronic Systems world!

With this clearly demarcated category, its direct and indirect contribution[3] to societies needs can be quantified ... Support of Businesses, Health care, The Environment, Security, Transport, Government and Economies. We can quantify the direct business opportunity and economic contribution from their Design, Manufacture, Installation, Configuration and Maintenance.

... The links between the technologies and human care-abouts are all there!

How will this effect your next presentation/proposal/report ...

Well start by recognising that you are trying to pass a message. Recognise that your audience is not as smart as you are in your area ... though they are probably at least as smart in others. Believe they are there because they want to hear you and will try to understand what you have to say ... and will help you if they can. So explain your request in terms they can understand ... uncluttered by superfluous demonstrations of your credibility or command of acronyms.

... Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Cheers.ian

Ref:
1: Arthur C Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
2: Smart Electronic Systems (SmartES). A new term (as far as I am aware).
3: Direct Value is measured by sales; actual sale of a specific product or service (in our case technical). Indirect Value emerges from enablement activities of a product. Usually through the improvement of the manufacturing or business process, as well as inclusion in that businesses own products. Indirect value may be 0x, but is frequently 100x direct value.

17: It's all about trust.

Apparently man's first experiments with tools took place about 1.5 million years ago. Though little more than shaped rocks with sharpened edges; they had been chosen to fit the hand and most significantly, had been made in advance of need ... I learned this from a specialist[1]. To give context to this: Wise Man (Homo Sapien) didn't appear till 100,000 years ago; and Modern Man (Cro Magnon) just 30,000. Through those long dark ages, our specialisms evolved concurrently with our physiology.

The social contract was simple; you contribute your skill as a tool maker and in return someone else contributes their skill as a hunter. So it also marked the birth of trust! 1,500,000 years later the range and depth of specialisms are much greater, and the society they have enabled infinitely more complex. But whilst the social contract is still the same; trust had a problem with scaling ...

Personal-Trust worked well until societies grew to the point where everybody couldn't know everybody else (> villages), so Money had to be invented as a Unit of Transferable-Trust to allow society to grow! That Money was not literally a measure of work done (Force x Distance), but a measure of the value of a contribution made to society. And it worked as long as the Stability and Value of the currency was maintained ...

Of course over history holders of that trust have repeatedly betrayed it. Gold was a popular currency because its scarcity made it difficult to forge, but it was heavy and difficult to manage. So the gold was put safely in 'the King's' strong room and Promissory Notes issued instead. The British Pound Note is a good example of this; originally emblazoned ... 'I promise to give the bearer on demand a pound of gold' ... it was just as good as having real gold. The Notes traded hand to hand with seldom recourse to actual gold. But kings have hard times too (!), so devaluations happened and eventually the link with pounds of gold totally evaporates. The Note itself becomes the currency: The British note now reads "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of Five Pounds" [2] ... Recursion aside, did anybody see where the actual gold went!?

Of course we have recent experience of the integrity of Banks and Governments ... but before we cast the first stone, how do you and I stand in maintaining our end of that social contract? These days we are almost all specialists in something. We deliver something to society and in return get money with which to buy services from the other specialists that abound ... Providers of Food, Fuel, Clothing, Facilities, etc. So we owe it to our society to give good value for the money we receive; and in return expect (hope) everybody else will do the same [3]. For it to work we all have to behave Professionally and not make use of our own specialist knowledge or experience for unfair gain relative to our contribution! Clearly the importance of Professionalism is not restricted to "The Professions"!

Alas we do see "Professionals" behaving Unprofessionally; but we also see shining examples of Professionalism in others less qualified and lettered. Justifying my long held belief that though I have the paperwork to style myself Engineer; to be one is still an aspiration of my soul ... To be a Professional Engineer is an earned status, not one granted or maintained by paper qualifications and the membership of Professional Institutions alone.

So if we are experiencing a instability in the world's Units of Transferable-Trust, it can only lead to a more wholesome phase of growth based on underlying Societal Contribution and Inter-Personal Trust.

... But in the meantime shares in Kingfisher and Home Depot are bound to rise!

Cheers.ian (CEng, FIET, BSc.Hon.)

1: Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool, British Museum, London.
2: British £5 note (Similar on other UK Notes)
3: This line of reasoning suggests that Society should determine our wages not our employers.

16: Episode N: "2009 Seasons Greetings"

Hi. It's me again ...

Doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself. 2009 with all its trials and tribulations slipped by in an instant and once again I find myself levering this slot into my 'must-do before Christmas' list. Some of you will already realise that 60yr ago in Bradford Yorkshire a miracle happened that quite literally changed my life ... a little boy was born that turned out to be me. It is interesting to look back and see how much the world has changed since then, but in keeping with all older people (which now statistically must include me), telling it without a rose-coloured hue is difficult.

These are my first memories and though I remember them quite clearly, they live in a different world. You know, like that place you went to on holiday; it is still there, but somehow it's not real any more. Or the impossibility of imaging in an audience in the nude, despite the fact that you know what nude people look like! (This is supposed to be the way of not feeling nervous when presenting ... Its weakness; if you are able to do it, then you would also become aware of yourself presenting in the nude!)

So this little boy was born in a back-to-back terrace house in industrial Bradford. His dad was a bus driver, his mum a book keeping clerk. They were warmed by an open coal fire, there was basic food on the table they had the clothes they needed. The WC was 25 yds away in the back yard; and bath night was a weekly event in a tin bath in front of the fire, with hand-me-down water. They didn't covet more, so I guess they were happy. The boy wasn't aware when electric lights arrived in 1950, though the old gas-lamp fittings stayed on the ceiling like indoor brass TV aerials as long as he lived there. But he was aware four years later when technology in the form of a 9" Bush TV arrived with all the neighbours in tow, for Queen Elizabeth's Coronation ... she was our Queen, whatever that meant! [1]

At the time his Gran lived in a little village in Wales, LLanfallteg (try pronouncing that when you are sober!). Just 100ys long and in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The village had a station a steam train and level crossing. The station master let the children pull the levers and open the gates. They played in the road, eating crusts smothered with Marmite. They chased the butterflies in sunny meadows by the river. There were chickens in the yard, Gran cooked on a Open Range and the lighting was an oil-lamp. They took a candle to bed and the feather mattress was the combined shape of everybody that had ever slept on/in it. There was ice inside the windows in winter and the boy got so cold that his hands and feet hurt when they were warmed. He got bored, but had to be "seen but not heard". The privy, of the long-drop variety, was in the nearby vegetable garden. The highest technology here, a water tap inside the house; the old pump still standing outside ... idyllic.

Yet it is hard to imagine I ever really lived in a world that didn't have the technology that now pervades almost every aspect of our lives. Look around you now and see what you can see which has not been Engineered? And how much of this could you (literally) live without? [2] It seems it is human nature to only pay attention to things which constitute a threat, and to under value everything else. Technology, Parents, The World, Life ... just are.[3] Not surprising that my mind (and I guess yours) puts earlier memories into different time/location/situation/event packages and treats them like Episodes. Each based around the same character (me in my case); the chain of Episodes making up a life ... Just like a Soap!

So I'm pleased to say as 2009 draws toward a close, that my story is still running and the main characters are still in place. My 2009 had many Episodes, some with happy endings and some without. There are few scars and a few more grey hairs; but to compensate a few more dazzling revelations and deeper understandings. It's been a roller-coaster, and the swings had their roundabouts. I can confirm that as I learn more, I know less [4] ... And the world has becoming more understandable to me; Yet I am frustrated in my inability to share this insight with you ... So you're just going to have to wait ;-)

But I am deeply honoured to share this moment of time/space with you. The billions of years and countless generations of my forefathers and mothers who managed to avoid predators and deprivations long enough to meet one another, mate, and bring up their offspring to perpetuate my line. They may have been less than perfect parents (and a lot were less than human!), but they survived and together contrived to put me here so I could make my very own Episodes involving you ... Isn't it wonderful.

So it is also good to pause once in a while and think of them. A winter celebration at the start of a new year a good opportunity to celebrate birth and life, and the cradle in which our experience is bound. Raise your glass, or just take a moment, whichever seems appropriate ... "To Parents Past"

Of course, cynics might say I was just using the opportunity to test my email address book ...

Still ... Merry Christmas and Happy New-year ;-)

Au revoir.ian
-----
1: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
2: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
3: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html
4: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

15: Somewhere over the Rainbow

Last month I clocked 60; years that is, not MPH. All of a sudden I have my Bus and Rail Pass, and people offer me their seats ... I still joke, despite my advancing years. But it dawns on me that the reason old-people (choke) reminisce of days gone by is that there are definitely more of them, than days to come. It’s amazing how different things look, when you realise your next Microsoft Project plan may well outlast you.

So at pain of dwelling on good times gone by, I am going to drift back; back to my youth; then back even further ... to 1750 in fact, the inflection point of The Industrial Revolution. I’m guessing that most of you are of scientific persuasion, so what you ever knew about history is quietly gathering dust in a seldom visited annex of your mind. The phrase probably fired a forgotten neuron who’s small spark of interest flared briefly, but was consumed by the glare of your normal mental process. In fact it was a hugely important point in time for all of us, it was the time when Philosophy and Science eventually handed their dominion to the practical science of Engineering.

Cro-Magnon Man (that’s us) has been around for about 30,000 years; but not much went on for most of that time. Around 2,500 years ago societal conditions had reached the point that some people were able to start thinking about stuff other than survival. Mankind had taken the first steps up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, on the road to Self Actualisation ... They didn’t realise the can of worms they were opening! It was the dawn of the age of the Philosophers; their self appointed challenge was the Understanding of Nature and for the next 2,000 years they had the field to themselves. But around 1500ad something changed; a knowledge threshold had been reached, some of the pieces joined-up. Quite suddenly Manipulation of Nature became possible and for the next 250 years Scientists took centre stage demonstrating how indistinguishable from magic a little applied knowledge can be. You have probably worked out by now that The Industrial Revolution was the emergence of Engineers who began the Exploitation of Nature. Encapsulating convenient chunks of Philosophy and Science, into valued and valuable functionality, and delivering it to the masses; the engineer caused the Industrial Revolution; quite literally, giving The Economy fiscal value as he did so ... and as he/she has continued to do ever since.

The text books tell the first steps in the Industrial revolution were the introduction of machines to significantly automate the process of cloth production, displacing the Cottage Industry predecessors. This created huge societal upheaval and the formation of cities, as people started to congregate to where the machines and paid work were located. The canal structure was developed to transport the quantities of food, fuel and materials needed by the factories and cities; and to carry away waste and goods produced. Before that time it had not been practical to have cities, as people had to live close to their food sources. We also know that Dickensian Cities (c1800) were not pleasant places, though conditions in them were undoubtedly an improvement over what existed before, as the Global Population growth rate changed from ~0.1%pa where it had been for all measurable time, to the 2%pa common today. The Raw Birth Rate hadn’t changed; life expectancy had. The cities clustered all kinds of beneficial crafts ... Butcher, Baker and Candle-Stick Maker; but also Surgeons, Midwives and Alchemists (a sub-set of Scientist incidentally).

So in 1750 the world population was 800M, with grounds for believing that the un-industrialised peak would be reached at ~ 1B. The next 100yrs of engineering brought food, clean water, sanitation, improved housing, warmth, transport and basic medicines to the masses ... fighting back natural depredations enabled the population to grow by 50% in that time. Subsequent engineering achievements have kept them at bay, to allowed it to grow to its current 6.7B. It can truly be said that 6 out of 7 people in the world today owe their existence to the continuance of that engineering revolution ... All too soon, it will be 9 out of 10.

... It seems that almost all engineering products benefits somebody’s wellbeing, which improves overall living standards and thus life expectancy. But the threats still wait patiently on the sidelines for engineering to falter: Ebola; Bird Flu; Swine Flu; HIV-Aids; CJD; etc. And for earlier achievements to breakdown: MRSA; Global Warming; Running out of fossil fuels; Breakdown of power, water, sewage and transport infrastructure; etc. Anyone who has built a sand castle knows that once you have gone higher than a few cm, you have to put a lot more sand at the base to gain more height. Engineered solutions are not one-offs that don’t need any more attention, they must be supported and maintained, and their expansion may not be linear ... society ignores this at its peril.

Blind faith belief that Scientists will find an answer to all of our problems, whilst ignoring the practical need to sustain its ecology is dangerously naive. Engineering is capable of wonderful things but only if it is fed by new Science, which in turn needs to be fed by new Philosophy (or Physics as it is now known) ... we must all remember this and encourage it where we can. We must also remember that The Economy is a side-effect of Engineering; and those who do party tricks with coins and tumblers are not building The Economy for the many; just re-distributing it to the few.

The same social conditions that enabled the Natural Philosophers 2,500 years ago, also prepared the ground for the Social Philosophers, the Social Scientists and Social Engineers. Undoubtedly facing a much more complex subject, there can be little surprise they haven’t achieved much (yet). So though we live our lives in this highly Engineered Environment, we are still the same Cro-Magnons underneath ...

... Which means a crock of gold trumps logic any day!

Cheers.ian

PS: I have been writing this Blog for about 18 mth during which time just 7 people have told me they read it (at least once), or have commented on something I wrote. If you would like me to continue to write, drop a line of encouragement to IanP24@yahoo.co.uk (a one-off mail account to prevent spam) and I’ll let you know the outcome in about a month.

14: The more I learn, the less I know!

I just love the idea that if you step-out the perimeter of an arbitrarily small island with a pair of dividers, you get a larger answer as the size of the dividers get smaller! With tiny dividers the measured perimeter always approaches infinity, regardless of how small the island. Clearly the more closely you look, the more detail there is to be stepped around. It is an experiment that shows you can contain an infinite thing in a finite space [1].

It also tenuously illustrates why there is no relationship between the simplicity of a question and the complexity of an answer. So when I was recently asked what training an engineer needed, I heard the warning bells ringing. What is it that an engineer needs to know?

I suppose I have always been plagued by my own lack of knowledge. But over the years I known many others, whose skills I have always respected, who have said the same. Rumsfeld like [2]; there are things that I do know, and I suppose they help me to understand what it is that I don't. I am drawn to the conclusion that the role of an Engineer is to do what he/she can do, despite his/her lack of specific knowledge. OK, there are lots of things they know they can do; and there are other things they can learn how to do from others who have done it; but there are things they do where their judgement is as good as it gets, and their success is measured by the effectiveness of the result. Engineering is about "Delivering the Goods"; tangible, viable, commercial, economic and producible goods.

So, back to the training question ... Engineers need to know everything in the domain where their skills are likely to be used. And to be innovative in the way they apply that knowledge to delivering what has not been done before! Not surprising that 'we' feel inadequate, as we can never have enough knowledge or experience, to handle everything we are asked to address. And training only highlights how little of what we need to know, we actually do know. I suppose the real quality of an Engineer is measured by the way he/she overcomes their lack of specific knowledge.

Delivering the goods is what an Engineer does that is different to the Scientist. Scientists show that something is possible (eg: Carbon Nano-Tubes, Transistor, Calculus, Splitting the atom, Antibiotics, Liquid Crystals, etc). The Engineer takes that Science and makes a Product out of it. Regularises the concept into a process so that it can be repeated a million times; comprehending and implementing what 'its' potential for use in assemblies or structures. Uses his/her knowledge to know what is possible and then applying his/her skills to achieving it. The Technician tends and runs the machines/processes; keeps the wheels of industry turning. Maximising yield, productivity, quality, consistency, profitability; within the rules established by the Engineers.

Different roles, but what a team ... A Scientific Partnership creating the stuff that makes tomorrow different from today. Quite literally Building the Future!

Who says being an Engineer is not exciting!

Cheers.ian

1: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/2008/02/postponing-inevitable.html
2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkUO8NpI84

13: Animating the Inanimate

I've been sitting here for 30B years looking at this stone; I wonder how much longer I'll have to wait for someone to call me on it?

We take the animation of the inanimate very much for granted today, it is after all a measure of the achievement of humanity. But for most of history, materials remained stubbornly inanimate until the female arrived on the scene. Armed with the most amazing creative technology that we do not even begin to understand today, all that changed. Life sprung forth in all its glory ... As I write over 100M human female technicians are tending and maintaining these sophisticated machines as they assembling little animate and sentient human beings; inanimate atom by inanimate atom ... How amazing is that!

But you can begin to see the male frustration here. Whilst also having a creative urge, his abilities are limited by his hand and brain. I postulate the emergence of Science, as the male response to the female domination of creation. By the evidence of his eye, it was possible to animate materials; and after one thousand years of close examination of the properties of materials, and application of these findings, we have attained this lowly point on the road to sexual equality. It is perhaps no surprise that Science is predominantly a male preserve, as they strive to satisfy their creative urge the only way they can.

... And interesting, that that science is generally directed toward the improvement of the human condition; to complement the human-creativity role. Seems we may make a good team after all, though destined to have seriously different mental predispositions on the way to achieving it.

Cheers.ian

12: David vs Hannibal

Recently encountering the Japanese concept of "The tall Poppy" (something or someone that needs to be cut down to size for no other reason than it stands out) it reminded me of my own early years. Growing up to be 6'1" in a nation of vertically challenged Celts, I was introduced to the children's game they called "The bigger they are; the harder they fall". On the whole I did not find it as amusing as they seemed to. Strange how in this world of equality it is still ok to bring down the big guy; positively applauded if it is a little guy that does it.

So in a pique of ire I searched for few counter examples that I could quote, where a tall or large something had vented its spleen on something smaller, and received global acclaim for doing so ... It wasn't easy!

Undoubtedly the most famous victory of small over large was David and Goliath; but I'm not sure that things were quite that simple. It is true that David had a secret weapon, a sling; which he used to kill one giant ... but that cannot have been the end of story! His success was the use of a one-time secret weapon; the sling. But unless giants had a pretty novel approach to procreation, it is unlikely there were not at least two. So the full match report of the day would probably have read more like this: "The 1:0 lead taken in the opening minutes was soon reversed as the giants, copying David's sling in much larger proportions, used it to great effect inflicting a crushing defeat on the cheeky upstart and his mortal followers!". A crushing victory of Large over Small, that history prefers to remember otherwise.

But there is a lesson: If you have to reveal your secret weapon, make sure your enemy can't copy it easily.

So the rout of Hannibal was a much more impressive [1]. He had a secret weapon, which he did not hide, and he still beat the whole Roman army ... well nearly! For those that don't know the story: There was this guy who with a few hundred soldiers and a couple of elephants, walked from Spain to Italy over the Pyrenees and the Alps, with the declared intent to beat the whole Roman army and conquer Rome ... And technically he did it! Emerging victorious from several major battles with the Romans in Northern Italy, increasingly outnumbered at each, he duly lay siege to Rome itself, whilst waiting approval from his managers (safely at home in Carthage (N Africa)) to deliver the coupe-de-grace. Alas, they declared his methods were 'unprofessional' and refused to let him. As they argued, the Roman Emperor mounted his own 'unprofessional move' directly on Carthage, and Hannibal was recalled to try and sort it out. De-motivated and exhausted, they started to walk back. Of course he died on the journey and his little army was duly dispatched. Demonstrating without question the importance of obtaining management buy-in! But another crushing victory of Large over Small which is remembered otherwise.

But Hannibal's strategy was much more interesting ... Meet under your terms; do the unexpected; repeat.

Surely everyone knows that all is fair in love and war, so how can this have been a strategy? Surely in war you expect the unexpected?

Well back in 200BC battles were much more formal processes ... Communication was limited, so battles had to be fought by arrangement, without it armies would never have even found each other to fight. "We'll meet at dawn on Jacobs field, a week after the full moon". Similarly, because battlefield communications were essentially nonexistent, you trained and formed your armies in conventional ways forcing tactics to be more or less 'text book'. As a result the largest army almost always won, unless you had a very incompetent general. Hannibal with his tiny, relatively immobile, but very noticeable army couldn't keep his advance or mission secret ... But he could and did dictate the places they would meet. On one occasion, he arranged to meet a Professional Roman Legion 10x his size on the other side of an Alpine river. After a brief formal skirmish, Hannibal's army retreated across the river. The armoured Romans sensing a rout, pursued them ... but emerging from the river frozen and half drowned, they were easily dispatched by Hannibal's men.

So today we know that war doesn't follow set rules! Yet our politicians are routinely surprised that smaller 'enemies' no longer present themselves to be pummelled, in accordance with military convention ... Not surprisingly they prefer to fight with T&C more favourable to them, and where high-tec armaments have become so much junk.

But even business conflicts are not just fought on agreed grounds and by approved rules, despite the preferences of the larger incumbents ... life's just not like that, is it. Disruptive Technology[2], is after all the result of a smaller operation displacing a larger incumbent, by the innovative application of available knowledge/technique. They chose the battle field and the terms of the engagement. It's not that the incumbent is incapable of doing whatever it is they do, just that their entire-business operation operates to prevent them actually doing it.

Looking more broadly of course you see Businesses, Countries, Institutions and Administrations all exhibiting the same behaviour. Rising to a position of dominance, they soon become convinced of their supremacy and cannot perceive any another way ... Yet time and again they are displaced by those who do! So maybe this behaviour is part of what has made mankind so successful, and why it is so much a part of our psyche.

So as a Tall Poppy I'm just going to have to stay street-wise ... Starting now; there are some Welshmen approaching.

Adeau.ian

PS: Sorry about the 'gap'. A Sabbatical, followed by writers block.

Ref:
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War
2: The Innovator's Dilemma: Christensen.
3: Blog: http://ian-phillips.blogspot.com/

11: What does it take to get out of bed?

It's nice in the groove; you know where you are going. There's a comfortable inevitability about a groove that suits the soul. No need to plan, no need to panic; the future is laid out for you, further down the groove (and not much you can do about it).

So what's your groove? A taste in music; Certain food; A certain man/woman; A life-style; A warm bath; Being British (Chose your own preferences here); Sun; Snow; Bed (in the morning); A route to work ... We have so many they must be a fundamental part of our nature. I guess without them every decision would have to be taken and progress would be at a snail's pace. So you find out what works or where the crowd is going; then you follow the groove. Grooves automate big chunks of life ... so you don't need to think about them.

Like a bicycle and a tram line (you'll have to be quite old in the UK to understand this), grooves capture you when you get close to their alignment, and they don't let go once they have you! That's why it is so difficult to deviate from your groove ... That's why it's so difficult to get out of bed, change your beer, change your partner, or change your job. You may have freedom of action, but can you be bothered to take it?

Grooves work for you: They stop your competitors getting a foot-hold in your market. After all your customer is 'fairly happy with your product', and it will take a 'lot of effort' for him/her to change over.

And grooves work against you: You may see an opportunity to do something differently, but it involves change; and the change, well, just takes too much effort to overcome the inertia.

A groove is a fur lined manacle ... Groovy Baby!

No scientific study would be complete without an equation, so I will not disappoint. After an exhaustive study of human nature the height of a groove wall is 3 x Pi = 9.4248; which for convenience I suggest you consider as 10. Meaning that when the product of the energy of Dissatisfaction (eD) and the energy of Attraction (eA) exceeds 10, then the incumbent is displaced from his/her grove and free to pursue the alternative.

So whilst your competitors product may be 2x better than yours, you can take comfort that your customer will not actually switch until he is 5x dissatisfaction with yours. Cool!

This is "Better the devil you know ..." in an equation!

... But don't get complacent about this. If your competitor offers 1.5x in performance, 1.5x in price, and 1.5x in 'green credentials'; then your customer is getting edgy when he is only experiencing 2x in dissatisfaction from you (6.75x). Just another 1.5x from somewhere and he's off ... and remember it's his units not yours. Your comfort-margin may be significantly less than you think.

And though it works both ways, perversely you have to 'promise' a >10x package to guarantee to attract the attention of a customer who is otherwise perfectly happy with his incumbent supplier.

That does it ... I'm going to stay in bed for ten more minutes.

Cheers.ian

10: What shall we do with Pandora?

It is now more than 40 yrs since I left school to become an Electronic Engineer. The guy across the road enticed me into his house to see his kit ... he was a Radio Ham and the magic and mystery of radio was entrancing. How did you make and receive this invisible stuff, and how could you use it to convey messages to similar secretive people lurking in their darkened bedrooms around the world? So I took a Government Apprenticeship at a Weaponry Testing Establishment in Wales and was immediately immersed in the practical application of valves, transformers, photo-diodes, tag strips and E12 resistors. Soon the first transistors appeared, then the first integrated circuits. This was my electronics, and it was great ...

The rest is history ... Moore's Law has swept us all on an exciting journey to the 21 century. Electronics stepped tentatively out from the lab and into society, then resumed a headlong gallop to enable the gadgets, entertainment, services, transportation, communications and computation that pervade our lives today. If one technology can be credited with the last 50 or so years of human advancement, then surely Electronics must be it?

So why is it suffering an identity crisis? Why are our kids, parents, teachers and politicians so unenthusiastic about it that they barely recognise its existence; let alone accredit it with any value or have any aspirations towards it. Why are they so happy to see policy and regulation exacerbate its very being, and its practitioners de-valued and ridiculed. I'm not talking about the box, but what's inside. Functional objects; TVs, Cars, Planes, Computers, Vending Machines, iPods, Printers, Telephones, Calculators, Cameras, etc, etc, are all valued; but Electronics, the thing that transforms them from so-much inanimate junk, is not.

I have been working for some time to get UK Electronics recognised and valued for its contribution to the Economy, yet meet only moderate success against the glare of today's cure for all ills, IT Snake-Oil [1]. "IT is Technology, and my kids know (all) about IT; so obviously Technology is a done-deal!" This leads inexorably to the conclusion that as successful businesses use IT, the converse is also true ... So installing IT (and indeed, more and faster IT) will make bad business good, and good business better. It's a simple mantra that gives an immediate impression of constructive activity. Further it needs no understanding of the actual business role ... especially useful if it is difficult to understand. It also has the neat twist, of playing technologists off against ourselves, as IT, Software and Hardware engineers fight to maintain their (irrelevant) individuality ... It must look so funny from the outside; if it wasn't so serious of course.

So why is our society and its leaders are so easily mislead when it comes to (electronic) technology? It is quite simply the irrational fear and distrust of the unknown! Arthur C was right when he said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and we know from history how society handles witches (see: burning at the stake) and intellectuals (see: Russian revolution) ... If it's different cast it out, is a very basic instinct which transcends the human and animal world. Pandora is inside the box, keep it closed and we should be ok.

A recent UK poll found (yet again) that Brunel was the UK's most famous engineer, which drove me to wonder if they had run the same poll in 1900 would it have come to the same conclusion? I suspect not! Following my previous reasoning Society only recognises engineers and their technologies when its education rises to the point where the people understand them enough to see them for what they are ... purely the application of properties of matter. So that gives us an idea of the scale of the challenge; the scientific education of today's society has only reached the level of the mechanical systems of Brunel (~1850) and the steam engines of Watt (~1800)!

So the breakthroughs in Genetics, Aeronautics, Medicine, Electricity, Computation and Electronics will continue to be treated like magic, and its practitioners like witch-doctors ... Both despised and distrusted; but tolerated as long as they keep delivering.

On this basis it will be at least a hundred years before today’s scientific (electronic) heroes get the acclaim due ... If the Telephone Sanitizers haven't burned them all at the stake in the meantime.

Cheers.ian

1: Of course IT isn't really easy; but the easy bits are, and society cannot perceive the difference!

9: Its a Cart and Horse thing!

Caught in the headlights of recent events, Governments are revealed naked huddling together for warmth; flustering and blustering, and trying to make us look away again. But whilst they have our attention it may be worth looking a little closer ... What exactly are they? What do they do and what should they do? On the face of it, these questions ought to be answered quite easily, but search the web and you'll see they are not.

Here's a selection ...

• The body with the power to make and/or enforce laws for a country
• A group who hold the monopoly on the legitimate use of force
• A method or system of controlling people
• National body of the people's representatives

... I had the impression that they should be working for us, to coordinate something that we want! Only the last bullet came anywhere near and none were more explicit.

As I recall we had a Civil War in England to resolve this, with Charles I coming to an untimely death 1649 at the hand of Oliver Cromwell. Before that time, the King was undisputed boss; after that the Government agreed to behaves according to written laws, a Constitution ... Sadly we never got round to writing one, so by 1660 Charles II was on the throne, behaving much as dad had done before. So being English, it seems we muddled along from there; getting on with our own business, paying our taxes, and believing that 'they' are looking after our interests ... I guess we got the Government we deserve; how about you?

Written or not, right up there in the constitution after 'human rights' should come 'protection'; the former gets a lot of attention, but I'm not sure the latter gets enough. In earlier days Gun Ships and Troops may well have been the appropriate tool to protect the Nations Economy, but clearly in this globalised world and market they are not.

Ok, I thought you'd like some numbers using the UK as an example. At 60m people, it is almost exactly 1% of the World Population, and we are responsible for 5% of the worlds Gross Domestic Product (GDP)[1]. GDP is the sum of every above-the-table financial traction that occurs in a year; and for the UK in 2006 it was £1.2T (thousand billion) ... the buying and selling evidence of us being a rich country.

The HM Government finances all of its activities by Taxation and Borrowing. Again for 2006, HM Treasury collected from all sources about £450B in taxation (38% of GDP); then borrowed an additional £40B to meet spending plans (We might expect the borrowing in 2008/9 to be very much more!). Quite literally this £490B (The Budget [2]) pays for the infrastructure that we recognise as 'Modern Britain'. As at the Government spends what comes in as it comes in, the Treasury doesn't get chance to put anything 'in the bank' for a rainy day!

... The Treasury figures show that of that £450B tax revenue, more than 80% was collected as taxes on the Person[3] whilst just £60B was collected by direct taxes on the Business[4]. There is no doubt that Business is the 'engine of the Economy', so it seems its contribution to UK GDP is through UK employment ... Each of the UK's 29.1m workers contributing nearly twice his/her salary[5]; which seems improbable until you realise that GDP counts Salary as it is paid to you, then again in pieces as it is taxed/spent!

... As for outgoings the Treasury tells that the biggest spending is on Social protection (£137B/28%), Health (£83B/17%), and Education (£64B/13%). Below that 5 broadly equal categories account for 32%[6], with a 10% "Other" category for the rest.

So you can see that if the UK Economy slows by (for example) 2.5%, that the Tax Revenues will fall by over £10B; If that fall is accompanied by increased unemployment, then the Social Protection costs will rise (I guess by about the same order); And if HMG was planning on 2.5% growth ... We are talking a short-fall of ~£30B, and nothing in the kitty ... Where would you cut Government spending by £30B? Quite literally they have no alternative except to encourage us to spend and borrow lots, so the tax keeps coming in.

If the banking crisis is a short sharp glitch in an otherwise stable economy then it is ok to borrow to smooth it over. But if it is actually a devaluation (ie it was inflated above its rightful value) then borrowing cannot fix it ... Its the difference between deflecting a wave, or holding back the tide?

So what of the future? I'm no economist, but I am mathematically literate. We are helping to develop the world, and raise its standard of living to that of our own. So in an equitable world we cannot expect to maintain that disproportionate share of GDP, and must expect a GDP in proportion to our population, ~1%[7]. The classic answer is that we will be taking a smaller share of a much larger cake, so that share will still be a growth in cash value. But the worlds GDP is only growing at about 3%pa so will only double in 30yrs. So the cake isn't very much bigger, whilst the slice is much smaller. It represents a cut in UK GDP/Budget by a factor of 2.5 on today's values ... That Government will have to deliver the expected services on just 40% of the money; cut its services by 60%; increase taxes by a factor of 2.5; or an acceptable combination of these!

... On the 'bright' side it may take 100yr for the living standards of the world to level; in which case we should be able to hold our economy at today's level. But can we expect world progress to hold-back for that long? People put up with adversity and suppression as long as they are not aware of a better alternative. But education and the internet allows everybody to see what other have ... History is littered with revolutions over less.

So, returning to that question. If a Government takes nothing from the people but delivers the protection they need; then it definitely works for the people. Conversely if the Government does what it wants and takes from the people as much as it can without actually killing them off; then the people are a managed cash-crop.

... I guess the answer lies in where you see 38% taxation on the cost/value scale?

Cheers.ian

------
#1: From what I can establish the story is similar in all 'developed economies'.
#2: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/ It seems HM Treasury have taken the spreadsheets off the web, but I have them for 2003 and 2006 if anybody wants them.
#3: Income Tax - 29%, National Insurance - 17%, VAT - 15%, Excise Duties - 8%, Council Tax - 4%, Other (Capital taxes, Stamp duties, Vehicle Excise duties, Interests and Dividends) - 14%.
#4: Corporation Tax - 9%, Rates - 4%.
#5: Actually 1.87 = GDP (£1.2T)/Workers(29.1m) x Average Salary(£23,080) [HM Treasury figures]
#6: Personal Social Services; Transport; Defence; Debt Interest; Industry Agriculture and Employment; Public Order and Safety; Housing and Environment.
#7: This overlooks the growth in ROW vs UK Population, respectively 2%pa and 0%pa.

8: A Long Time Ago ...

The year end was also approaching when the learned travellers met. Each had gifts of great value, so the company set forth on a journey. A star was born; and the three wise men followed it.

History tells of their success ... The need was strong, their mission was pure, their roles were clear, and their trust was complete. Duly, the first customer looked upon their fruit and saw it was good. So they rested a while, exchanging water for wine; then journeying onward. Customer followed customer, yea even unto the Nth generation; miracle followed miracle, as they too looked and saw it was good. Soon the customers were legion and company numbered hundreds.

... Yet a great unease had settled about them, for a monster had emerged that consumed the heart and threatened their genesis. "It didn't used to be like this when we were a small team!"

Alas the story is too familiar. A small group of experts bring a new creation to the market and it is welcomed. Success breeds success and expansion follows. But then everything changes as The System takes over; destroying the well honed team, introducing a lumbering inefficient beast. Too often The System fails to support what needs to be done, and fixing it depends on the good will of de-motivated individuals!

What is going on here? ...

When a small company is formed, it is formed around the people; their specific skills and knowledge, but also their relationship. It is true to describe its function as the sum of the roles of the individuals in it. Each individual knows how to do or get-done whatever it is that they do; passing it on to the next, who knows how to do or get-done the next stage. Everybody is vital, each depends on the others, and everybody feels really involved. More important the way the company does something is the sum of the systems the individuals use ... "The Person Is The System".

From an individual perspective, these are fun times; but from a business perspective, vulnerable ones! If any individual falls under a four wheeled unit of public transport, then it inflicts a potentially mortal wound. A sensible company reduces this vulnerability by incorporating its system into the fabric of the business as quickly as it can, so that "The Company Is The System".

To achieve this the know-how must be taken from those who have been doing it and incorporated into the company fabric, such that its operators can be un-skilled and therefore interchangeable; So Corporate-Systems require Operators, not Innovators; and de-motivation will inevitably result if the innovators are re-cast as such.

... Further, if the corporate-system are set up without truly appreciating the knowledge and skills those individuals contributed, then it is likely to be operationally naive and thus break under pressure. At which time the business will once again depend on the knowledge of the (now de-motivated) individuals, to overcome the deficiencies of the system itself! A situation on the whole leaving the business just as exposed as it was before.

Clear a healthy company needs to keep its innovators and keep them motivated, so should evolve them into positions where they can operate in a "The Person is the Operation" mode. Where they can develop themselves and their skills whilst doing an important but less critical role. Further, as their motivation remains high they are available and motivated to help with problems in the Corporate-System when they occur, as occur they must.

... Easy really, and everybody is happy!

At this stage politic requires me to point out that no companies were actually harmed in the production of this work; and that any similarity between the situations described here and any company of my personal experience, is entirely coincidental.

And finally it remains to wish you all a Merry Christmas; and particularly important for this year, A Prosperous New Year.

Good Speed.ian

I apologise to my regular readers as due to the sudden death of my mother, there is no regular November musing, just a brief epitaph ...

My Mother (Kathleen Phillips) pictured in 2006 ...



My Mother and Father (Douglas Lloyd Phillips) pictured on their Wedding Day in 1946 ...



Mr Douglas Lloyd Phillips : 12 Nov 1919 to 6 Mar 1978
Mrs Kathleen Phillips: 18 Jul 1922 to 27 Oct 2008

Just gone on ahead ...

7: A Timely Reminder

By the time it gets to half way through the month, I've got to recognise that this missive has blown its schedule ... I apologise to my regular readers, but normal service will be resumed in November.

True to form, the financial crisis was holding its breath till I took my belated and ill planned vacation. So my lone 100ml back-packing sojourn from South to North Devon [1] across two major Moors and a large swathe of Devon countryside was continually interrupted by 'what shall we do' phone calls from Gordon and Alistair (Noo not them; they don't listen!). You see the 21C accompanies me into my wilderness; my mobile phone, my GPS, my LED torch, energy food, lightweight tent and sleeping bag ... I couldn't leave home without them.

But clearly the Gods were againgst me frittering away these important days, so arranged for nature to intervene. So after four days and around 60mls I aborted, got on a train and was home in a couple of hrs. Not quite the failed conquest of Everest I know, but the same principle.

... I had been out in quite abysmal Autumn weather, including a two day stretch across wildest Dartmoor. I had camped in the wilderness for four nights constrained by the shortening days to spend 12 hrs laying in a dark space little bigger than a coffin. It had been a trial to keep warm and dry but I was managing. Strange then, that the the turning point came at 3am in the beer garden of a Pub at Morchard Bishop. I was well fed and watered this night but it was very dark and cold, the rain was torrential and my light-weight tent was promising make for Kansas at the next gust. Querying my still warm phone produced an extreme weather warning for the next two days ... days that would find me on the Exmoor wilderness and very vulnerable. It is 'interesting' to find yourself in the position where only a thin synthetic membrane separates you from quite extreme discomfort and possibly harm, in the relatively civilised back-garden of Devon ... so I chose the logical option.

But it does make you think: Of the amazing achievement that is a house; which with little maintenance will keep all that hostility away from fragile 'you' for over a hundred years. And of the amazing robustness of animals (Especially of the Cows, Sheep and Ponies on the Moors); who watch you walk encumbered through their living space, simply not noticing the expressions of elemental force around them that would kill unprepared humans.

Undoubtedly that lack of innate robustness lead us to "thinking" and "tools" as a way of survival. But whilst today we perceive we are masters of the universe; it is well to remember we are in fact very small and very fragile once our comforts are removed. Humanity has achieved a lot; but we do still live in mud huts, and eat plants and animals.

So maybe the real upheaval caused by the financial crisis is that it reveals how insubstantial all our achievements really are, and how easily the most established and unquestionable of them can fail in a moment. Money has been around in excess of 10,000 years; some sources say as long as mankind itself ... if anything of our hand is unquestionable, than surely this must be it.

The Banking Crisis has shown the inconceivable is not improbable!

Cheers.ian

1: Two Moors Way

6: The Great Divisional Wars

As a junior designer it all seemed straightforward ; I was putting a few hundred logic gates onto a chip to make a more compact/cost effective implementation of an electronic product. I remember it needed a A0 sheet of paper, a logic template and it always took 3 months [1]. But now I come to think about it, I suppose I was actually designing the circuit for the whole product, just putting as much of it as possible into the chip.

... In the meantime my boss was doing something else. It seems he had been scheming the product and now whilst steering me, was also directing mechanical designers to do casework, and cables, and PCBs, and assembly drawings, and test-jigs, and scheduling regulatory tests, and other even less exciting (management) stuff. When the chip came back I realised that the system was my baby too; The chip had to work, but for the customers to buy them, they also had to work at least as well as expected in the Product. So we spent another 6 months getting the product ready for market and ready for manufacture [2].

Over the years integration density steadily increased and I was soon looking at designs in the order of a hundreds of thousands of gates. Immensely more complex and expensive their design was the responsibility of a specialist team. These experts had divested themselves of most 'external' issues to focus on getting the chip right and out on time. Design was complete when simulations ran and a test pattern was delivered ... Somebody else put it into a product and made it work and out of sight is out of mind (SEP [3]).

... Historians will identify this as the start of the Great Divisional Wars. The silos started as shallow depressions, but became deep pits with strong walls. Soon you were striving to do your bit right, so you could sit comfortably in the knowledge that as the ship sank, it was somebody else's fault!

But Moore's Law didn't stop and as it progressed, more specialisations emerged and the divisions grew and hardened. Soon it became possible to put computers onto a chip along with other stuff (Early 90's), and the issue of embedded software raised its head in the hallowed halls of the Hardware Divisions. Fortunately 'we' knew how to handle it. Software lived in an external ROM, so it was clearly someone else's domain. So all we needed to do was put a compute engine on the chip and the Software Divisions can work out how to use it for themselves: Qed.

... Alas, the exponential continued and today capacity has became so great that design of the whole system product is once again moving back towards being the designers responsibility ... But which designer? By now divisions have often organised as independent service companies, maintained in their traditional roles by their specialist EDA acolytes and investors. Broadly classified as Hardware and Software none has the natural experience to grasp the system role, the natural ability to change direction or re-structure, or the inclination to bring in a third party. Canute like altercation began between the factions for ownership of the system role whilst maintaining traditional roles and boundaries. War is never constructive.

Applying some logic to this situation. Design is actually a hierarchically recursive, pseudo logical process, of Requirements partitioning and refinement. It concludes when all the threads of Analysis have been matched to established Physical Mappings. Its partner, Verification, confirms back up though that hierarchy, that the actual physical implementation meets or exceeds the Requirements for that level!

Taking the elephant a chunk at a time ...

Firstly, Design is not Hardware or Software, but Analysis: And always commences at the System (Product) Level. This is the process today: The highest levels making use of that very powerful conceptual modelling engine, the human brain; the lower levels utilising a variety of mathematical modelling approaches.

Design is a process of assessment of the implementation approaches available to meet the product Requirement. Because the task is complex and the detail must be complete, then it is broken down into hierarchical sub-tasks based on various criteria or experience; and again; and again; until viable implementation technology, and static and dynamic 'configuration detail' identified for every thread of analysis.

... The need for different languages to cover the domains encountered in that analysis process, and their need to interwork is apparent. Also the roll of Reuse, to offer early termination for some of the threads ... But it also warns of the Emergent Behavioural consequence through introduction of functionality which exceeds that specified by the analysis process itself.

Partitioning decisions throughout will depend on functional and non-functional criteria: Power, Performance, Appearance, Weight, Colour, Availability of a Hardware Team, TTM, Cost, Form, Experience, Quality, etc. 'Hardware' and 'Software' will emerge during this analysis process, along with the platform requirements to support them.

In the extremes we know 'Pure Software' is good for handling state complexity, is easy to design with, can handle late fixes, but is power inefficient. Whilst 'Pure Hardware' is great for signal processing, is power efficient and naturally concurrent, but difficult to design and change. Less obvious is the continuous line between these extremes, along which all hybrid architectures can be located (eg: CISC, VLIW, GPU, NOC, DSP, FPGA, etc); each providing its unique partitioning values.

... It is apparent that traditional views of Hardware and Software are just arbitrary classification of modelled logical process. They are essentially the same thing and are both located close to the bottom of the Analysis process!

But isn't this obvious?

... Just because it matches what we know, doesn't mean its structure is obvious! If we can see how it is, then we are more able to visualise how to optimise it. Recognising that the process is hierarchical and recursive; with a matching hierarchical needs for Requirement partitioning, and Verification construction ... means that that the process should not be seen as a one-off Software or Hardware EDA problem; but a generic and recursive Analysis one.

All Divisions (Corporate and Business) are an administrative convenience of the time; so must evolve with the time. Truth will ultimately prevail, so fighting to maintain arbitrary divisional status-quo is not sustainable. We will not change this situation overnight, but if we can see where we need to go, we will get there ... albeit by baby steps.

Think of it as your opportunity to make love, not war!

Cheers.ian

Ref:

1: Designing the 8080. Masatoshi Shima, Intel.

2: A chip is not a product

3: "Somebody Else's Problem". Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. D.Adams