Rick Nelson

“Man does not live by bits alone”
July 10, 2007

When did analog get a reputation as an unglamorous backwater, as the Wall Street Journal puts it? Here is what the late Bill Travis had to say 22 years ago in a special issue of EDN devoted to analog technology*:

These days, if you ask an electronics engineer what his specialty is, chances are he’ll tell you he’s an expert in C, or 8086 assembly language, or some other digital discipline. Where are the linear circuit designers? It seems the glamour associated with digital technology is such that most engineering students are hopping on the digital bandwagon; indeed, engineering schools themselves seem to be downplaying circuit theory in favor of computer sciences. This is a scary tendency, because now, more than ever, there’s a need for talented analog-system and -circuit designers.

I suppose 8086 assembly-language jockeys are probably less prevalent today than in 1985, and today’s software engineers might tout an expertise in C++ or C# instead of just plain C, but otherwise that paragraph still rings true.

Travis continued:

The old saw, “The real world consists of analog signals, not ones and zeros,” is trite but true. Some people counter it by saying, “The analog interface is only a small part of any system; the real meat is in the digital circuitry that does the processing.” Hogwash. The expertise needed to design these analog front ends is—in my opinion at least—more demanding of talent, experience, and an intuitive feel for how circuits work and fit together than is the Boolean and op-code stuff that follows. And that’s the problem: If most students opt for the “glamorous” computer courses, who will design these complicated analog circuits and subsystems?

It’s still true that analog design requires talent, experience, and an intuitive feel for how circuits work if for no other reason than that analog design remains a much less automated process than digital design.

Travis went on to describe how advancing computer technology is complicating—not easing—the analog-design job:

Ironically, the problem is compounded by advances in computer technology. Speedy microprocessors and their companion coprocessors, lightening-fast multiplier/accumulators, and very high-speed array processors are all conspiring to place even tougher speed and accuracy demands on the analog systems they work with. To reap the maximum benefits from high-speed digital processors, systems need even faster devices such as operational amplifiers, D/A and A/D converters, and track/hold amplifiers. And, no less important than the designers of the linear ICs themselves, we need analog-system designers who know to configure these analog blocks in optimum ways and—especially—in ways that won’t introduce system instability.

His conclusion: “Man does not live by bits alone.”

*”Whatever happened to analog,” EDN, May 16, 1985, p. 55.

Posted by Rick Nelson on July 10, 2007 | Comments (0)