If you have not yet read Rob Saunier's column this month, dealing with the principles of second-sourcing, you should go and do that now; we'll wait here for you . . .

. . . Welcome back. One of the things that comes out extremely strongly in Rob's column is that the designer needs to choose parts which will propel his product into a market share that is unique -- for a while, at least. To do that there will often be occasions when there is only one part, the most recent one, that you can possibly consider for your task. That there is no second source should not be a consideration because you are innovating, and although not everybody likes it so, the products you are designing have shorter and shorter lives.

Yes, you must trust your supplier. And yes, the supplier knows that if it lets you down there is unlikely to be any future business with your company. Ever.

But the level of innovation that is spawned in the analog industry is huge, and seemingly unlimited. I have always been impressed with those who have developed roads in our history; the ability to look at a landscape (before the era of the airplane) and to be able to see where a road had to go in order to cross a mountain range, to take advantage sometimes of a pass that could not be seen. A young Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower had it easy when he surveyed the routes for the now-existing Interstate road system from a two-seater prop. I am equally impressed with the visionaries in the analog semiconductor world who have recognized how things would change BEFORE the market starts seeing the same thing; to lay down an accurate roadmap three years in advance in our industry is extremely impressive.

On the digital side of the electronics industry I don't see the innovation that I think they need to produce in order to survive. There is a fondness for quoting Moore's Law which is what, I perceive, determines the direction the industry goes to prove itself right. Everything gets faster, smaller, cheaper in whatever combinations or proportions you care to choose at any particular time -- but I don't see innovation. It's a classic case where the roadmap has been determined by a single event or thought; and has never been rethought.

When I look at the PC today I still see the basic machine that IBM invented. When I look at the way the machine behaves and interfaces I don't see much change. Yes, sure things have got cleaner and easier to use and, for the most part, crash less. But I don't see innovation. (I do see analog engineering getting the industry out of a lot of self-dug holes!)

When I look at operating systems I still see a shell that has been slipped around DOS with add-ons copied from others.

When I look at applications I don't see that much difference between the first Apple word-processing I used twenty years ago and the Word for Windows I am using here. I don't see any really wonderful innovation between the Spry Mosaic browser I first used on the Internet and the Netscape I use today.

Why no innovation? There may be some claim that monopolies have stifled it, but I don't want to go there in this Editorial. Roadmap, to me, is the main culprit; cost of innovation against established companies is certainly a factor; lack of brains like Noyce I am sure is invalid; lack of foresight is undoubtedly the case.

What happens next? If the digital side of the business doesn't hurry to get out of its self-created rut then there will be an explosion from the analog side to satisfy the dormant needs of the market; and if we stay with our innovations in components then we will stay well ahead. If we get too involved with systems-on-a-chip -- with their inherent lack of flexibility -- then we could end up in the same position as the digital guys. In my opinion we need to be wary of those among us who think that more and more integration is the way to go. Common sense and economics should determine that equation . . . but that is probably a completely different Editorial.

By: Paul McGoldrick
Sr. Technology Editor, EDTN

Analog Main | Product of the Week | Columns | Editorial | Tech Notes

		Click here to get your listing up.