[Technology Report] Spencer Klein: Mapping The Neutrino Sky
One of the world's next best "telescopes" will not peer out into space. Instead, it will probe deep into the ice of the South Pole for a better picture of the high-energy universe. The project, dubbed "IceCube," will use 4800 optical sensors sitting 2500 m below the polar surface to detect fundamental particles called neutrinos as they pass through the earth. The goal is to map the "neutrino sky," which will pinpoint sources of high-energy cosmic rays that...
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Mike Collette: Merging Film And Digital Tech For Superior Pictures
When Mike Collette visits a few of the national parks this fall, he'll be bringing his work with him. As president of Better Light Inc., a digital-imaging technology company he founded 15 years ago, he will shoot breathtaking landscapes on regular film. But he'll be able to preserve them digitally using his company's main product, the digital scanning back. An engineer with a passion for photography, Collette has carved out a dream job for himself developing the...
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Ricky Howard: Programming Autonomous Spy Satellites (Cloak And Dagger Optional)
Since they fly low and home in on a specific area, spy satellites must constantly reboost to maintain a view of their assigned position. That eats up fuel, and when a satellite's power runs out, the crafty contraption is kicked. But what if there was a way to autonomously dock a refueling vehicle on the satellite? Its lifetime could be extended, and national defense could save millions of dollars per year not having to relaunch new spyware. That's where Ricky Howard...
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Ryan Bloomfield: Expensive Toys Take Flight
Ryan Bloomfield likes being part of a team that makes "toys" on a grand scale. People usually fly the personal aircraft he works on at CubCrafters in Yakima, Wash., just for fun. "We really do make a high-end toys," says Bloomfield, an avionics engineer who helps wire the company's two-seater recreational aircraft. It's a dream job, he says, not only because he's hands-on in the design of planes, but also because he's surrounded by a tight-knit family of CubCrafters...
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Jason Lucier: Engineering For The Jet Set
When the new Boeing model 787 airplane launches for commercial use in May 2008, passengers will be able to travel around the world on one of the most efficient jets ever designed. Until then, only test flight engineers like Jason Lucier will be on board, making sure the Dreamliner family of jets can transport 250 passengers across 8000 miles as efficiently as promised. "The flight test portion is like a dream," says Lucier, a Boeing Company engineer who will eventually...
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Boldly Go Where Few EEs Have Gone Before
Admit it. When you were a kid, you dreamed about becoming an astronaut. Maybe you were inspired by NASA's Apollo program - or Star Trek. Maybe you dream about it today. And maybe that led you to a career in engineering. Things weren't all that different for two EEs on board the Space Shuttle Endeavor during August's STS-118 mission. "I didn't know I could be an astronaut until I graduated from college," said STS-118 mission specialist Rick...
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Richard Gawel
[Technology Report] Global Warming Strikes The Cubes And Benches
Engineering has been a tough profession over the past few years. Averse to market risk in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the market constrained its investment in R&D. Offshore outsourcing and an influx of lower-priced labor exerted a downward pressure on salaries and other compensation. And, uncertainty about the future had a chilling effect on engineers' hopes and dreams. But things seem to be warming up. According to our...
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Jay McSherry
[Technology Report] EEs Join The Six-Figure Club
The average U.S. engineer now makes $102,748 in salary and bonuses, marking the first time EEs have reached six figures in the four years that we've done our salary surveys. And there's more good news, as the engineering and tech services industry added 66,300 jobs last year, putting that number at an all-time high. But there are troublesome signs behind this rosy picture. While base salaries are up 7%, bonuses are flat. Stock options and other...
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Jay McSherry
[Technology Report] The EE Profession: Dreams Versus Reality
Perhaps better than most people, engineers understand the difference between dreams and reality. After all, they're often presented with someone's dream (in the form of a design specification) and then are asked to make it real. Engineers face a similar challenge in their own careers. Like everyone else, they have a picture in their minds of how they'd like their careers to go. Then they're confronted with what's possible and what isn't. So, they...
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Jay McSherry
[Technology Report] Wizard Of Woz Keeps Casting His Spells
For many, "Vice President in charge of R&D" sounds like a good job - reputable, good pay, and maybe even exciting. But tack the words "at Apple Inc." to the end of that title, and you have, well, a whole different barrel of apples. Steve Wozniak didn't earn this job with a good resume. He forged it, inventing the first single-circuit motherboard with embedded ROM in 1975. He and Steve Jobs had to sell their most valuable possessions to assemble a product...
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John Arkontaky
[Technology Report] Education And R&D Can Save The Future
The only thing that’s more important to engineers than the project on their table is the next project to come down the line—at least, it should be. The electronic industry is constantly being reinvented as new technologies keep Moore’s Law perpetually valid and thriving. After all, today’s high-end transistors, semiconductors, and other components are tomorrow’s landfill. Two key elements in keeping the...
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John Arkontaky
[Technology Report] Young EE Carves His Own Path To Success
Ryan Patterson considers himself lucky. As a toddler, he started "tinkering" by stuffing knives into electrical outlets and twisting light bulbs into sockets. He watched his dad wire their family home, and he absorbed the basics like current flow and hooking up motors and switches. By the time he was going off to high school, he had built two robots. "I feel really lucky because I've always had a natural interest in electronics," Patterson says....
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Kristina Fiore
[Technology Report] Differing Interests Define Engineering Dream Jobs
In his senior year at the University of California, Electronic Design reader Thanh Nguyen remembers the chair of the physics department cancelling class so students and professors could watch NASA's firstever shuttle launch. As Columbia lifted off on April 12, 1981, Nguyen's dreams of working for NASA were just taking flight. "I remember sitting in the physics department's conference room and watching the shuttle lift off flawlessly for the first...
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Kristina Fiore
[Editorial] Speaking Of Dream Jobs, How About This One?
Welcome to this year's edition of Your Most Important Issue of the Year. A major focus of this year's issue is "Dream Jobs." This got me thinking about my own job and how it all started for me. As an engineering student at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, I wrote a paper for my control engineering class - something to do with damped oscillations of a particular control circuit. I added all the necessary illustrations, tables,...
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Joseph Desposito
[Design FAQs] RF Detectors For Wireless Devices
What is an RF detector? An RF detector monitors or samples the output of an RF circuit and develops a dc output voltage proportional to the power at that point. What do you do with an RF detector? RF detectors are used primarily to measure and control RF power in wireless systems. Why are power measurement and control so important? RF power, rather than voltage, is the primary measure of a wireless signal. In a receiver,...
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Louis E. Frenzel
[Hall Of Fame] Paul Baran: Cold War Comm Work Lays Grounds For 'Net Shopping
To maintain the Cold War stalemate with the Soviet Union, the United States knew it had to develop a hefty communications system that could withstand a nuclear strike and allow for retaliation. If the Soviets knew the U.S. could strike back, they would be less likely to attack. Policymakers weren't the only players in prolonging what seemed inevitable. Solutions rested heavily on the shoulders of engineers like Paul Baran. "We could stumble into a...
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Kristina Fiore
[Hall Of Fame] Aart de Geus: A Simple Question Yields A Complex Career
Some say that asking the right question is more important than having the right answer. But if you're Aart de Geus, you'll do them both, and you'll do them both pretty darn well. Synthesis programming as well as all of the computeraided engineering (CAE) software that designers have used to their advantage started with a simple question de Geus conjured while working at a General Electric plant in North Carolina: Is it possible to do a schematic without writing...
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John Arkontaky
[Hall Of Fame] Walter O. LeCroy: Engineer, Entrepreneur, Photographer
Walter O. LeCroy made a capital career out of helping EEs do their jobs. The digital and analog oscilloscopes that LeCroy Corp. manufactures allow engineers to test and measure signal voltages. But he found help and a key component for oscilloscopes in the most unlikely of places - not in a dream or from burning the midnight oil, but in a toy store. "I knew it could be done and I was noodling with it," LeCroy said. "Then I was in Toys R Us, and there...
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John Arkontaky
[Hall Of Fame] Nolan Bushnell: Serious Thoughts About Fun And Games
Nolan Bushnell, popularly revered as the father of electronic games, is still inventing and dreaming of new ways for people to use technology for fun. In fact, he is forging a different direction from today's shoot 'em up, beat 'em down, tear 'em apart electronic diversions. He sees a generation of video games that foster fun, social interaction, and education. "Video games today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I'm sad...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] Douglas C. Engelbart: The Mouse That Roared
For better or worse, your computer and its connections to information and other people worldwide were the vision of Douglas C. Engelbart. It all started as he contemplated his impending marriage while driving to work back in 1951. "I was excited about getting married and starting a family, but then I thought I had better focus on work," he said. "Suddenly, in my mind, I saw a big, long hallway going on into infinity with here and there doors on the right...
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Doris Kilbane
[Hall Of Fame] Don Knuth: The Historian Of The Computer Age
These days, Donald Ervin Knuth spends most of his time in his study, poring over books, papers, and essays in an attempt to finish his life's work, The Art of Computer Programming. Forty years of advances in computer science are congealing, one idea at a time, into a thorough account of a field that this retired Stanford professor helped birth. "I wrote a sentence this morning," Knuth says just after 10 a.m. on the phone from his California home. It's...
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Kristina Fiore
