Is There a Need for Analog Expertise?

The world is not digital. You always have analog events and you need analog answers. First you have to - select - process - amplify the analog signal, then you can digitize it and process digitally. But the result also have to be converted to an analog action.

Education focuses on digital solutions but I can often see state-of-the-art digital solutions with very poor analog interfaces. I think first the education institutions should change the weight-point

First you have to - select - process - amplify the analog signal, then you can digitize it and process digitally. But the result also have to be converted to an analog action.

I love analog; so warm and either knobs or faders they have a feel to them most digital products don't. But that's changing. The newer intuitive software is very warm also. Two major distinctions between assembling an analog system vs. a digital system; with analog you can take small steps but with digital you need the package or may find you can't get there from here scenario.

Why process analog then convert to digital? It is redundant. I've dealt with institutions wanting to side step into the digital format in the way you described often.

The equipment to record and produce media digitally is less expensive what's the rub. Record it and hit the save button; how sweet it is! Record into a computer workstation (DAW) not a DVR.

If you're not going digital then you are not going forward; so where does that mean you are going...backward.

Of course having a knowledge of analog is worth while an marketable too.

"Why process analog then convert to digital?"

Have you ever seen a river flowing digitally?... The real processes are analog.

A river flowing may be used as a representation or an analog of a sound.

Yes it is called a "dam" with the flood gates open or shut!!

When you hit a key on your computer it's an analog process. The key has a pressure-threshold and it will digitize the move of your finger. And someone has to design the key, the springs, the surface...

Yes you are correct but you are incorrect in stating in you're original post:

First you have to - select - process - amplify the analog signal, then you can digitize it and process digitally.

There is no need for analog process or analog amplification to capture or record digitally. Hence the redundancy of process.

I do say that analog preprocessing is necessary. Impedance fitting to the A/D converter: Level fitting to it: maybe the necessary analog circuit is on the A/D chip but it's analog and someone had to design it.

This is terminology semantics and I wrongfully used the term also.

Yes, the real world is analog, so there is need for analog expertise.

I do not think analog expertise is rear, the real "techies" are round the corner. One perfect example are most Hammers and other hobbists.

The real shift from analog to digital is the obvious, more emphasis on integrated circuits as against discrete components.

Much as the desired operational outputs of these integrated circuits are digital, the characteristics and circuit board perfomances of these ICs are still measured in analog terms.

Indeed systems circuits designs are still analog.

Another aspect is, in the area of software developement and application, yes this is entirely digital application but this does not remove the analog sequence involved.

In my openion, the shift is only in perception as there is a wider perception of the term digital. There is this sinister belief that analog signifies obsolesce.

Please note that in anything digital, there is an analog process attached. At least the input and output.

Cheers,

ethobil

Yes analog is the term used to describe the process or the effect.

Using the term analog to describe a representation of an effect or process is correct; a river may be a torrent or mild but flowing is pertinent yet.

"Yes, the real world is analog, so there is need for analog expertise."

Actually, on the quantum level, the world is digital. But I do agree with you. Until quantum computing/electronics becomes fully developed, real world input and output is going to be analog (not digital quanta). Even though digital electronics are popular/useful, I think there will always be a need for analog engineers. Our senses after all do see the world on an analog scale. Sorry for the rant; it's the physicist in me talking. :)

Ha! You've got it right

Luckily we don't have to design at the quantum level - yet. My old eyes can barely see the tiny devices I have to deal with now.

Even in the digital world, everything is analog. Supplying power, connecting chips on a circuit board, dealing with parasitic inductance and capacitance, rise times of digital signals, switching noise, thermal issues - all analog. The only truly digital domain is the realm of software, and even in languages like VHDL we use more than just 1 and 0 to represent signal levels.

You have buttressed the point.

Cheers,

ethobil

I will now let my butt rest.

I am an analogue engineer and always have been, its more of a challenge designing analogue systems...

I've programmed microcomputers and that's a doddle, anyone with a book and the time to carefully type in words with the correct punctuation and symbols can program a digital wotsit...

Its what makes that particular 'wotsit' work that interests me!! ALL digital circuits rely on analogue design expertise to function, whether its transmission line analysis or impedance matching or maybe radiated emissions or the susceptibility to them...

Where-ever you care to look there are analogue constraints to digital circuits, these must be known and dealt with accordingly... in the analogue domain.

I have spent years learning how to design an if strip, the noise the signal, bandwidth, flatness, response out of band, spurious responses etc... etc... and yet I wouldn't call myself an expert!!

With analogue you are always learning...

It seems a couple of decades ago that students thought digital is the future.... (and its easier to learn!!) and so we have huge numbers of digital programmers and designers...

Very few analogue designers left... I am one and I do not like being asked to design something with a computer in it, purely because most school kids can do that bit of the design!!!

I've said my piece now I will wait for the indignant replies

John

GA

30 years ago I used to work on HELL large Scanner/Film recorders and made a very good living, the output from the photo-multipliers was processed thru a large anologue computer about 2 meters long and 50Kg in weight.

This required frequent maintenance to compensate for drift and the injection of WD40 into 60 or so potentiometers as they became jittery.

Nowdays it is all done on one 100$ circuit board controlled from a keyboard, no jitter, no drift with the output displayed on a monitor before it is commited to film.

Analog design is about physics. Digital design is about mathematics. Mathematics is formally unrelated to the real world. We cannot define axioms for the real world. We can only hypothesize theories that can be disproven at any time. Often, the equipment in the lab has nor heard of our theories.

Doing digital design is doing mathematics. The results can be calculated exactly, every time. Analog design is doing science. There is always the possibility of discovery, the possibility that things do not work as we expect because our models of the real world are incomplete. This can cause either pain or elation, depending on whether we have discovered a bug or a feature.

Digital design has had a good, 40+ year run, driven by Moore's Law. However, Moore's Law died in 2004, for all practical purposes. Below 130 nanometers, the die are getting smaller, but they are also getting slower and hotter, not faster and cooler as they used to. Huge efforts are being expended to keep the speed and manage the heat while shrinking the die. And we still do not have a 4.0 GHz Pentium.

Physics drives performance. Moore's Law was an indirect statement about the physics of die shrinking, providing more, faster and cooler transistors per die by speeding up the basic analog performance that underlies the digital logic.

The CPUs stopped getting faster in 2004, so the software feature vs performance trade off can no longer be pushed into the next generation. The only whimsical idea is to use multiple processors (multi-core, etc.) in an attempt to increase the aggregate speed numbers. But it does not work, in general, because we still do not know how to convert a conventional program into a parallel program to run on many processors, except in certain well known cases.

So if you want performance, it is back to analog. This is where performance has come from in the past. Digital logic does not - by itself - make a race car run faster, although it can simplify the design of the engine controls, and software CAD tools can help design the chassis. If you want a faster car, you must tackle the physics of the situation.

Analog designers are now becoming valuable again because of the plateau of digital logic speed and the pressure for more performance.

Also, there are amazing new developments in physics and engineering to deal with. Nanotech is making steel that is 5-10X stronger than conventional steel, as one example. This is a potential revolution similar to the transition from bronze to steel. As another example, batteries are suddenly 5-10X the performance of the old, lead-acid standby. This will revolutionize cars and power tools, to name two.

So, the schools are going to have to dust old engineering texts and start teaching physics and analog again. As an analog engineer of long standing, I am not too unhappy. It is nice to be a scarce item in a rapidly expanding market.

Here, here, very well put! I work in both analog and digital and know both worlds quite well. The digital boys are overstating their importance compared to analog. For some years they have been saying analog is dead, as Mark Twain said, the reporting of my death is a bit premature (paraphrased). Analog is here to stay, sorry digital, but your world won't work without analog.

Ahhh so you agree with me Guest...

Now ask yourself how many digital / software engineers can design analogue systems... rf tuners, if bandpass filters, audio, oscillators and measure vibration, quantify results, layout a pcb for optimum noise reduction etc...

Without resorting to the use of a CAD system!

Can you?