2007 Issue

www.utahengineerscouncil.org 30 INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS http://ewh.ieee.org/r6/utah Chair David Allred Vice-Chair Randall G. Redondo, Thomson Secretary/Treasurer Scott Carter Newsletter Editor Rob Harker Website Editor Chris A. Perry UEC Representative Paul C. Oestreich Morris O’Bryant Compagni, P.C. 801-478-0071 Program Chair Randall G. Redondo, Thomson PACE Chair Gordon Young, Young Ideas Reuel S. Alder P.E., OO-ACL/ENA Engineers Week How Things Have Changed Since 1952 This year more than 75 professional and technical societies will participate in National Engineers Week (E-Week) with the support of many levels of government and leading corporations. The U.S. President and all the state governors will make their annual proclamations about the important role of engineers. W E ENGINEERS SHOULD TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITYTOREFLECTONTHE STATE OF OUR PROFESSION AND OUR OWN ROLE IN SOCIETY. When most people hear the word “tech- nology,” they conjure up images of consumer products such as portable computers and cell phones; sophisticated military systems such as cruise missiles; medical instruments for sonography or MRI; or, perhaps, complex software services running on rack mounted blade servers stuffed wall-to-wall into large windowless buildings. These technologies all share one thing; they all are derived from the spectacular electronics revolution due to integrated circuit technology described by Moore’s Law 1 . The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) started EWeek in 1951. I wonder what themotivated theNSPE EWeek founders. Was it the disparity between the important role engineers play in society and the lack of celebrity engineers enjoy? I imag- ine that the NSPEmay have invented EWeek to provide the engineering community an opportunity for recognition and catharsis. Though EWeek does not measure up to the academy awards, but in the spirit of reflection and celebration, I will tell a short story about unsung accomplishments so many engineers have made to the electronics revolution that occurred since the first EWeek, a story that takes us from the electronics of 1951 to the technology of today. The story begins with advances in solid state electronics (transis- tors), but that is far from the whole story of microelectronics. We should begin with a picture of electronics technology in 1951. The largest engineering society today is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics (IEEE) with membership approaching 370,000. Back in 1951, the IEEE was the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The solid state transistor had been invented by Bardeen, Brittain and Shockley in 1947 at Bell Labs but was not yet widely accepted as a viable circuit component for commercial products. In late 1951, the first mass production of transis- tors began at Allentown Western Electric Company. However, these were germanium transistors, as invented at Bell Labs. The silicon transistor was not introduced until 1954 by Texas Instruments. Transistors slowly worked their way into consumer products, but the large earlier adopter was the military. In 1951, even the printed wir- ing board (PWB) was rudimentary 2 . In order to make transistors useful as cir- cuit components, they had to be “packaged” into something that could provide electrical functionality and mechanical integrity. At- mosphericmoisture causes rapid degradationof semiconductors. The invention of hermetic all metal packages has been attributed to Conrad Zierdt at General Electric (GE) to house the transistor in the 1950s. GE called this package “tophat.” Industry standardized this package as a family of parts called “Transistor Outline” (TO). This package technology has been relegated to only a few components today, but widespread use of the TO package persisted through the 1990s. A the bigger technology impact came from solid state devices came from integrated continued on following page