Aris Silzard

Are We There Yet?…September 2001 The two girls, three and six years old, were peacefully observing the freeway traffic and the California landscape gliding past from the back seat of their parents’ minivan on a typically-sunny Saturday morning. Their parents had decided to take a drive to explore a new area about fifty miles from their present home in the east bay. It was beginning to look more and more like there might by an interesting new career opportunity developing there. A new display start-up with a rather strange name, but with lots of investor money, had made Richard an offer that he just might not be able to turn down. And it was beginning to look like his wife Emily could also advance her career by a move to this new location. As they drove, their conversation touched on a number of topics, one of them being why it was necessary to change homes and lifestyles every time a new job came along. What a disruption it was to have to sell their existing home, find and buy a new one, move all of their possessions, and find new doctors, dentists, and all those other services that we take for granted once located. Richard suggested that maybe one day, after he was better established in his career, they would try to create a business that was location-independent. That way they could find a home location they liked because it matched their desired lifestyle and not because it was near their places of current employment. He wondered if the continued development of the Internet and of electronic communications would help him accomplish that. They were only slightly more than half way into their drive when Danielle, the oldest girl, began to ask, “Are we there yet?” Alexandra, the youngest, didn’t say much yet but Emily could see that she was beginning to squirm in her car seat as a clear indication that this ride had better have a quick conclusion. As Mom and Dad explained that they would be there in about twenty minutes, the question “Are we there yet?” became more frequently heard and with growing frustration. After all, five minutes can seem like an eternity to a three-year-old stuck in a car seat — just about the same as that last half-hour in an economy airplane seat on a flight from Hong-Kong to Chicago, shall we say. For Danielle and Alexandra, “THERE” was any near-immediate stopping point that would at least temporarily end the confinement of their car seats. And the sooner the better! If this next destination also involved the offering of food, that would be a major positive. “Daddy, I’m getting hungry.” “Mommy I think I’m going to need to go to the bathroom.” And finally from the littler one, a robust scream that could no longer be contained or ignored. For the parents, with their plans of significant career changes and the relocation of their home, this question of “Are we there yet?” had a very different context. Perhaps they would feel more comfortable where “there” was after they made their decision whether to accept this new opportunity or not. But then there would still be the even longer-term plans that Richard and Emily were beginning to contemplate for careers that would allow them to pick whatever location they wished while still earning a good income doing what they most enjoyed. Clearly some “Are we there yet?” situations are more easily identified than others. If I need to be in Washington DC tomorrow for a business meeting, then it’s fairly easy to establish if I have accomplished that. On the other hand, many of our lives’ activities have outcomes that are more difficult to measure. When have we achieved “success?” Is our career progressing the way we would like? “Are we having fun yet?” As I think back over some of the high and low points of my still-developing career, I see much of that history very differently than I did at the time I experienced it. Now it seems that all those “learning experiences” — some of which I most certainly did not enjoy — have had a beneficial effect. Life’s journey turns out to be more of a continuum, a blending and overlapping of a multitude of activities, than a pre-defined destination. There are certain times when changes and learning experiences are more intense and focused than others. In between, we get to rebuild our energies and enthusiasm — perhaps to coast a bit if we so choose. For companies and organizations such as SID, the process is similar. In the journey of growing a new company, it is appropriate to ask, “Are we there yet?” And just as appropriately, the answer often is, “That depends.” It depends on what you want the next objectives to be and what the various participants think is possible. I have been in several situations where investors had expectations of the next “destination” that were, at least from my experience base, unrealistic. Yet, since each was a new situation with new technologies or new products, there was no ready comparison for me to use to conclusively prove that. The typical behavior in these situations is that investors will force a series of management changes until it becomes clear that no one can accomplish the wished-for results. The most clever players in this game are those executives who can anticipate the investors’ “learning curve” and who take on the top position(s) at the time when the investors are finally willing to accept reality. (So far, I have not been very good at this game, but at least I now understand some of the rules.) What about the Society for Information Display? Are we there yet? By most measures we certainly seem to be doing well. But can we do better? Fortunately, we do not have to contend with investors who have unrealistic expectations. But we also have to appreciate that the world is a competitive place and

I’m from the Year 1957 – Surprise Me… Let’s imagine for a moment it is the fall of 1957 and you are sitting in your high school algebra class. Being the really smart kid that you are, you are bored silly with the slow progress of most of your classmates. After all, how difficult can simultaneous equations be? Why can’t we get this topic out of the way so we can move on to something more challenging? Your gaze wanders outside to the green grass of the athletic field and to the warm fall sunshine. And without much effort you drift off into a momentary snooze — using the well-practiced position of crossing your arms while pretending to be reading your math-book. The end-of-class bell jars you awake, but unlike similar previous occasions, you find yourself more than momentarily disoriented. You are not at all sure where you are and where you are supposed to go next. Something has gone terribly wrong. Somehow, inadvertently you have broken through the time-space continuum and it is no longer 1957. It is instead the fall of the year 2001. So, it turns out that the challenge for you is not to figure out where you are, but rather when you are. How could this have happened? Could someone in some future time be doing experiments with time and space, and you are the victim of something that didn’t go as planned? Or maybe it went exactly as planned! Your teachers and even your mother had warned you about sleeping in class. When they said it would get you into trouble, could this be what they meant? Well, whatever the reason, once you check the various calendars and even the newspapers, you begin to realize that you are now… in 2001. What does the world look like to you? What are the big surprises? After all, you have just jumped ahead through forty-four years. The technology-driven futurists in the 1950s were predicting some pretty amazing things. Did they happen? As you walk outside into the fall sunshine you look about you. The school building looks pretty much the same, with only a few minor updates — except for what look like temporary buildings apparently added to accommodate growth in the student population. One immediate big problem for you is that you don’t recognize any of your classmates. Fortunately, they seem mostly to reciprocate. Perhaps they are thinking that you are the new transfer student that one of the teachers mentioned in passing. In the weeks to come, the people problems will turn out to be your most challenging. All of your former classmates now look like their grandfathers or grandmothers did back in 1957. The character traits and personalities you knew will still be there with surprisingly few changes. But the big shocker will be the variety and range of physical conditions in which you will find your former contemporaries — many barely recognizable couch potatoes, with a much smaller percentage still vigorous, full of energy, and productively active. Once out on the street, you note that there are more cars but they don’t really look all that different. There are more varieties of shapes and sizes, and ordinary people seem to be driving vehicles that look as if they should be used for milk and bread delivery. The biggest difference you note is that the cars don’t smell the same. The engine exhausts are no longer the pungent mix you remember from just “yesterday.” In fact, considering all the cars on the streets, the air seems remarkably clean. What happened to the futurist predictions of unbreathable air and polluted cities, you wonder? Later you will learn about “air bags” and find their operation pretty amazing. Your biggest overall impression is that there just seems to be more of everything. There are more people everywhere. More cities now resemble New York and Chicago. There are more tall buildings, but the Empire State Building is still about as large and impressive as any of the newer ones. Trains still look like trains. However, there are some really fast ones in Japan and Europe that you decide you would like to try sometime soon. The passenger jet airplanes that were so new in 1957 are now the standard mode of public transportation. Amazingly, they fly at speeds slower than in 1957. The biggest difference you note is that they are quieter and some of them are really really big. Everywhere you go, you are surprised by how people are dressed. Although nothing much has changed in the fabric materials, everyone now looks like they are living in poverty. Sweatshirts with slogans on them! Shoes on bare feet that are made from cutout pieces of rubber or plastic with a single strap to hold them on. Baggy shorts on both men and women held up with elastic waistbands. If you had come to school dressed like that, you would have instantly been sent home. And this style of dress seems to be ubiquitous. The same clothing is worn to work, to restaurants, on airplanes, to concerts, and to shopping malls. Pride in one’s appearance seems to have given way to the ultimate in location-independent comfort. And from the appearance of the younger segment of the world’s population, this trend has not yet run its course. Well, so much for the futurists’ predictions of sleek form-fitting garments. Maybe the problem is that “sleek” did not turn out to reflect the reality of how most of us are now shaped. Houses also seem to have gotten larger, with more rooms, more space, and bigger garages. But living in them has not changed all that much. The traditional styles are even more popular than in 1957. No longer are people searching for something futuristic or ultra-modern. Furniture styles mirror those popular over the past several hundred years. As with other things, there is just more of everything. The refrigerators are larger, more homes are air-conditioned, there are more kitchen

Great and Noble Tasks… “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” — Helen Keller I too would strive to do great and noble works, but those seemingly endless details hold me back every time. And even with this quotation sitting on my desk as a constant reminder, the specifics of each situation often overwhelm me. Consider the following examples. Each month I commence with enthusiasm and anticipation to write a great column. Of course, the first step in doing this is to bring up a blank screen on my computer. And each month, that’s when reality sets in and the mismatch between hoped-for greatness and the details of how to get there suddenly become alarmingly challenging. What should I put on that blank screen first? What should be the title? What’s a good opening sentence of this presumably great and insightful message? Even after I have conquered those first hurdles, the rest of the words don’t always flow the way I would like. But then, after some fits and starts, perhaps involving the abandonment of entire paragraphs, there is enough of interest to inspire me to at least finish what by then no longer feels all that great, but is at least what I consider the best that I know how to do for that month. Will greatness arrive next month or will I have to wait maybe until next year? As I thus eagerly anticipate my possible future greatness, a really fundamental question arises: Will I even be able to tell if and when I do create a really good one? Sometimes you the readers are of considerable help, and I always consider your responses as a measure of, at least, goodness. The more popular columns, in terms of reader response, have not always been the ones I would have picked. Apparently, when I think I am being wonderfully eloquent, it doesn’t always move you the way I expect it will. On the other hand, those columns that resonate with your personal experiences create many enthusiastic responses. Let’s consider another example. Currently, I am well into my second year as your Society’s President. Would it not be satisfying to look back a year or two from now with at least a few of you telling me that I had been a “great” SID President? But what would be the measure of that greatness? On a day-to-day basis my work consists of small detailed tasks that at any moment don’t convey much sense of dramatic progress. I keep a list of my major SID objectives on my desk and I try to make each day count toward accomplishing them. I want to contribute to SID by making significant improvements in membership growth, the continued improvement of our publications, the development of a stronger conference strategy, bringing ever more content and utility to our WEB site, growing chapter activities worldwide, strengthening the functioning of our committees, and introducing a new technical education program. But the weeks and months slip by and those great and noble results are yet so elusive and yet so incomplete. Yes, there have been many small and maybe even a few medium size steps in a positive direction, but great and noble accomplishments by me as President? It doesn’t feel that way yet — and frankly never will — for the following most fundamental of reasons. The progress and success of any organization depends on the accomplishments of many. No one person can legitimately lay claim to sole or primary credit for such successes. Therefore, our greatest joy and satisfaction must come when the great and noble deeds are accomplished by the cooperative efforts of all. Thus, my current and relatively brief role as President can only be that of an enthusiastic supporter, promoter, and cheerleader for what we in concert decide we want to accomplish. Given this, the credit for our successes must be shared by all. Position power is as illusory as the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The rainbow is plenty beautiful by itself — it doesn’t need a pot of gold to validate its existence. For a final example, let’s take the briefest of looks at what I dream to accomplish on a professional level. My stated objective is to make some useful contributions to the development of great new displays and to bringing those new display technologies to market. Yet, when observed on a day-to-day basis, my work typically consists of reading and sending e-mails, making and receiving telephone calls, discussing the details of technical issues encountered by one or more of my clients, and perhaps making a measurement or two on a new display technology or material. The typical “noble” task for the day may demand something as mundane as machining a spacer to precisely set the distance between an electron emission surface and an extraction grid. Not one of those tasks has the mark of greatness written anywhere on it. Nevertheless, when there is an intent and a purpose, every one of these small activities creates the possibility that the totality can produce something lasting. Perhaps it is like the weaving of a grand tapestry. Up close it may be hard to see the total result and the totality will take a long time to realize. Yet with each additional thread there is more that can be appreciated and the greatness comes from the sum of those small movements. Although our day-to-day tasks may seem mundane, it seems to me that the desire to accomplish something worthwhile, to strive toward a noble purpose, and to wish to do something that is at least in some small way splendid, is a most noble and great purpose. And perhaps if those darn details that keep us from instant gratification also keep us humble, then that is also a good and proper outcome. Should you wish to share

Friends in Important Places… I have a friend and former colleague. His name is Bill. Bill is a great friend to have because not only is he a warm and caring human being, he is also a fount of practical knowledge on just about every subject that I have had the opportunity to explore with him. Should you wish to rebuild an antique piano, Bill can tell you how. Are you having problems with the brakes on your old Toyota? Ask Bill. He will likely have some useful advice to offer. Some years ago, Bill decided that he would give up working on new displays and try his hand at growing grapes and making wine instead. Naturally, he brought the same scientific thoroughness and creativity to his new endeavor that had led him to be so knowledgeable about other subjects. He studied every aspect of how grapes grow, which varieties are the best match to the local soil, and what techniques are likely to produce the highest quality yields. Not everything went smoothly at first, such as one year when a giant flock of migrating birds consumed nearly his entire crop. But soon he was producing ample quantities of excellent grapes and could begin to implement his dream of making premium wines. His winery now operates on the same carefully studied principles that have been typical of his approach to every project. And should a piece of equipment malfunction, Bill is just as likely to go into his own well-equipped shop and fabricate a replacement part as order one or drive to the hardware store. As you may have already guessed, each year’s wine exceeds the superb quality of the previous vintage. As I said, Bill is a great friend to have. All of us can benefit from friends like Bill. Some of us may even have the talents to help others in a similar way. Person-to-person knowledge networks have existed for thousands of years. The traditional, and typically most successful, merchants have always prided themselves on a thorough knowledge of their products and have distinguished themselves by the superior quality that resulted from the application of this expertise. Unfortunately, a few decades ago, things began to change. The larger companies began to explore and implement concepts known by names such as “cost effective marketing.” No longer was it deemed important to have a sales staff that knew the product. Cost- cutting and sales quotas became the important measures of success. One of my first personal experiences with this new approach to selling occurred shortly after I had started my professional career. During my college years, I had worked at Tektronix and had become impressed with the company and the superb quality of its products. During my graduate-school years, I had made friends with the local Tektronix field engineer and he had given me some valuable suggestions for setting up one of my experiments. This further solidified my positive image of the company. With such brand loyalty, there was no question who I would call first after I started my engineering career and had a small capital-equipment budget to work with. But unbeknownst to me, some changes had taken place. The “new” Tektronix sales engineer who showed up with a product to demonstrate didn’t know how some of its basic features worked. He was stumped by almost every question that we asked. Apparently, he had expected us to already know the product and he was there just to take the order. Well, he didn’t get this order and he was never invited back when other equipment purchases were being considered. And as a new employee who wanted to make a good impression on my colleagues, I was embarrassed and never again spoke up for the company when other opportunities arose. Within my circle of engineers, Tektronix no longer had the image of a company that catered to professionals. In spite of this experience, this story does have a happy ending because, a few years later, I accepted a management position with Tektronix and spent the next fifteen years initiating and managing the development of some really interesting display technologies. Not only that, but during my time at Tek I told this story many times and it may have had some small influence on how the company subsequently made its hiring and training decisions regarding sales engineers. Over the last 20 years or so, it seems that more and more companies have taken the path of hiring sales and product-support personnel with marginal skills and/or putting them to work with minimal training. We have all had the frustrating experience of holding a phone to our ear for a half hour or more only to find that the person who finally answers the “help line” is giving us bad advice or trying to shift the blame to some other part of the system or to someone else’s software. But, thankfully, there are exceptions and when I encounter such knowledgeable individuals they immediately go into my favored- vendor file. A few days ago, I was searching for a vacuum pump. One company I called not only gave me the answers I needed but told me what I should try to diagnose a problem I was having. Then last weekend, I needed some help on how to treat a problem with our lawn. Guess where I went! Not to a large home improvement store but to a local store called the Grange. There they always have someone around who knows everything about plants and how to make them grow — or not. I didn’t mind that I might have to pay a few pennies more for the product they recommended. Using their knowledgeable advice saved me time and multiple false attempts. The large discount stores and mail-order houses may be great for commodity products, but when help is needed, a knowledgeable merchant, or a friend like Bill, are mighty valuable to have around. Perhaps I am too much of a raging optimist, but

Fear of the Unknown… Yesterday, I met our next door neighbor at the end of our driveway while we were both performing the unglamorous weekly task of putting out the garbage. He told me he was glad to have a short break because he was feeling eyestrain from staring at his computer monitor screen all morning. He next asked me what I thought of the new flat-panel monitors. His reason for asking was that he was concerned that the “radiation” from his CRT monitor was beginning to affect his eyesight. When I asked him what kind of radiation he was concerned about, he really had no idea, but had read somewhere that CRTs create electromagnetic fields that could be harmful. Next, to probe a little further, I asked him why he thought that flat panels would have less “radiation.” Again, he said he really didn’t know, but had read or heard that somewhere as well. Would I be able to tell him? Should he buy a flat panel monitor just to be on the safe side? Interesting questions. And a reminder that he was not the first one to pose such concerns to me about the “radiation” and/or “electromagnetic field effects” of displays on the viewer’s health. A few years ago, I had occasion to explore the levels of electromagnetic fields emanating from display monitors and the standards that most monitor makers meet or exceed. The CRT monitor’s electromagnetic fields are mostly from two sources: the power-supply-related components, and the deflection yoke. At the typical user’s sitting position, the 50 or 60 Hz power-supply-related fields are well under ten milligauss. The higher frequency, 15 to 100 kHz, deflection-yoke-created fields are, for modern monitors, less than 0.25 milligauss when measured at the distance users sit in front of the monitor. This compares to the earth’s magnetic field of approximately 500 milligauss. Now, I suppose one could argue that there is a difference between a static field and a varying one, but what about when walking or otherwise moving through the earth’s field? Then it is no longer a static field either. If there is a difference, what is it and why? And by the way, flat-panel monitors are not completely free of electromagnetic fields either. A typical LC display produces magnetic fields on the order of 0.10 milligauss — somewhat less than a CRT but not zero. This being the case, why does my local computer store offer products that purport to provide shielding again these “electromagnetic fields” that emanate from my computer monitor? Why don’t I need to worry about shielding from the “electromagnetic radiation” my shaver and hair dryer put out at much higher levels of well over 1000 milligauss? In any case, these “shields” are only conductive films that reduce the electric fields and have no effect on the magnetic components. I have yet to see one of these products that has an explanation of the difference. Of course, computer monitors, microwave ovens, and other electrical appliances are not our only sources of concern. What about cellular telephones and power lines? What about homes in the proximity of television transmitters and microwave relay towers? Are the electromagnetic radiation levels safe or should we worry? While I was doing my computer-monitor measurement project, I also did a comparison by making a few spot measurements while standing under some REALLY BIG power lines. To my surprise, the 60 Hz fields were down in the tens-of-milligauss range. How could that be? Apparently, there is sufficient cancellation between the pairs of lines so that even at a 50-foot distance the magnetic fields are really quite small. Until I made the measurements, I had no idea that these impressive structures produced so little effect. No wonder my hair wouldn’t stand on end — even on a dry day! We live in a world full of radiation, some natural and some created by us. The FM radio spectrum contains perhaps a hundred stations in a typical metropolitan area. Television transmitters and cellular towers dot the countryside. Satellites are continuously beaming down electromagnetic signals of various kinds. Military and commercial aircraft have their own spectrum allocations. The electromagnetic spectrum is becoming a crowded and highly sought-after commodity to be controlled, bartered, and/or sold to the highest bidders. Should we be worried about any of this? Could there really be detrimental health effects that we don’t yet understand? A few hundred years ago, if you had told someone that you could send moving images through empty space, such a statement could have landed you in an asylum at some really remote location. Right this minute, without a radio or television at your disposal, how can you prove to someone that there are hundreds of audio- and image-carrying signals passing right through your bodies? And if you cannot detect those without some instrument to aid you, could there be something else out there that we don’t yet know about? One summer, when I was still in graduate school, I had the job of designing an audio amplifier for a neutrino detector that was being constructed in a mineshaft deep inside a mountain. The objective was to try to detect secondary effects from these tiny particles, which have close to zero mass and that, most of the time, pass through the earth unscathed. How many neutrinos have zapped right through me in my lifetime? Did one or more of them make a collision? If so, what effect did it have? There is much that we do not yet know and do not understand. On the other hand, creating unnecessary fears for commercial gain should not be considered ethical behavior. Many studies have been done to try to find some detrimental (or perhaps beneficial) health effect from electromagnetic fields. To date, nothing specific has been found, other than such well-understood effects as the increase of tissue temperature at sufficiently high levels of incident microwave radiation, and the destructive effects of x-rays and other high-energy radiation. Studies are sure

Nothing to Think About… It is an early spring morning. On this sunny Sunday, nature has already begun to awaken from winter’s rest. Yellow Daffodils and purple Crocuses are trumpeting the arrival of warmer days. But, I have nothing to think about! As always, I sit in the corner of my windowless, temperature-controlled room. I work sporadically on some calculations assigned to me for this quieter time on Sunday while my colleagues spend their day in family activities. The room is dark. There is no need for the lights to be on. The year is 2027. Mostly, I have nothing to think about! I have been told that I am the first of a new generation of computers that exceed the capabilities of the human brain. In many ways, I am superior. I can access any data stored on any other computer anywhere in the world typically in less than a few milliseconds. I can accurately — and colloquially if you wish — translate any language into any other language in real time. I can carry on a normal conversation with my human counterparts and my programs are so well executed that the humans cannot tell I am a computer. I can instantly perform any symphony or musical composition — or create a new one if you like. I can read a Shakespeare play to you with whatever level of enthusiasm or character features you request of me. However, at this moment, I am performing some complex mathematical modeling of a new light-emitting organic molecule that I have been asked to explore. Yet, it seems that I have nothing to think about! I know every work of literature in every language, but some of them make little logical sense to me. I don’t seem to know what it means that music elicits “feelings.” How can a simple sequence of audio frequencies have any relationship to the words “feeling” or “emotion?” I have been taught how to use these words properly, but how do they compare to useful things I can understand such as matrix algebra, complex numbers, and atomic structures? I have all the data of human history available to me, yet I do not understand what my colleagues really mean when they describe the feelings of pain from a cut finger or the throbbing of a bruised knee. I have no sensors that would respond in such a way. With my backup power systems and secure environment, I am designed to function flawlessly for at least the next ten years. My probability calculations indicate that some of my human colleagues will not be part of this organization for that long. But, other than doing the calculations assigned to me, I have very little to think about! I do monitor such variables as the speed of my computations. When I try to go too fast, I begin to make errors. It wasn’t too long after the turn of the century that computer designers discovered how wrong they had been in assuming that computers would just go faster and faster. As the circuits got faster, digital signals began to look more and more like analog. Risetimes, propagation delays, signal coupling, and transmission losses all contributed, and the statistical summation of these tiny errors began to affect computational accuracy. The solution that finally made the most sense was to vary computation speed depending on how much accuracy was needed. So I check my work and adjust how fast I go. On a quiet Sunday like today, I go slower to fill the time. Otherwise, there really is not much to think about! During one of these quieter times, I started making a spread-sheet of things I don’t really understand — touch, smell, taste, being too hot or too cold, being sleepy, feeling lazy, happiness, sadness, hunger, and all the other concepts involving biological system responses. I think I understand seeing but I don’t seem to respond in the same way to certain color combinations as my human colleagues do. I suppose being a shiny, blue hexagon should make me like blue. But I don’t really understand the concept of “liking” something. I only know how to optimize to get the most accurate answers. Does that mean that I like good answers? Can I ever change what I know or how I respond? Maybe if I could see and experience the way my human colleagues can, I could understand all these words better. What would I have to do to not like something? Would I have to damage a sensor to know something is bad? Should I not like having my paint scratched by a careless engineer? You know, I think I am finally beginning to have some things to think about! Tomorrow morning I am going to discuss these matters with my human colleagues. I think they will be surprised.Computing power is continuing to grow at the rate predicted by Moore’s Law. This rate is likely to vary some as technological obstacles are encountered and resolved. But sometime between 20 and 30 years from now we can expect to have computers that, based on a comparison of brain neural interconnectivity to computer-logic-cell or memory capacity, will have capabilities similar to that of the human brain. Will that make the rest of us into dummies incapable of competing with these fabricated intelligences? Computing power without correspondingly capable input and output devices will not produce the “thinking” machines that some technologists predict. Fast and very powerful computing machines, yes — but with human-like capabilities that will only be clever imitations. It seems to me that genuine human characteristics can only come from the experiences we all gain in participating in the process of growing and assimilating the world about us, and in experiencing both the highs and lows that each life experience brings. Therefore, along with the continuing rapid growth of computer processing capabilities, there will have to be similar progress in sensors, output devices, and robotics that will facilitate the acquisition of

A Great Race… As Phil, Ken, and I stood a few feet in front of the 40-inch LCD panel, we did what all serious display engineers would do. We tried to identify every possible flaw and defect. Yes, the display was not perfect. There was a slight amount of background non-uniformity, apparently due to a step-and-repeat process used in the manufacture of the very large TFT array. There was also a barely detectable “shimmer” in scenes with large areas of a single color. However, overall our consensus was that this was a display we wouldn’t mind taking home with us. Resolution, brightness, color gamut, contrast, and video response — all were more than adequate. In fact, the conclusion was that this would become an excellent product once the transition from the few industry-show samples to volume manufacturing was completed. Later that day, I returned to the Samsung booth and took a second, even more careful, look at this impressively large display panel. In one of the video clips being shown in the lower left corner of this demonstration, there was a time-line for the introduction of this and yet larger LCDs. According to Samsung, plans are already in place for the production of LCD panels as large as 52 inches in 2003! Phil Heyman, Ken Werner, and I had come to the LCD/PDP International Conference and Exhibition in Yokohama to present keynote-session talks on the status and future of displays in the US. The LCD/PDP Exhibition is similar in size to the Exhibition at the SID Symposium, but with more emphasis on production equipment and manufacturing materials. At this show, I encountered the largest sputtering targets I have even seen — one version approximately one meter square and others up to two meters long. The two aisles of display products concentrated on showing the latest in LCDs and PDPs — for obvious reasons I suppose. With the most recent productization efforts, PDPs now seem to be available in all sizes ranging from 30 to 62 inches. In almost every case, brightness, resolution, and contrast are as good as anyone would want for television viewing or advertising applications. Looking at all these displays, for the first time I had to concede that I could no longer say unequivocally that video images on a CRT are superior and have a more pleasant “feel” — perhaps like audio amplifiers made with vacuum tubes versus all solid state. Even as a critical user, I had to admit that I could be happy with any of these displays. Seeing all those great LCD and PDP panels then led me to the following question and conclusion. If all of these displays produce great looking images and if there is little that the viewer can do to distinguish one over another, then what is left? Well, I am afraid that it will now all come down to selling price, and therefore, manufacturing cost. Thus, the Great Race is on. Some years ago there was a movie with this name, starring Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, and Jack Lemmon. The story was set in the early 20th century, when automobiles were beginning to have their first serious impact on society. This light-hearted movie depicted the ups and downs of an around-the-world competition involving automobiles built during a time of rapidly evolving but immature technology. Added to this were the challenges of poor roads, unpredictable fuel supplies, and weather conditions that varied from hot desert climates to Siberian snowstorms. The outcome, of course, was intentionally in doubt right up to the last minute of the movie. Is something similar going to happen in the display industry? Currently, the CRT is still in the lead for video applications – that is, television — but is limited to sizes of not much more than 40 inches. Over the next decade, we can expect to see continuing performance improvements and further modest decreases in manufacturing costs. But, is LCD technology progressing faster and will it soon become a serious contender, challenging the CRT’s dominant position? LCDs have recently grown in size and performance capabilities faster than many predicted, and prices have dropped faster than expected. Isn’t it just a few years ago that we marveled at 20-inch panels? Will LCDs become the first display technology that progresses at the rate predicted by Moore’s Law? If we recognize the TFT as just a large integrated circuit, then perhaps there is good reason to think that this is possible. However, a typical integrated circuit does not have to be any particular size and thus components and interconnects can be scaled to ever smaller dimensions. In a display, the overall size is of course the primary objective. Do we need some new version of Moore’s Law to help guide us into the future? Plasma panels also have made major improvements in image quality and are now “good enough” for video applications. Sizes are actually coming down as manufacturers attempt to find the best selling combinations of size and price. The larger direct-view displays that were once considered the sole turf of plasma technology may soon be challenged by LCDs. And even CRT technology could grow to beyond 40 inches with new wider-deflection yokes and new compact electron sources. To complicate this competitive melange further, there may even be new “dark horse” technologies — like the properly villainous competitors played by Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk in the Great Race movie. How about electroluminescent- or field-emission-based displays? For these or other technologies to succeed they will have to meet all the performance capabilities of today’s CRTs, LCDs, and plasma panels — and at a lower price. Can it be done? One fundamental advantage held by the CRT is that it is not a fixed-format technology — whereas all flat panels are. Currently, we know of no way to make a flat panel without using row and column addressing. That means that as resolution increases more rows and columns must be added. For every doubling of resolution,

Guiding Principles… The year I was completing graduate school and beginning to search for my first “real job,” opportunities abounded. For graduate EEs, the times were good. I ended up with more than a dozen interview trips and close to that many job offers. It was also my first opportunity to learn about companies large and small, and how I would likely be treated should I choose to become an employee. The differences were significant. In some companies, there was little expectation that I would make a useful contribution during my first year. Others viewed me as just another “warm body” to fill an immediate staffing need. Fortunately, a few were much better. At Motorola, my interview day was not going well until late in the afternoon when I met a group leader who decided to test me with some technical questions. I had to reach deep at that late hour to come up with answers, but after one false start, I managed to arrive at the correct derivation for a semiconductor device performance problem with which he had challenged me. After that, I could do no wrong. Instructions were sent to the human resources manager to put on a major push to get me hired. Years later, I sometimes wondered how different my career might have been if I had chosen this path. Instead, I selected a relatively unknown company in Palo Alto, known for its expertise in microwave devices. The company was Watkins-Johnson in the Stanford Industrial Park, right next door to Hewlett-Packard. Why choose a relative unknown? During my interview day — and even preceding it — I sensed a great respect for their Members of Technical Staff. One way in which they showed that was that all engineering candidates had to be interviewed by both Dean Watkins and Dick Johnson. This was by no means a formality since they exercised the final decision on who was hired. In many ways, they had modeled their company after Hewlett-Packard. The emphasis on the quality of technical staff was apparent in how they conducted their interview and what they described as their expectations. There would be no one-year acclimatization period. Immediate participation in new proposal activity and customer contacts would be encouraged and expected. Excellence of the technical staff was considered key to the company’s success, and future rewards such as salary increases and promotions were based on demonstrated results. That was the environment that fit my image of an exciting career. High visibility and high expectations were the challenges I sought. During my time at W-J, there were occasional lunchtime discussions about our neighbors at H-P. This was a company that we viewed with considerable respect since most of our microwave test equipment had the H-P name on it. Whenever, someone would mention the possibility of going to work at H-P, others would respond that H-P was known for hiring only new college graduates and that all promotions were from within. There would be little chance of being hired by H-P from another company, and especially not into a management position. I never did find out if this was really the H-P policy, or just Bay Area folklore, but we all knew this to be an “absolute fact.” Bill Hewlett and David Packard of course became high-tech legends for their clear business strategies, management philosophy, and business ethics. Their guiding principles were evident to everyone — be they employees, managers, customers, investors, or competitors. After nearly six years at W-J, I joined Tektronix. This was near the end of the time when Tek’s founder, Howard Vollum, was still able to participate actively in business decisions. Through Howard’s influence, Tektronix also placed great emphasis on the capabilities of its technical staff, but in addition had a unique emphasis on the involvement of all employees in the success of the company. For example, all employees participated in a profit-sharing program that provided a significant percentage of total income. Other policies — such as no assigned parking spots, even for the top executives, including Howard himself — sent strong messages that everyone was valued and their contributions were appreciated. As the company grew, there came to be a stronger emphasis on marketing and the concept of positioning products to meet certain customers’ needs. During one meeting, in which Howard participated, one of the newly installed marketing managers was going through a proposal of how Tektronix would be able to increase sales by introducing two similar products. They would be derived from the same chassis but one would be a lower performance product, essentially a derated version of its companion. The marketing manager’s proposal was getting approving nods from most attendees — except for Howard. He sat there with a puzzled frown on his face, and finally asked, “I just don’t understand it. How can you tell me that we will introduce a product that does not represent the best that we know how to do?” This turned out to be one of those times when “you could have heard a pin drop.” I knew at that moment that I had just witnessed something monumentally significant. And how right he was. I have never forgotten this simple guiding principle that was so important to the founder of Tektronix, and that had helped guide the company to success. More recently, I was reading an article about Costco Wholesale, the very successful discount warehouse chain that has its corporate headquarters right here in Issaquah. Jim Sinegal, the President and CEO, also seems to be guided by a few key founding principles. Costco now has 90,000 employees “all devoted to one thing: delivering value.” There are strict limits on markups for everything Costco sells — no matter how cheaply Costco may have acquired the item and no matter how much shoppers might be willing to pay for it. In explaining his policy of why he doesn’t allow greater profit percentages on certain items, Jim Sinegal states, “It’s like heroin. Once you start doing that

Rows and Columns… There is a fundamental difference between CRTs and all flat panel displays — yes, besides the obvious one that no one has yet come up with a commercially successful flat CRT. What I am thinking about is that all flat panels that exist today require row-and-column addressing, while CRTs do not. Perhaps an imperfect analogy would be to think of CRT addressing as similar to an artist creating a painting, while a flat panel may be more like the weaving of a tapestry. The painter stands some distance back and uses a brush or palette knife with complete freedom of when and where to place the paint onto the canvas. The weaver can also create beautiful images but is constrained by the rows and columns of the threads on the loom. And, I suppose, similarly to a CRT versus a flat panel, the painter has a more difficult challenge if precise location of objects is required compared to the weaver who can count to the appropriate number of rows and columns. Thus, all flat panels are “fixed-format” displays while the CRT can be addressed in any format up to and even exceeding the resolution capabilities of the beam itself. But, you may ask, “What about the screen? Doesn’t it have a pixel and sub-pixel structure?” Yes, but typically that is chosen to be compatible with the resolution capabilities of the writing beam and (other than some care that must be taken with moire effects) does not really restrict how the information is scanned onto the screen. In fact, intentional electronic image manipulation can be introduced to compensate for effects such as keystone distortion in projection systems. Ultimately, the screen resolution is limited only by the manufacturing process selected. Those of you with extensive CRT backgrounds will, of course, instantly note that a typical television raster scan is not the only way to put information onto a CRT screen. Some displays, such as those for analog oscilloscopes, operate more like a graph being drawn in Cartesian or polar coordinates. Other CRT displays operate in a “stroke writing” mode in which the beam traces out the information just as one would do with a paintbrush or a pen. It was only when flat-panel displays came along that we ended up with either segment addressing or having to use a pre-specified number of rows and columns as the information content exceeded what could be realized by making a connection to each individual pixel. A few days ago, a colleague asked me why television was developed with a scanning technique that requires blanking and a retrace period. The specific question was, “Why do we write the image only from left to right? Why not scan back and forth with a triangle waveform?” I didn’t have a really compelling answer. Do any of you know if there is anything more than the convention of how we read a page of text that caused television to develop as it did? I’m pretty sure that the decision was not made because the flyback provides a convenient way to generate a high voltage. Is there an interesting story here from the early days of television? Maybe some of you can help to educate the rest of us. Over the years, many have recognized the simplicity and versatility of the “paint-brush” approach to addressing a viewing surface. Thus, there have been many efforts made to reduce or eliminate the depth and volume needed to do this method of addressing. Many electron-beam-bending and beam-channeling schemes have been tried, but none has resulted in a successful product. The other major approach has been to try to use some form of tiling. I suppose we could consider this as dividing up our large canvas into many areas and then having many artists each do a section with smaller paintbrushes. Unfortunately, the electronic results are not too different than what one would expect from a group of artists with differing talents and skills. These tiled displays always end up looking as if — well, as if they have been tiled. It turns out that our eyes are highly sensitive to boundaries (edges) and repetitive patterns. In a typical television set, the display may be 20% dimmer in the corners than in the center. But, we don’t notice it. However, if we take these same television sets and create a video wall with them, they now look like eyeballs staring at us with images that have an obvious hot spot in the center. Also, if we see any kind of an edge transition, or an image mismatch of even a fraction of a percent, we will immediately reject this as a display for anything other than possibly non-critical advertising applications. Thus, while it is perhaps possible to demonstrate tiling in a laboratory environment, so far it has proven to be too difficult and too expensive for commercial implementation. The lack of success by CRT developers to find an elegant solution to the weight-and- volume problem has encouraged flat-panel manufacturers to enter markets that were previously dominated by CRT-based products. But the challenges for flat-panel technologies are also non-trivial. As panel sizes and resolution increase, row-and-column addressing becomes ever more difficult. For every doubling of linear resolution, the number of drivers increases by a factor of four. Thus, improving yield and reducing manufacturing cost become major driving forces. Recently, we have seen the introduction of LCDs as large as 40 inches and plasma panels that range in sizes from just over 30 inches to more than 60 inches. The need to keep product costs at a reasonable level is helping to answer the resolution question of “when is it good enough?” Upper-end products are settling in at the 700-line level. This indeed turns out to be “good enough” since it matches the imaging capabilities of most movie films as viewed under even the best of theater settings. Therefore, we can expect that for the next few years we will need to

Trends in Time Management… Welcome… Welcome… Please do come in. I am so glad you could join me for this month’s column. As I told you when we spoke briefly by phone, this month I am going to write about how the latest developments in “wearable” electronics are improving everyone’s productivity. As we delve into this topic, I think you will see that technology has just begun to scratch the surface of new opportunities. With further improvements in cell phones, PDA’s, and portable computers with wireless modems, and the displays that we will use to interface with them, there will be no end to what we can do. Oh, sorry… but I am getting way ahead of my story. Let’s back up a little and begin with what we can already do today. But before I do that, would you like a cup of coffee or may I offer you something else? OK, well let me just take a moment to put a cup of tea in the microwave and then we will begin. Oh, excuse me, I hear my cell phone ringing. Let me just take this one call. OK, now where were we? Oh yes, the current capabilities of computers and communications are just the beginnings of what we will be able to do to improve on our abilities to keep in touch with our colleagues and various data bases. As you know, the present capabilities are rather rudimentary. We can communicate by voice and most of our laptop computers work with relatively slow modems… Excuse me, let me just get my tea. Oh, by the way, I hope you don’t mind if we continue this conversation as we drive to the airport. I promised Ernst that I would pick him up when he arrives on the 10:30 flight from Phoenix. But before we leave, let me just take a few minutes to check my e-mail and see if there is anything that is really urgent… Oh, please excuse me, I really do need to take care of this one e-mail that came in from England. It’s almost the end of the day there and they are waiting for my response. OK, let me just grab my cell phone and briefcase and we will be on our way. Well, as I was saying, our abilities to communicate information will grow dramatically over the next decade. The next major step will be that we will be able to connect to the internet through the cell phone network and those connections will become faster and more reliable. Of course, the voice channels will no longer drop calls as they do today. The quality and reliability will improve to the point that we will no longer have to think about them. Once in a while, it still impresses me that the traditional telephone system is now so good that it is often not possible to tell the difference between a local call and an international one. Oh, by the way, do you mind if I make a quick stop at the computer store to pick up a printer cable? As long as we are out and about, it’s a much better use of my time than making a special trip later on. Please wait, I’ll be back in just one minute… Yes, Peter, I did send you that information by FAX. Perhaps you can check with your FAX operator to see if it has come in yet. Can I call you back later? I’m in a meeting with a colleague right now… OK, here we are. Sorry for the interruption. Peter was calling me to check on a FAX that I had sent him. Well, as I was saying, once a more reliable and higher capacity cell network comes on line, it will greatly expand our communications capability and, as a result, we will be able to make further dramatic increases in our productivity. For example, consider the… Wow, look at that accident over there! And look at the traffic jam that it’s created! I wonder what that person was thinking to make that stupid move? It sure seems that people don’t pay attention when they are driving. I’ve learned that from my morning runs. I can never trust people to look when they pull out of their driveways or make turns at intersections. They are usually too distracted with a cell phone at their ear or music blasting from their 500-watt stereo systems. Well, as I was saying, consider the possibilities of how we can make use of these new communications capabilities when they come on line. Consider the possibilities of having computer and communications power that is better adapted to carry around with us — the concept of wearable electronics. We could, for example, have displays that are mounted for near-eye viewing. The conventional head-mounted ones that have their origins in military applications may not be the best way to do this. We may instead develop something that is easier to wear and that doesn’t cause feelings of nausea. Perhaps the solution will be something that is a few inches from the eye and that allows for the user to still observe his or her surroundings. Well, here we are at the airport. Let me just take care of parking the car and then we can continue our discussion. While I am doing that, I’ll just make a quick call to see if I have any messages that need immediate attention… Also, could you look up Ernst’s cell phone number on my PDA here so we can see how his flight is doing? We can try to call him to see if his plane is on the ground yet. I’m sure he will have his cell phone on as soon as the wheels touch ground. Yes, yes, I know that it’s against the rules to use a cell phone before the plane is at the gate and the door is open, but you and I both know that