The Exciting and Stimulating, but Invisible Engineering Profession as a career option.

1. 1v2
Prof. Ian Phillips
Principal Staff Eng’r,
ARM Ltd
ian.phillips@arm.com
Visiting Prof. at ...
Contribution to Industry
Award 2008
St Edmunds College, Ware
6feb12
1

2. Who is this Prof. Ian Phillips CEng. FIET?
 1960 (11): Failed my 11+ exam and went to Secondary Mod.
 1964: (15) I left school with no paper qualifications
 1965: (16) Took a 4yr Craft Apprenticeship in Electronics
 I did my Ordinary National Certificate (ONC) in day-release
 1970: (21) Went to University (Swansea), needing to take an
extra year because I didn’t have enough qualifications.
 I left with a First Class Honours (1 of 2 in the class of 40)
 1974: (25) I started as a Graduate R&D Engineer with Pye TMC
( ) g y
 1975: (26) Married; first house (+mortgage); and baby son.
All the attributes of a “grown up” ...
 ...
For the next 37yrs I was busy with my challenging and exciting
family and career
 ...
 2012: (62) I stand here today to apologise to you ...
... I’ve been having so much fun that I didn’t think Ian Phillips
about ‘you’ or ‘your careers’ at all!
you your careers C1975
2

3. Our 21c World ...
 Statistics ...
 Population ~7,000,000,000
 Growth rate ~2%pa
 Life expectancy 60-80yr
... Mission: Celebrity, Leisure
3

4. Engineering in the UK ...
... E i
Engineering h made th world we li i yet most people can’t see it !
i has d the ld live in; t t l ’t
4

5. Pre-Engineered World (2,500 BC - 800 AD.)
 World Stats ...
 Population ~100K ->1M (Outnumbered by everything)
 Growth rate ~0.1%pa
 Life expectancy 30-40yr
... Mission: Survive and Grow
 Technology ...
 Low stone wall for a base,
 Wooden poles and rafters
rafters.
 Thatch, turf, or hides for roof.
 Timber split using 'wedges
 Sharp stones for knives
... 3,500yrs of: “If it was good enough for my father’s,
father’s, father’s, father; its good enough for me!
, , ; g g
5

6. Chronology of Science / Engineering Universe – 13.6Byr
Earth – 4.5Byr
 Cro-Magnon Man (Us!) – 35,000 yr ago
 ‘Developed’ from Homo-Sapien (Wise Human) 100,000 yr ago
 Mission: Survive Nature (1 000 generations)
(1,000
 The Philosophers – 2,500-1,000 yr ago
 Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, ...
 Mission: Understanding Nature
 The Scientists – 1,000-500 yrs ago
 Galileo Descartes (1000 ad)
Galileo, Descartes,
 Electricity - William Gilbert (1600ad)
 Mission: Manipulation of Nature
 The Engineers – 260 yrs ago
 Industrial Revolution (1750: 8 gen’n)
 Year 0: Science Meets Exploitation
 Mission: Exploitation of Nature
... Economic (and Population) Explosion
Thomas Telford’s Iron Bridge (1778), Ironbridge, UK
6

7. The Industrial Revolution (1750)
 Exploitation of Nature
 Unleashing the Power of Science, by delivering it in ways that satisfied a
Volume Need ... We now call this Business. Business
 It began in the United Kingdom, then spread throughout Europe, North
America, and eventually the world.
 Major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and
technology
 Mechanisation of the textile industries,
 Development of iron-making techniques
 Trade expansion through canals, improved roads and railways.[5]
 Steam power, water wheels and powered machinery
 Profound effect on socio-economic and cultural conditions
... For the first time in history (13.6Byr), the living standards of the masses of
y( y) g
ordinary people underwent sustained growth
7

8. Manipulating Atomic Properties of Matter
 Electronic Technology is ...
...The Most Exciting thing mankind has created in 35kyr !
Early Electronics The First Transistor (1947) Modern Transistor
y
~70 yrs
It is very clever ...
... But it s not magic and it’s a very long-way from the simplest life-form.
it’s it s long way life form.
8

9. Moore’s Law: c1965
 “Moore's Law” was coined by Carver Mead in 1970, from Gordon
Moore's article in Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965 "Cramming more
components onto integrated circuits .
circuits“
“The complexity for minimum
p y
component costs has increased at a rate
of roughly a factor of two per year ...
Certainly over the short term this rate can be
expected to continue, if not to increase. Over
t dt ti tt i O
the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit
more uncertain, although there is no reason to
believe it will not remain nearly constant for at
y f
least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number
of components per integrated circuit for
minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such
allarge circuit can be b ilt on a single wafer”
i it b built i l f ”
Gordon Moore, Founder of Intel
In 1965 he was designing ICs with ~50 transistors!
g g
Moore’s Law has held for nearly 50 years ... Taking us to 100B transistor ICs
9

10. 1975: No Electronics in Most Things
GPO Type 706 Telephone
Vauxhall Viva HB SL90
10

11. 1975: Transistor (Solid state) Electronics
 Domestically we had...  Professionally we had a
 Portable Radio bit more ...
 Pocket Calculator ...  Radar
 Colour TV  Transmitters
 Hi-Fi  TV Cameras
... That’s about all!  Basic radio satellites
 Undersea cables
(phone)
 First desk-top computers
TI SR 51 Calculator
c1978
1978
IBM 220PX c1980
1980
BeoVision 3500 c1975 Stuart 5 Transistor Radio
1975
11

12. The Power of an Exponential ...
X
s/Chip (M)
r/PM (K)
Transistors
Transistor
ITRS’99
 20Billi Transistors for £7 (1 ff)
20Billion T i t f (1off)
12

13. 2012: Electronic Systems Everywhere...
13

14. Electronics: An Irresistible Trend ...
 Electronic Systems ...
 Get Smarter
The Internet of Things
g
 Get S ll /Ch
G t Smaller/Cheaper
100 Billion
 Get Pervasive
 Talk to One Another
 Need no Attention
Mobile Internet
 Cease To Be Noticeable 10 Billion
 Work Better
W kB Desktop
D kt
Units
Internet
PC 1 Billion
100M
Mini
2nd Era
Mainframe 10M
1M 1st Era Cost
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
14

15. Putting ‘Smart’ into Electronic Systems …
15

16. Integrated Transistors in 2012 ...
Modelled ‘views’ of a 30 x 30 nm transistor
Asen Assenov
a.asenov@elec.gla.ac.uk
gh
notes 2km hig
£1B is a stack of £50 n
 3,000 transistors will sit side-by-side in the
thickness of a bank-note!
 A Few Hundred Billion (1011) will fit on a chip!
s
... How do we Design the circuit for connecting
100B transistors? Its all about R
t i t ? It ll b t Reuse! !
16

17. The ARM RISC-Processor Core
ADDR[31:0]
Address
Incrementer Scan
Debug
Address Register Incrementer Control
P CFGBIGEND
C CLK
CLKEN
PC Update WRITE
Register Bank Instruction SIZE[1:0]
Decoder
Decode
Stage
St nIRQ
nFIQ
A A B Instruction nRESET
Multiplier B Decompression and ABORT
L B
U u u TRANS
B s s
PROT
u Barrel Control LOCK
s Shifter Logic
CPnOPC
CPnCPI
Write Data Read Data CPA
32 Bit ALU CPB
Register Register
WDATA[31:0] RDATA[31:0]
17

18. The ‘Lego-Brick’ Chip-Design Concept
nVidea Tegra3
ARM
ARM
ARM ARM
ARM ARM
18

19. More and More Systems on a Chip
Users require a pocket ‘Super-Computer’ ...
 Silicon Technology Provides a few-Billion raw transistors ...
 ARM’s IP makes it Practical to utilise them ...
• 10 Programmable Processors
• 4 x A9 Processors (2x2):
• 4 x MALI 400 Fragment Proc:
• 1 x MALI 400 Vertex Proc
Proc.
• 1 x MALI Video CoDec
• Software Stacks, OS’s and
Design Tools/
• ARM Technology gives
chip/system designers a
good start. Design Reuse ...
start
• Improves Productivity
• Improves TTM
• I
Improves Quality/Certainty
Q lit /C t i t
19

20. ARM Technology
 Electronic System products incorporate
more and more ARM technology –Processor,
Multimedia
and Software IP
Processor IP – Design of the
brain of the chip
Physical IP – Design of the building
blocks of the chip
f
Software & Development tools
... 800 Partners; 600 Licences in 200 Companies
... Millions of developers; Billions of users
20

21. The World’s Favourite IP Provider
 1990 - "A barn in Cambridge"
 12 engineers, in Cambridge
 No Revenue, No Patents
 Cash from Apple & VLSI
 Spin out of Acorn UK ...
Spin-out
 BBC Computers in Schools (1981)
 Roots in Uo.Cambridge (c1975)
... A Dream to become the Global
Standard for Embedded CPUs
 2012 - "The worlds leading IP Product"
 Powering >90% of the Smart Electronic Systems in the world
 7B CPU shipped iin 2011 ... G th ~25%pa; 40B t t l ( 50 all PC !)
CPUs hi d Growth 25% total (>50x ll PCs!)
 FTSE 100 company: Revenue ~£491M, PBT ~37%, R&D ~30%
 Cambridge HQ: 25 offices/labs 2000 people ww (850 in the UK)
g p p ( )
 95% revenue is foreign earnings
21

22. The Technology in an iConic Product ...
22

23. ... Cool Design
23

24. ... Actual Design is at Many Levels ...
24

25. Inside the Case ...
Down 1-Level: Modules
iPhone 4's vibrator motor. rear-facing 5 MP camera with
720p video at 30 FPS, tap to
focus feature, and LED flash.
,
25 Source ... http://www.ifixit.com

26. Inside the Case ...
Down 1-Level:
Modules
The Control Board.
26 Source ... http://www.ifixit.com

27. Inside The Control Board (b-side)
Down 2-Levels: Sub-Assemblies
 Visible Design-Team Members ...
 Samsung (flash memory) - (ARM Partner)
 Cirrus Logic (audio codec) - (ARM Partner)
g ( ) ( )
 AKM (Magnetic Sensor)
 Texas Instruments (Touch Screen Controller and mobile DDR) - (ARM Partner)
 Invisible Design-Team Members ...
g
 Software Tools, OS & Drivers, GSM Security; Graphics, Video and Sound ...
 Manufacturing, Assembly, Test, Certification ...
27 Source ... http://www.ifixit.com

28. Inside The Control Board (a-side)
Down 2-Levels: Sub-Assemblies
 Visible Design-Team Members...
 A4 PProcessor, specified b A l d i
ifi d by Apple, designed and manufactured b S
d d f t d by Samsung ...
 The central unit that provides the iPhone 4 with its GP computing power.
 Reported to contain ARM A8 600 MHz CPU (other ARM CPUs and IP)
 ST-Micro (3 axis gyroscope) - (ARM Partner)
 Broadcom (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS) - (ARM Partner)
 Skyworks (GSM)
 Triquint (GSM PA)
 Infineon (GSM Transceiver) - (ARM Partner)
GPS
Bluetooth,
EDR &FM
28 Source ... http://www.ifixit.com

29. The A4 SIP Package (Cross-section)
Memory
‘Package’
2 Memory Dies
Glue Processor SOC Di
P Die
4-Layer Platform
Package
Package’
Down 3-Levels: IC Packaging
3 Levels:
 The processor is the centre rectangle. The silver circles beneath it are solder balls.
 Two rectangles above are RAM die, offset to make room for the wirebonds.
 Putting the RAM close to the p
g processor reduces latency, making RAM faster and cuts p
y, g power.
 Unknown Mfr (Memory)
 Samsung/ARM (Processor)
 Unknown (SIP Technology)
29 Source ... http://www.ifixit.com

30. nVidea Tegra 3 Processor (Around 1B transistors)
30

31. Lots and Lots of Designers ...
160 Suppliers
Thousands of Design Engineers
10’s of thousands of Engineers
31

32. 32

33. 33

34. 34

35. Engineering
 All Engineers Make Stuff Happen ...
... Stuff you want, at a price you are prepared to pay!
 Stuff involves many Engineered Layers, each needs to be :-
 Designed Prototyped Qualified Reproduced
Designed, Prototyped, Qualified,
 Using the most sophisticated Tools
 Each requiring ‘the personal spark’ of Creativity
 Microelectronic-Stuff require hundreds of person.years of team-effort
 Many disciplines (electronic, software, optics, mathematics, chemists, etc)
 Increasingly all the Engineering and their Support Activities ...
 Are done by people best suited; wherever they are in the world (not least UK).
 Engineering Degrees are the Entry Point to Engineering
g g g y g g
 They are not Difficult, but they are Challenging !
... They are the way-in to a rewarding life of learning and application
35

36. Education; is You Centric ...
The Set of All Knowledge
Secondary Education
Mission: T give you a b i working k
Mi i To i basic ki knowledge
l d
of most of the ‘important’ stuff
Work
Higher Education
Hi h Ed ti
Mission: To give you a
working knowledge of a
more specific area
(of interest to you)
36

37. ... Life; is Stuff Centric!
... Engineers continue to learn and to apply that knowledge
The Set of All Knowledge
Secondary Education
Work
Higher Education
Hi h Ed ti Life
Lif
37

38. An Engineer
 Makes Order out of Chaos; using Specialist Knowledge and Creativity
 A Design Engineer Creates Products ...
 Physical/Tangible
 Customer Desirable
 Cost Effective (Worth more than they cost to make)
 Adequate Quality
 Manufacturable
... Stuff that people will trade for ‘the sweat of their brow’ (£).
 Engineering Roles to suit different Skills and Interests
 Design of Electronic, Software, Mechanical, System, MMI , Manufacturing
 Quality, Verification, Validation, Certification, Test
 Licensing, Patent, Documentation,
Licensing Patent Documentation Customer Support Training
Support,
 Physical Manufacturing (Design, Commissioning and Support)
 IT and ICT (Design, Commissioning and Support) ... NOT School IT/ICT
... Some ‘dirty’ - some ‘clean’; some ‘academic’ - some ‘physical’
38

39. The Engineering Spectrum
sation
Reward
Specialis
Career Mobility
S
Scientist ... ... Technician
Mental Skills ... ... Physical Skills
Abstract / Theoretical Practical / Hand-Eye
Design & Innovation Spatial Awareness
Mental P bl
M t l Problem Solving (I t iti )
S l i (Intuition) Physical Problem solving (C ft)
Ph i l P bl l i (Craft)
Theoretically Challenging Practically Challenging
... b d fi iti
by definition, all f
ll forms of E i
f Engineering are C ti
i Creative
39

40. Engineering in the UK
 20% of the working population work in Engineering Companies (5.6M)
 Which will require 2.25M new employees in the next 5-10yrs
 Mean Salaries for Engineering Graduates are £29kpa
(typically doubling in 6yrs)
... An excellent career opportunity
 There are ~500,000 Electronic Engineers in the UK.
 Working in ~25,000 businesses all around the country
 T
Travelling th world; meeting i t
lli the ld ti interesting people; l
ti l learning i t
i interesting stuff;
ti t ff
making a good living; having a ball!
 Whilst contributing ~£30Bpa to the UK Economy
 50% of employment is in businesses less than 150 people big
 80% of companies are less than 10 people big.
... Expect to be involved in other stuff as well as your primary skill.
... Don’t believe the Press: UK Engineering is a global success story with
huge economic and great career prospects.
prospects
40

41. Has all the Exciting Stuff Has Been Done...
 There are 118 Elements ...
 General engineering uses 10 or so
in isolation in bulk ll
i i l ti or i b lk alloys.
 Most of electronics used just 3 in
sophisticated but very simple
p y p
atomic relationships ...
 Biology uses ~80 in complex
atomic-level
atomic level relationships ...
... We can do lots with what we know;
but there Much-More to discover!
... We are nowhere near being able to
do what biology does every day!
41

42. Biology ... The Limits of Possibility?
 Brains are very-very-very-large Neural Networks ...
 Neurons are around 1k more functional than a transistor logic gate
 Neurons are around 1M-B times more power-efficient than Transistor Logic
... In Networks they are ...
 Demonstrably capable of handling complex situations
 Inherently Fault-Tolerant, Real-Time and Regular
 If we can learn to program/configure relatively small Neural Networks
to deliver System-Level hard-functionality, then ...
 We could use small neuron networks to create 21C ‘system chips’.
 Power: Managed by process improvement till ~10^9 neuron level (1W)
10^9 (1W).
 Devices: Focus on emulating biological efficiency for a ‘mask prog.’ array.
 Software: Focus on coding for functionality; and compiling for neurons
 Production: Inherently high yield; inherently robust (Minimal test)
... We just don’t know what we could with a few thousand hard programmed
neurons! ... But the UK Universities may well be leading in this area!
42

43. Conclusions
 Life is not fair ... ... But do something about it ...
 The world-of-work is very Competitive and Unforgiving.
 B i
Business has t make money t survive
h to k to i
 Businesses need employees to deliver
 Competitors want ‘your lunch’
... There are no free-rides for anybody
 In the 21C, Competition has become global ...
 For Businesses and Individuals
 Thanks to: The Internet; WTO; English Language;
Contract Law; and Telecommunications.
... The Government cannot protect ‘us’ from this
us
 Aim to be the best at whatever you chose to do ...
 So chose a career doing something you like
 Pl t spend a lif ti improving your k l d
Plan to d life-time i i knowledge Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Douglas Adams.
... Enjoy the Ride
 Engineers will create the 21c world that you will live in.
g y
... There will never be a more exciting life-choice!
43