how do you see electronics in 100 years? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: CopperCone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2017, 10:52:53 pm
content: I see it as similar, with lots of analog front ends, that don't necessarily do as good of a job as discrete solutions that are well engineered. Probably used for physics applications. Also military projects that have unique requirements.I also see switching regulators are being standardized, for medium volume applications (kind of like the one chip solutions LT offers for 20$ each, but cheap).

author: taydin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2017, 11:10:12 pm
content: It will get harder and harder to find individual electronic components. Everything will be either a module or an IC, with only specs and no internal circuit diagram ... Not as much fun as the old days

author: CopperCone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 12:23:27 am
content: I think that would hurt sales and small manufacturers .

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 12:45:44 am
content: I doubt anyone could make sensible predictions for 10 years, let alone 100. Look at the state of things 100 years ago.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 01:36:15 am
content: When it comes to computers and electronics, I'm pretty sure most science fiction of today has fallen far short of predicting what will actually exist in 100 years.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 02:32:13 am
content: I think a better question will be "how do you not see electronics in 100 years" because it will be everywhere. Even inside our bodies. And of course all the boring jobs will be done by machines. We may even self-repair through nanotech.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 03:25:41 am
content: 50 years ago, manufacturers would advertise their radios as have "7 transistors!" as that was state of the art in consumer devices. If you have anything that has less than 100,000 then you probably holding a coffee cup. Most midrange CPUs now have at least 500,000,000. The state of the art CPUs for consumers is around 4,000,000,000. Given that we are trying to guess at what 100 will look like you have to figure the equivalent increase in device complexity to be at least four times that change of 50 years. That would mean that a consumer CPU will have somewhere around 20,000,000,000 transistors, plus the huge amount that GPUs will have.The above assumes we use the same technologies. I am sure this will change. This why some people predict the "singularity" where humans merge with machines or we put minds in the machines. I don't think that we can even guess what is going happen during the next 100 years.

author: kj7e
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 03:58:44 am
content: Pretty sure I wont be seeing anything in 100 years.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 03:58:58 am
content: In 100 years soldering is obsolete and electronics as we uses it today, everything will be biology, direct chemistry blends of active substances, IP blocks will be blobbs of ganglions that computes, just as we use bacteria today to extract gold form ores/mineral composites we use biology for all kinds of things. Super hard ceramic polymer compounds made by bacteria as shells for space ships, carbon will be standard component for tons of things , well its kind of obvious if you think of it.Well, depends if homosapiens screw things up or not in the forthcoming years! Homosapiens need modifications as well!

author: maxwell3e10
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 04:09:10 am
content: I think the big leap in electronics has already happened. Today the technology in say textile or machine making is not that different than 100 years ago. And rocket and airplane technology is not that different than 50 years ago. So, I think electronics would be fundamentally the same, only sleeker.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 04:14:27 am
content: PCBs will be made by other technological processes, maybe by 3D and conductive ink priniting.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 04:27:21 am
content: 100 years? Kidding me.What would happen if you asked that question to an electronics expert in 1917? The thermionic valve had just barely been invented, and a whole 100,000 of them manufactured during the war. The first BBC radio broadcasts (and civilian receivers to listen to them) were still five years away.I think people already realised then that semiconductors were likely to prove useful. But what was totally unexpected, even as late as the 1950s was the incredible degree of miniaturisation that has happened in the last 50 years. Just look at the science fiction of the time -- they thought that by now we'd all be zooming around in flying cars and catching the 3 PM rocket to Mars, but at the same time they thought a computer would occupy a whole city block -- and there would be one of them on a planet. And it would do less than your iPhone (or even iWatch) can do.Even thirty years ago in the mid 1980s when we thought a 2 MIPS VAX or 68020 or 80386 was pretty cool we could *never* have expected (I certainly didn't) that we'd now have much cheaper desktop PCs running 10,000 MIPS per core. I think I'd have been less impressed to learn there would by now be 18 cores in a single chip -- if I thought about it I'd probably have expected current PCs to have 64000 or more cores, but running at maybe 100 MIPS each.I think I've got a pretty reasonable idea now how things will look in ten years. Especially as my job is helping to create a chip that will be in the market in three or four years from now! But 100 years?Inconceivable.

author: LaurentR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 06:13:46 am
content: I think we should star a new thread with the 10 year question. We may actually get educated answers given the broad audience of the forum :-)

author: HalFET
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 06:17:55 am
content: You won't necessarily see it at all I imagine

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 07:06:49 am
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on December 01, 2017, 12:45:44 amwas about to say the same thing. i'm trying to remember how things were 10 years ago when i was still in high school.DC/DC converters and brushless motors were being mentioned for the first times to us students, our textbooks also had some mentions..very complicated stuff to do back then, the controllers and microcontrollers we have today are insanely more complex and make things so much easier, the results you can achieve now with little effort are probably better than the state of the art of the timeRegarding equipment, there were only the shittiest 'scopes you could imagine under 2k euro, something 1054Z low-quality stuff was about 1k - 1.5k.Then it was a lot less widespread to buy components from the internet for the hobbyists.to be honest it's already incredible how much things changed in five years! who knows how things will be in 5 years

author: MadTux
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 07:35:08 am
content: I'd rather ask the question on what could be improved on classic electronics, frequency => more or less constant since 2004, energy consumption/heat removal => limit already reached, 2D IC structure size => fairly soon reached, size of hardware => limited by latency/speed of light.So I'd expect there won't be much improvement in classic (today high end) computers, since most limits are already reached. It will go more in the direction of low power, SoC, 3D integration, neural networks, quantum computers.... Because these are the fields where improvents still may happen. Classic more or less 2 or 2 1/2D computer chips have reached/will soon reach their limit in different aspects. Just like cars,aircrafts, machines.... aren't that much different than they were 50years ago.

author: R_G_B_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 08:18:46 am
content: Look at Arduino, analogue, discovery, usb network analysers digital oscilloscope mobile technology, Digital, Analogue and Mixed signal integrated circuit IC have created a lot of possibilities.Devices and electronics will be more intergrated and offer more functionality and be more power efficient better use of new materialsDiscovery of new materials will enhance things further at the same time. Quantum physics is also likely to be a part of thisAnd also AI I think we are at a time where there's a technological tipping point and we are trying to make the best use of it all.

author: Vtile
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 08:37:53 am
content: Density will increase, complexity will increase, cost will stay relatively same. The runtime errors per months will increase, because the density and complexity. Digital logic will shift to Trinary logic when search the more economic way to produce same amount of computing power.Low to mid-range production of components and systems is based on in-house printing.

author: ggchab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 09:20:48 am
content: No electronics anymore. Too many crazy powerful people in the world, too many inequalities will cause the most terrible war. Or too much CO2, not enough oxygen, ... Anyway, humanity will be goneI hope it's too pessimistic and humanity will wake up before it's too late !

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 01, 2017, 09:41:30 am
content: Silicon is out, biochemical sensors and computing devices corelated with large quantum units in glass, quartz and diamond are in.