World is changing.. we need to readjust the attitude or perish..  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2016, 07:57:28 pm
content: I generally don't like anything unproductive.. If I spend time and effort, I like it to be useful at least to some extent..And I really dislike people losing energy in trying to discredit something or somebody based on hate, prejudice and such..Lots of that going on lately, regarding equipment not coming from premium vendors.. It doesn't work that way.. If something is proven wrong, it's wrong, Chinese or American..Otherwise, if it works fine, then accept it.. For instance, 10 years ago I bought Fluke multimeter. I wanted something good, and noname brands weren't. Today I will buy Brymen.. As good for a fraction of money.. World changed.. And Keysight multimeter has EMC problems... Brymen doesn't.. go figure..So it got me thinking...... Remember computers ? Invented in USA basically... USA companies were leaders for many years.. IBM; DEC; HP; COMPAQ... Big names, great stuff.It was expensive, but premium quality and cutting edge features... Not everybody could afford them. But if you could they were great..And than came Taiwanese PC clones... At first literally crap, but in few years, they managed to make them reliable.. Always a step behind in speed and features, but good decent working PCs you could rely on.If you needed REAL PC you bought real stuff from big USA brands.. But Taiwanese PC did the job too.. just a bit slower.. For many people that was first time they could afford PC.Trick at the time was that INTEL and AMD vere selling CPU's.. Big computer makers were pretty much designing their own motherboards and chipsets..Working closely with CPU vendors, they were at the cutting edge..Taiwan was following in their footsteps, with older technologies...That was step 1 in a downward spiral..Second was when CPUs became complicated enough and finicky enough that CPU makers started making chipsets and reference designs... I became hard even for big brands to bring new PCs to market quick and good without help from the likes of Intel... And it soon became that no matter who you buy motherboard from it was pretty much same Intel (or AMD) reference design.. So not only there was no much difference between brands, but also Taiwanese companies (which learned a whole lot and made some serious cache in meantime) learned how to do it EXACTLY the same as the big brands..They had some quality problems at first, but being very driven and quick to learn, in few years they bridged the gap..So you could buy same thing for less money... Clouds on a horizon..That was a step 2...Step three was when USA big brands realized that since all was same apparently, they would stop making PC's altogether and just buy them from Taiwan and sell them with their sticker on, with a hefty price difference because of brand name recognition..That was step 3..And at one point they said PC business wasn't so good anymore so they closed or sold those factories in China to Chinese and stopped making PCs altogether..They only kept high margin parts like special servers and such (for instance Power series at IBM).That was step 4.So now people from USA buy Lenovo laptops from a Chinese company Lenovo... And there is no IBM laptop anymore... Only thing from IBM are special servers that are targeted at big companies..Why all this litany ?Many people on this forum need to realize that with measurement and R&D equipment, we passed steps 1, 2 and 3...In a few years time, big brands will completely stop making any scopes under 300-500MHz, and costing less than cca 5000USD, maybe even higher..They will completely loose in a battle of profitability, because they will keep only high margin businesses.. That is the corporate way.. step 4.And then unless you will have 20000$ or more you will not be able to buy LeCroy, Keysight or Tektronix...Or maybe, like Lenovo, they will sell Tektronix to Chinese, and you'll be buying those Chinese Tektronixes and Rigols....Or being nostalgic, you will keep your 25years old USofA "your favourite brand here", complaining ".. they don't make them as they used too .."So we better get used to have Rigols or such, we start taking them seriously, with good and bad, make pressure on manufacturers to make the right, let them compete and all will be well in the end..I already see good signs.. For instance Rigol SA815 vs new Siglent SA.... Rigol soon started making SA815 with better, less noisy front end.. And they will have to do even better than that..I hope it will follow that trend.. After all, isn't competition what made America great... ?Just wanted to share this...Any thoughts of your own?All the best to everybody...

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 09:40:18 pm
content: China is now both a significantly large sized market for electronics test equipment, and one of the best places for a test equipment manufacturer to be located. So it makes a lot of sense for the upcoming, future/significant test equipment manufacture's to be coming from there.On the plus side, I like the (typically) low price of test equipment, which originates from Chinese test equipment businesses.On the minus side, I'm not sure if they are going to ever have quite the quality, of some of the best test equipment manufacturers of the West. Such as HP (Keysight), Tektronix etc. But they seem to be getting better and better, so they might.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 09:55:59 pm
content: Quote from: 2N3055 on October 20, 2016, 07:57:28 pmBig brands will make 300-500MHz scopes. Just don't expect the big brands of the future to be the ones you see now. Apart from a few companies with staying power, like Coca Cola, the leading brands regularly change, especially in high tech fields. Most of the big brands in electronics from my youth are either dead or dying.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 10:47:26 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 21, 2016, 09:55:59 pmFluke seem to be ok, as far as I can tell.But sooner or later, there is a risk that one or more Chinese based businesses, may decide to go for Fluke's market, in a big way.My understanding is that Bryman, are NOT directly China based.There is probably a ready market, for a well specified, but safe/reliable/trustworthy/quality brand, with decent multimeters in the $20 to $100 price range (final user price).Currently (ignoring the pun), there are many super cheap ones from China, but they tend to fail when you look carefully at safety (especially higher voltages), genuine CAT ratings, quality and general construction.But they are somewhat often reasonable/usable for light low voltage hobby, low end professional work. They are usually at least "accurate enough", for many uses.The leads tend to be flimsy with them, and they often have poor test lead sockets.Fluke have spent a very long time building up there excellent market presence. Creating a very reassuring, safe/reliable image. That should help them for a long while.What worries me about possible future Chinese test equipment. Is that they tend to have worse manuals (in English) than similar Western test equipment, and I get the impression they are at least a bit unreliable and even delicate.E.g. The current crop of Chinese (usually very cheap), bench switch mode power supplies, are of somewhat poor quality and not really any good for serious use.But some people seem to get on with them. So opinions may vary. On the plus side, they are very good value for money (unless you consider them total junk and a waste of money, anyway).

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 10:51:21 pm
content: "In business, five years is a life time"Quote from Li Ka Shing

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 11:03:23 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 21, 2016, 09:55:59 pmLOL, you're right, when I said "big brands" I meant what people now consider them...In 10 years or so to kids Rigols and such will be big brands.. West always forgets (or doesn't remember) that knowledge the have was acquired by hard work and sweat and effort of predecessors.. It didn't fall from the sky.. Many presume that others cannot invent same things they did if they put in same effort.. Which is wrong..Look at the China's space program.. 10-15 years back they had none to speak of.. USA had Space shuttles and all kind of fancy things.. Fast forward to today.. China worked hard, USA didn't go forward, but backwards actually... Now China's space program looks in much better shape than USA's... If they keep on going forward at this pace, it will be NASA trying to catch up with them.. LOL

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 11:06:08 pm
content: Quote from: Rick Law on October 21, 2016, 10:51:21 pmAbsolutely right!

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 11:25:01 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 21, 2016, 10:47:26 pmWhen I said China, i meant with that all manufacturers not coming from "premium brands".. There could be products from Easter Europe or whatever..As for quality, if for instance Rigol is taken, it steadily goes up.. As for bad English in documentation, well, you should try reading English documentation written in ItalyProblem is that T&M products were always so expensive that manufacturers were treating buyers like a buyers of luxury goods: " it better be perfect, and have good service and such for the money I paid".Also some of the manufacturers (HP for instance) had business model based on service not equipment.. So people who could afford it were basically spoiled and pampered and being charged for it.HP was always equipment with a "room service".. And others had to follow at least to some extent..Rolls Royce, or an Mercedes of old... And than came Toyotas and Hondas, at first cheap and reliable enough, than they came to point that they are more reliable than practically any premium brand..There is no helicopter service but they don't break either.. And normal people can buy them...I think that industry will polarize, like with everything else, that everything except special instruments, that by virtue of them being very cutting edge or simply made of gold if you wish, everything except them, will be made by new tier of good reliable brands, they will be good and priced reasonably..

author: rfeecs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2016, 11:37:45 pm
content: Just an observation:For the computers, who still makes the CPUs? The memory, the disk drives? All the high value components?Rigol and others are enabled by the off the shelf parts from Analog Devices, Xylinx, etc. The high speed ADCs, FPGAs. Their spectrum analyzers are practically just reference designs from Analog Devices/Hittite.The real intellectual property content is in the silicon, and in the software that runs on it.But no doubt China will eventually produce their own competitive high performance semiconductors.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 12:07:04 am
content: Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2016, 11:25:01 pmI agree with you.I think the earliest/first products from companies like HP/Tektronix etc, were similar (in principle), to Rigols (as an example). It would not surprise me if in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years time. Rigol ends up being like another Philips (Test equipment), Fluke or even HP/Tektronix (especially on the lower end of the test gear stuff).If most/all countries of the West, tried to start up their own, massive new Shenzhen/China/Silicon-valley or similar very large scale electronics zone. With huge relaxation of laws (within reason), planning applications, taxation and many other rules/regulations and red-tape. Maybe even the country themselves, investing money in the zone(s), with big grants and other incentives.They could also begin their own new "Silicon Valley". But in practice, with the way things seem to work in the US/Europe and other western countries. The complete opposite of this, seems to be true.E.g. One of the reasons for Brexit occurring (probably much lower down than the other reasons), may have been excessive red tape from the EU. With all the EU's rules and regulations, hampering peoples attempts at starting an economic/viable/profitable business in Electronics and similar fields.tl;drChina created "Shenzhen", on purpose. With great success (apparently).I just CAN'T see the west doing something similar. In the longer term, I think that could be bad for the west. With China becoming increasingly more and more like a super power, each day. With China's extensive military power buildup. It could go horribly wrong one day.A sort of North Korea, but with a huge number of very powerful nuclear weapons, complete with the means to deliver them big distances, and a modern powerful military force to go with it.I'm disappointed that the West has just stood by, and let China grab, a huge amount of the Electronics world production, and market place etc.If there ever is a world war 3, or big war. Electronics is probably going to be an extremely important part of it. Losing Electronics in such a big way, to China. Could be a terrible mistake.Some people have (jokingly, but some people are worried that it might come true, or even already be true), that some of the parts for the US's, later/latest military super jets, actually come from China and/or need stuff from China, to help finish it off.E.g. Rare Earth Elements (or whatever it is called), are vital for military fighting jets. Yet, most of it (at least until recently), only came from China.If I was a Western test equipment manufacturer, I would be very worried about China and their massive electronics capabilities. They could potentially copy or make a similar device, and the test equipment business could suffer very badly.tl;dr2Test equipment, is probably very important (in its own right), during a possible bigger war. So relying on China for most of the Wests test equipment, is probably not the safest of options. Given that possible enemies, such as North Korea or Russia (or even China themselves), would tend to be friendly/supported by China. Who may refuse to send electronics to the US, if they so decide.Maybe test equipment (and other electronic things), should have been better protected by the West. I.e. The West should have kept a lot more Electronics manufacturing and other stuff, within the West. For best military safety in the longer term.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 12:27:01 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 22, 2016, 12:07:04 amTek and HP have historically kept the critical performance parts in house (or at least exclusive), first with the image tubes, then analog ASICs, now ADCs, probe ASICs, and microwave semiconductor processes. The new wave of T&M equipment is leveraging mass market parts, they haven't yet invested in proprietary technologies to give them a real position in the market.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 12:42:52 am
content: Quote from: Someone on October 22, 2016, 12:27:01 amIt may be getting prohibitively expensive to develop your own, fully custom IC's in-house. I.e. The IC's are actually made at your own IC manufacturing plant.If it was me (running the massive test equipment manufacturer). I would be worried/scared of using a giant Chinese chip manufacturing plant. Because how safe are your test equipment IC design(s), going to be. If a lot of the development work is done in Chinese IC manufacturing plants ?At best it just takes one rogue employee and a tiny USB flash pen, to copy important design files and give it to competitors.At worst, the company itself may try and sell the design (or similar), to your competitors in China.As the big traditional test equipment manufacturer's of the West, lose business (especially at the lower end), to China. It makes it harder and harder for them to fund massive developments of their big dollar equipment.It is probably inevitable that gradually test equipment design/development/production/business will move over to China. In the current trend/climate.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 01:07:12 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 22, 2016, 12:42:52 amTek/HP had respectively TriQunit/Avago (there may be other fabs linked to their critical parts) and kept the security of the designs but also the processes, these aren't silicon fabs you can shop around for the best price or availability on they're very specialised. The US maintains a wide range of electronic manufacturing as strategic assets (and access to resources to keep them running) for the military, which helps to fill up capacity on these unusual process lines.

author: System Error Message
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 01:52:26 am
content: even so intel and AMD still produce chips (either their own factories or via global foundries and other silicon factories) so the chinese wont be replacing them as the x86 architecture is a closely guarded secret between intel and AMD. As both of them do not have high margins (intel with its consistent pricing and AMD always trying to undercut) they get to stay on their thrones.With other companies they became premium over the years. The inflation upon inflation of prices forced their customers to look at other solutions. So think of china rising as how america rose after ww2. With short minded people in finance now the economy has never been better than last time. It makes me wonder if they even studied the fundamentals of business. low margins with higher volumes are always better than high margins with lower volumes.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 01:59:09 am
content: China did create SchenzenUSA & Japanese did

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:01:41 am
content: Quote from: Someone on October 22, 2016, 01:07:12 amI'm glad the US is protecting the strategic assets, from external enemies. But hope that any internal enemies, do notTRUMP, external ones.Tek/HP have a workforce, which has huge amounts of test equipment, knowledge and experience. That also helps keep the competition away. Especially at the higher end, where it becomes technologically more and more complicated and time consuming.I would be considerably more worried about China (both in a competing business sense and military sense), if they were like Japan. Japans business abilities and technological developments, I still find amazing. There is a real quality to many of the goods that Japan manufactures, especially as regards reliability.A giant China sized Japan, would be amazing (in my estimations). But especially worrying, if a possible enemy.Fortunately, Japan currently are very favorable to the West and US.Maybe it is a bit sad that Japan did not move into test equipment in a big way, as they could have come up with some very good stuff. There is (was?, as regards test stuff, such as scopes) Hitachi, but they don't seem to have moved in to the high end and were not up to the higher standards of companies like Panasonic/Sony/Toshiba/Etc.Although some Hitachi stuff, is/was amongst the best, such as Hitachi mechanical hard disk drives (but I think they were taken over).

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:16:48 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 22, 2016, 12:42:52 amTektronix sold their fabrication facilities in 1994 to Maxim who continued to make parts for them for some time. National also used to fabricate custom parts for Tektronix.QuoteAnalog processes are very specialized so transferring designs between them is somewhere between difficult to impossible. Stealing someones design requires either using the original fabrication process or rebuilding the whole thing from scratch. The same applies to digital processes to a lesser extent.Quote from: Someone on October 22, 2016, 01:07:12 amAvago was formed from HP's semiconductor division in 1999.Now that Broadcom owns Avago, I expect all of their documentation and parts to become unavailable to mere mortals.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:31:28 am
content: I have read about Tektronix's adventures with the custom analogue IC's. I read that Tektronix desparately wanted to get one of the Silicon Valley, IC manufacture's to make the custom analogue IC's for them.They tried all of those manufacture's, but sadly found that all of them (or nearly all of them), were geared up solely for making digital IC's. Which was too different from analogue IC's, for them to make them.If I remember correctly (from reading about it), the especially difficult part, was getting the right blend of the chemical mixtures, to make the analogue IC's. Which is especially important for analogue IC's.So in the end, they decided (and were sort of forced into) making their own analogue IC's.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:36:26 am
content: Quote from: ebclr on October 22, 2016, 01:59:09 amDo you mean, Chinadidn'tcreate Shenzhen ?When you say USA/Japan did, do you mean that by, extensively buying electronics stuff from China, they effectively created (and paid for), Shenzhen ?And/or do you mean they used Shenzhen, as a very cheap place, to get electronics stuff manufactured ?(Hence effectively empowering/creating Shenzhen).

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:39:24 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 22, 2016, 02:01:41 amA bunch of Keysight and Agilent products are out of Japan, the Hachioji Semiconductor Test Division has a long history (but SMUs for instance are now manufactured in Malaysia) while Mass Spectrometers are still wholly designed and made in Japan.Quote from: David Hess on October 22, 2016, 02:16:48 amI thought the "merger" was the other way around, Avago bought Broadcom and took on the name. Either way its probable they'll focus on high dollar contracts and drop any of the stuff we'll ever use.Quote from: David Hess on October 22, 2016, 02:16:48 amThey're both examples of spinning out the exclusive and proprietary technology and processes, and took with them both a lot of pre-existing staff and facilities. Its just businesses being businesses and making packages of income, expense, capital, and debt. Keysight still have at least one fab they own and run for compound III-V semiconductors:http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5992-0385EN.pdfQuote from: Keysight

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 02:51:05 am
content: Quote from: Someone on October 22, 2016, 02:39:24 amI did not know that. I'm pleased to hear it, because I have a lot of respect for Japanese stuff. Thanks!Fortunately, there are some test equipment stuff (and similar), which ARE made in Japan, already. So there is a modest amount of stuff, which you can get.(Speculation) From experience with other Japanese goods. It is quite possible that some of the Japanese test equipment, although made there, is NOT sold to other countries. I've experienced this with a number of items, available in Japan, but NOT elsewhere.For some reason, Japan seems to do that quite frequently with stuff.E.g. Sony may bring out a delicious, tiny (yet fully functional) PC, in a laptop format. But ONLY sell it in Japan. Dave somewhat recently did an EEVblog video, about one of these.E.g.Japan make (Casio and Sharp (I think) versions) highly desirable (to some people), cute, programmable calculators, which can be programmed, directly in C. With neat little Qwerty keyboards, instead of calculator buttons. They probably don't make them now, but they did, a long while ago.Some Western people, buy them on ebay, directly from Japan, to get round the fact they don't sell them elsewhere. They probably stopped making them, many years ago, I would think.tl;drI don't really understand, why Japan is surprising often, reluctant to sell overseas. I guess language translation of the manuals, getting approval of the various (different) legal approvals for electronic items, in the respective countries. Differing mains voltages, and maybe concern of limited sales in foreign countries. Are probably some of the reasons, why they don't.

author: all_repair
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 06:41:35 am
content: It is natural that China and other developing countries shall improve over time. It is a natural progression and it is a good thing. While China inprove and take on the less-productive activities of the West, and the West is supposed to move on to take on other more-productuve activities. Everyone gains.But there is one serious ill in the Western system now, especially the Algo-Saxxon. The money made are not re-invested probably, and are very unfairly distributed. The top-executives and the bankers are creaming off the society and hogging up the resources, and most not into productive use. The silicon valleys heroes are not the majority. And instead of fixing this ill, we are having these very group of people instigating the bottom to blame China and other developing nations. The unfair treatment actually is from their own system and unfairly taken by these very group of people that are doing the instigations.Mankind does not change much. Just hope these ills do not spread further or eveyone shall suffer, and people here shall have less toys to play with.

author: IconicPCB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 07:02:50 am
content: Japanese brand ANRITSU was a direct competitor to HP for a while.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 07:14:22 am
content: Quote from: IconicPCB on October 22, 2016, 07:02:50 amAnritsu has been the brand of choice for optical work, and a brand of choice for a lot of RF work.Kikusui tends to be the brand of choice for a lot of power work.Yokogawa is the brand of choice for a lot of power meter apps, sometimes required for approvals in standards.Sony used to be intimately tied to TektronixJapan has never produced a company known for a wide range of equipment types, but they have been the go to choice for a lot of specialised instruments since the 80s.

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 22, 2016, 08:57:51 am
content: Well where I see the problem is exactly illustrated in US space program.. World leaders at the time, because of decades of investment in research, and huge amounts of money.. Cold War fueled super high tech industry in USA, amassing huge pool of knowledge and resources.. After decades of that, super high tech coming from USA was cutting edge.. And then investment stoped. No more Cold War.. And business people started doing what they do.. Cutting cost to make more money.. Meaning no more R&D that will give fruit in 10 years.. Management lives (and get payed) on a yearly schedule...And that means no more going forward.. It is stagnation.. And that is all well if everybody else is 20 years behind you and are also doing nothing..But they are not. So they eventually catch up on you. And you lost your strategic advantage.Also, to put things in perspective, for many years super high cutting edge processors were not Intels.. MIPS, Alpha, SPARC, HP RISC.. And for really high end computing, general purpose processors are not it..And for most part, Intel processors had not made significant (strategic) performance gains in 10 years.. And despite marketing fluff, it is not important whose processors is 5% faster.. That's for kids playing games and doing benchmarks.. The name of the game is : Is it good enough? The processors that were shown by Russians and Chinese lately are getting in area of close enough. Maybe one more generation, they will be at the performance level of mainstream Intel /AMD of now.. They will learn how to make them at volume too..Software is another thing, but another story too..What I'm saying, there are no sacred cows.. High tech went global, and those long behind are catching up, fast...