Engineering Tips and Tricks—Episode 2: Take Your Work Home

 





Christopher F. Marki received his B.S.E.E. from Duke University in 2002 and his M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego in 2004 and 2007, respectively. While in graduate school, Christopher studied high speed fiber optics and consulted for San Diego start-up Ziva Corporation. Following graduate school, Christopher decided to forego a life in Photonics and opted, instead, to work with his father at Marki Microwave and learn the “family business” of microwave mixers. While at Marki Microwave, Christopher has served as Director of Research and has been responsible for the design and commercialization of many of Marki’s fastest growing product lines including filters, couplers and power dividers. Dr. Marki has authored and co-authored numerous journal and conference publications and frequently serves as an IEEE reviewer for Photonics Technology Letters and Journal of Lightwave Technology.   MarkiMicrowave.com

To comment or ask Christopher a question, use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.

 

June 21, 2010

 

“successful family dinner = happy guests and circuit diagrams left on my coffee table. happy father's day to my favorite engineer!” --My sister’s Facebook post following our Father’s Day dinner last night

 

    Among the many characteristics one must possess to be a successful engineer—intelligence, creativity, resourcefulness—one common trait stands out among the rest: passion. I am talking about the engineers that love talking about their work with anyone who will listen. These are the people that I want to work with (and hire) because they take their work home with them.

 

    In this context, I am defining passion as an unwavering obsession with problem solving. At the core of my argument is that very little separates most engineers in terms of innate talent. Yes, some people go to Caltech while others struggle through the bloated lecture halls of large state schools, but fundamentally, we are all comparably intelligent. This is essentially a Nature versus Nurture argument. In my estimation, Nurture (i.e. hard work and passion for the job) always trumps Nature (i.e. innate intelligence and creativity) in the sciences. I am reminded of a quotation from one of my professors in grad school, “The PHD does not tell the world how smart you are, it simply tells everyone that you have a stomach for pain.” Grimly, I must agree. To first order, we are all created equally, successful science boils down to sleepless nights and lots of elbow grease.

 

    Passionate problem solving is equal parts motivation and ownership of a problem. Problem solving without direction is a meaningless exercise.  To generate any kind of enthusiasm, we should have a darn good reason why spending time, money and energy of a problem is a good investment (for more, see my first Tips and Tricks Episode 1 ).  Usually, the motivation is the easiest part because there are lots of good reasons to solve problems (e.g. it might make you rich, you might cure cancer, you might solve the world’s energy crisis, etc).

 

The difference between motivated problem solving and passionate problem solving is that the engineer assumes a sense of ownership of the problem. The most successful engineers and scientists carry their problems around with them like a sack of bricks. Solving the most difficult problems requires a significant amount of mental energy. I believe that it is therefore unreasonable to think that real breakthroughs can be timed between the hours of 8 AM and 5 PM, Monday through Friday (excluding holidays). Our brains don’t solve problems linearly, anyway. In fact, problem solving and creative thought is incredibly nonlinear. Good problem solving often occurs in the most inauspicious places: the shower, the coffee shop, the car, my sister’s house. If we (my father and I) confined our problem solving exclusively to the halls of Marki Microwave, I doubt we’d have a viable business. Our passion for our craft and our unrelenting drive to push our technology, at home and at work, keeps our business vibrant and full of creative ideas.

 

So take your work home. Eat it. Drink it. Sleep it. Your spouse might complain a little, but your customers won’t. In fact, your own children might even love you more for it. Happy Father’s Day, pop.

  

IMS 2010 Recap: The New Microwave Era

 





Christopher F. Marki received his B.S.E.E. from Duke University in 2002 and his M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego in 2004 and 2007, respectively. While in graduate school, Christopher studied high speed fiber optics and consulted for San Diego start-up Ziva Corporation. Following graduate school, Christopher decided to forego a life in Photonics and opted, instead, to work with his father at Marki Microwave and learn the “family business” of microwave mixers. While at Marki Microwave, Christopher has served as Director of Research and has been responsible for the design and commercialization of many of Marki’s fastest growing product lines including filters, couplers and power dividers. Dr. Marki has authored and co-authored numerous journal and conference publications and frequently serves as an IEEE reviewer for Photonics Technology Letters and Journal of Lightwave Technology.   MarkiMicrowave.com

To comment or ask Christopher a question, use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.

 

June 02, 2010

 

It appears we are in the dawn of a New Microwave Era. As Sherry Hess wrote about last year during the dark days of the Recession, the down economy will ultimately cause Creative Destruction for our industry. I am impressed how this creation-by-necessity has lead to some very innovative thinking.

 

Forget about all the shiny new gadgets launched conspicuously in time for IMS 2010, this does not speak to the relative health of our industry. This happens every year, rain or shine. However, if you dig a little further to notice who is doing what and where they are doing it, you would see that that IMS 2010 marks the beginning of a paradigm shift for the RF/microwave industry. The times they are a-changing, here is how:

 

1.   Small companies are providing the enabling technologies of the New Microwave Era. In talking with many other small companies at IMS, it seems that the large companies are increasingly reliant on specialist companies who can provide a competitive advantage based on performance and technical support, not price. Because quality and performance is so highly coveted in this environment, the brightest engineers have been able to prosper and develop their ideas and companies into agile, efficient and irreplaceable entities.

2.   The younger generation is coming online…quickly. What is most impressive is not just the sheer numbers of young people who attended this year, but the fact that they are already making contributions to the field. My dad, for one, is excited to see the new influx of creativity and enthusiasm. He was seeing the industry becoming boring and stagnant, not anymore. The partnerships and rivalries of the next 30 years are being forged before our eyes.

3.   “Made in USA” still means something. Many American companies are still able to turn healthy profits without having to outsource manufacturing. This means two things: the commodity wireless business isn’t the only sector in which to make money, and people are putting a premium on quality made goods. I am not saying quality products can’t be made outside the USA, I am saying that the making of high quality products requires the watchful eye of the design engineer. As we continue to see a flight to quality and performance, in house manufacturing will continue its Renaissance.   

 

With respect to these trends I’ve identified some bold, and not so bold, predictions for the coming year:

 

1.   Nonlinear performance metrics like 1 dB compression and two-tone intercept will continue to dominate new system requirements.  Dynamic range is still king.

2.   We are entering the Decade of Phase Noise. (My father predicted this 10 years ago and appears to have been off by a decade.) Clean oscillators, amplifiers, multiplies and mixers will receive increasing amounts of attention.

3.   Nonlinear simulations and X-parameters will continue to dominate headlines, and yet most practicing engineers will not use them. X-parameter data will not be commonly available from component vendors for at least 3 more years.

4.   Small companies will begin to form “think-tank” consortiums (both formally and informally). Experts in their respective fields will begin to collaborate openly in order to advance their art in synergistic ways. Significant technological contributions will result from these partnerships.  

5.   Seeking to model the success of the small business consortiums, larger companies will recommit to funding their own research labs for advanced technology development.