Why does the US provide all critical electronic design knowledge to the world?

[electronx]

Why does the US provide all of its critical electronic  design knowledge to the world? The question is clear. There are two companies in the world that can make integrated devices such as ADC and DAQ. Analog devices and ti. These companies are the ones that provide all the information from past to present. I'm sure if they removed the information on the internet, most countries would no longer produce technology. It is also clear that there are some key men here. These men are key to producing the technology. Coming to the issue of production in China, the world thinks that it is a Chinese chip manufacturer, but production volume and design are completely different things. The waffer design encryption of the integrated circuits produced in Taiwan is quite complex.It is clear that there is American support behind Europe's Dutch-based ASML company and ST Microelectronics. I'm sure if simple topologies had not emerged, we would never know about them. Is this an illusion?
"Please do not go off topic or get into arguments. Just state your opinion on the question. You are free to state whether the question is stupid or makes sense."

[IanB]

Crazy question.

It is commonly, and falsely, assumed by some that knowledge is somehow "secret", and is stored in locked vaults, and only shared with the privileged few.

This, of course, is nonsense.

[electronx]

Assuming that opamps were hidden for 10 years during World War II, I'm sure technologies we don't know about are being used now.

[Benta]

Skipped medication today?

[electronx]

definitely

[Gyro]

What a bizarre line of questioning. Has his account been hacked?

[electronx]

Not yet

[Someone]

What a bizarre line of questioning. Has his account been hacked?

By MEN:

It is also clear that there are some key men here. These men are key to producing the technology.

Not people, MEN, definitely no WOMEN.

[tridac]

Interesting question. Back in the 60's to 80's, if you bought a Tek scope, all the theory of operation, calibration, service info and schematics, were all provided, and since those guys really understood analogue design, and how to get the best from it, technical prowess of the highest border, it was easy to learn such techniques for other designs, by reading the manuals.  Recently took the cover of the lab TDS2024B scope and that has iirc, about 3 large chips on the pcb, and that's about it. No schematics and none of the info that come with the older designs. Same with HP kit, from past to present.

Reason ?: Far east, in places, spends much their time reverse engineering and stealing ip of western kit, no R&D cost, so they can copy and sell at a fraction of the price. Don't work in that part of the industry, but would think that it's a real fight for survival for the hp and tek of this world now. Security by obscurity amy not be a long term solution, but it must help...

[SiliconWizard]

Uh, no.

But that changes from the "all power supplies are now made in China".

[CatalinaWOW]

There is no shortage of brains around the world.  What the US had for a while was an advantage in investment.  Which resulted in a large stock of expertise.  Which is nothing which can't be duplicated elsewhere.  Sharing of knowledge reduces the investment to achieve that.  The US (not any single entity, just a common movement by those directing business investments) that reduced manufacturing costs at overseas locations was a bigger advantage than the body of skills performing that manufacturing and actively shared the knowledge bringing other parts of the world up to speed faster than it might otherwise have occurred. 

This is almost an exact copy of a process that Great Britain followed roughly 50-100 years earlier.

In my mind it is still not 100% clear that that was a bad decision, but many individuals were hurt by it.  But an even larger number of individuals worldwide benefited.  And the whole world benefits from having a larger quantity of bright, trained individuals.  Just a larger scale version of the old adage "Many hands Lighten the load"

[coppercone2]

plot line to team america, world police II? the team retired into desk jobs at the ITAR offices?

put down the bong, go visit a technical library, realize this is not only totally preposterous but also impossible

maybe you should write a script, it could also work for "american dad". 

[electronx]

The points I want to point out. If you collect DAQ ADCs, most likely the company I work for will no longer be able to produce measurement instrumentation.If Ti DACs start selling for 300 dollars instead of 30 dollars, there is no second alternative. This also goes for Holt ic and ddc.

Maybe the slogan "the world always produces antimatter" could work. If you don't give it to the world, someone can produce it themselves. But the problem is that they have been trying this for many years. And this job is not child's play

I certainly do not give America the father role, but their success in designing a stable system is undeniable. Nowadays, some countries are trying to produce CPUs or MCUs, but the obstacle they face is stability.

 When the chip crisis broke out, I worked on a simple electric scooter project and the company turned to nuvoton mcu.
 The problem was stability. When the temperature changed, the things that were supposed to work did not work. The code, which worked once, started to become nonsense in the 2000th cycle. At the same time, it looked like the code written by a high school student, mixed with code libraries and spaghetti.

I have also worked with Chinese copies of integrated circuits such as the simple max485. They are definitely not stable.

[IanB]

This just seems like word salad.

[electronx]

This just seems like word salad.

"No Script, No Fear, All Opinion"
What I want is opinions, there is no problem in making word salad
.Even if my thoughts are wrong

[SiliconWizard]

This just seems like word salad.

Yeah, and as to CPU "stability", I think this is a bad time for claiming that only the US knows how to do it, with all the Intel debacle. But that's just a pile of words as you said.

[illusive]

Knowledge is only useful when shared. What world will you have been living in if ancient Egypt and Greece decided not to share there knowledge of math, philosophy  and so on and to all be buried and destroyed on purpose when they fell? I guess the human population on this planet is still too young to start act as one species for the common good.

[Phil1977]

It´s maybe the best form of optimism we can have today. That sharing knowledge and technologies helps the world getting a better place and may help to solve global problems.

My personal attitude: The countries who invent and share these things intrinsically are in a privileged position to lead new inventions and they even profit from the competition that arises internationally. Probably one of the key reasons that the US were and still are leading in so many areas is that they share knowledge and business models to others. Other nations did everything in secrecy and blew up their nuclear power plant because the positive void coefficient was known to the scientists but not to the operators 

[soldar]

Interesting question. Back in the 60's to 80's, if you bought a Tek scope, all the theory of operation, calibration, service info and schematics, were all provided, and since those guys really understood analogue design, and how to get the best from it, technical prowess of the highest border, it was easy to learn such techniques for other designs, by reading the manuals.  Recently took the cover of the lab TDS2024B scope and that has iirc, about 3 large chips on the pcb, and that's about it. No schematics and none of the info that come with the older designs. Same with HP kit, from past to present.

Reason ?: Far east, in places, spends much their time reverse engineering and stealing ip of western kit, no R&D cost, so they can copy and sell at a fraction of the price. Don't work in that part of the industry, but would think that it's a real fight for survival for the hp and tek of this world now. Security by obscurity amy not be a long term solution, but it must help...

I believe this is unfounded and comes from conspiracy territory.

Decades ago equipment had discrete components as was repairable and serviceable by the technicians who used it.

With time equipment became much more complex, with custom chips, and it just did not make sense to include documentation. Even the manufacturer would repair by replacing boards and not by repairing them. The trend has been universal. The first computers came with board diagrams and books detailing the ROMs etc. Today it just makes no sense and would be a waste of expense.

Nobody needs or finds use in, say, a diagram of a multilevel computer motherboard or anything of similar complexity.

The notion that in the Far East they are back engineering everything western companies do is silly. No doubt some low level outfits may be copying things just like westerners do but I think the notion that western companies should or even can keep their technology secret is just silly.

[electronx]

I think, rather than sharing information, concerns about consumer electronics have made it necessary to share information. Following NASA space technology, we may see opamp promotional brochures appear for consumer electronics in a few years. Maybe because of commercial concerns.While printing unlimited money, you must exchange your money with other countries to prevent inflation, otherwise your money will become a piece of paper. However, assuming that Russian kamikaze drones use the same MCU as those used in Bosch refrigerators, it becomes clear how "fantastic" it is to give the technology directly in exchange for money, It also reveals how practical Russian engineers are.

Maybe they want to keep existing technology at a reasonable price range and don't want to wake up the little fishes and realize they're swimming in their little pond.

[soldar]

I have this weird feeling that it's deja vu all over again.

[illusive]

I think, rather than sharing information, concerns about consumer electronics have made it necessary to share information. Following NASA space technology, we may see opamp promotional brochures appear for consumer electronics in a few years. Maybe because of commercial concerns.While printing unlimited money, you must exchange your money with other countries to prevent inflation, otherwise your money will become a piece of paper. However, assuming that Russian kamikaze drones use the same MCU as those used in Bosch refrigerators, it becomes clear how "fantastic" it is to give the technology directly in exchange for money.

I think that in the big picture over time a regional conflict or a big war sets back humanity far less then if a technology, science discovery or medical advancement is not shared across nations and kept a secret by default. This kind of thinking is so short-sighed that it gets dangerous if critical mass of people start seeing things this way.

[tszaboo]

Ok, we get it, your German scientists are better than ours.

[SteveThackery]

I'm probably missing the point, here, but surely companies that invest in a large R&D department do so in order to gain a commercial advantage by creating knowledge (or IP) that their competitors do not have. These companies presumably would prefer not to share that knowledge, because it gives their cheapskate competitors who don't invest in R&D a free leg-up.

Or is it that the product of R&D is patents, rather than knowledge? In that case the knowledge escapes, but the originator gets money from licensing the use of it.

[soldar]

I'm probably missing the point, here, but surely companies that invest in a large R&D department do so in order to gain a commercial advantage by creating knowledge (or IP) that their competitors do not have. These companies presumably would prefer not to share that knowledge, because it gives their cheapskate competitors who don't invest in R&D a free leg-up.

Or is it that the product of R&D is patents, rather than knowledge? In that case the knowledge escapes, but the originator gets money from licensing the use of it.

A patent makes public the invention it protects and has a period of time after which it expires. By its very nature a patent makes public what it protects.

Or the inventor can choose to keep his invention secret and thus would not be protected by patent rights.