Tech Smorgasbord Archives - 2

RF Cafe University"Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and "Tech Topics Smorgasbord" are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:

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Average Base Salary per Design Work Type

Electronic Design Research

Type  Pay
IC, Semicon $100.2k
MEMS $93.6k
Military $92.0k

Computer Hrdw

$91.7k
Medical $89.7k
Comm Systems $89.7k
R&D $87.6k
Software $86.3k
Avionics, Marine $83.1k
T&M $82.3k
Consumer $80.8k
Components $78.3k
Industrial Cntrls $77.0k
Automotive $76.8k
Power $76.8k
Security $73.1k

 

 

Asia's Economies Rated

Potential Ability to Enhance Businesse

(Max score = 10)

EE Times Research

Country Score
China 6.74
Japan 6.28
Korea 6.20
Taiwan 6.14
Other 5.89
Hong Kong 5.67
India 5.54
Asian 5.33

 

Natural Amenities by County: 1970-1996

The USDA published a map that displays how desirable an area is to live based on topographic variation, vegetation, access to water, etc. Green is best, red is worst.

UDSA Natural Amenities Map, county-by-county

 

L=(Ψ|i∂τ-H|Ψ)+g(Ψ2)

 

You undoubtedly recognized the above equation as describing only 10 of the 11 dimensions of String Theory, as developed by Michio Kaku, et al. If you have the full equation for all 11 dimensions, please e-mail it to Michio so he can get some sleep.

 

U.S. National Archive Digital Storage Requirements

IEEE Research

Year Data Size
1995 57 GB
1997 249 GB
1999 255 GB
2001 268 GB
2003 546 GB
2004 1.9 TB
2005 5.1 TB

 

 

Top Contract Manufacturers

Electronic Business Research

Company Rank
Flextronics 1
Hon Hai Precision 2
Sanmina-Sci 3
Solectron 4
Celestica 5
Jabil Circuit 6
BenQ 7
Inventec 8
Elcoteq 9
Wistron 10
Benchmark Elect 11
Venture 12

 

 

Silicon Valley's Slice of the U.S. Venture Capitalist Pie

EE Times Research

2005 25.8%
2004 27.6%
2003 24.7%
2002 24.5%
2001 23.5%
2000 21.2%
1999 21.0%
1998 20.0%
1997 23.4%
1996 25.9%

Data File Storage Requirements

Information Size
All words ever spoken by humans 5 EB

Exabyte

(1018)

All material ever printed 200 PB

Petabyte

(1015)

All material gathered by 9/11 Commission 1.2 TB

Terabyte

(1012)

Pickup truck filled with books 1 GB

Gigabyte

(109)

Data contained on a 3.5" floppy 1.4 MB

Megabyte

(106)

Low-resolution JPEG file 100 kB

Kilobyte

(103)

 

Engineering Top Pay

EETimes Research

Position Nat'l Mean
Top Pay States Amount
Eng Manager $104,210
Vermont $127,120
California $123,160
New York $116,120
Computer Eng $85,540
Colorado $99,350
California $93,520
Massachusetts $87,910
Software Eng $83,460
New Hamp. $93,670
California $92,600
New Jersey $92,230
Electronic Eng $78,620
Wash. D.C. $93,780
New Jersey $88,610
California $87,910
Electrical Eng $75,540
California $87,460
Texas $84,250
Wash. D.C. $81,940

Ph.Ds Awarded in Science & Engineering

IEEE Research

Year U.S. E.U. Asia
1975 12.2k 6.9k 4.0k
1980 11.2k 7.7k 5.8k
1985 12.6k 8.7k 7.7k
1990 16.2k 19.1k 9.9k
1995 19.2k 20.1k 14.2k
2000 18.0k 23.9k 18.0k

 

 

Weight of a 150-Pound Man in Other Gravitational Fields

Discover Magazine Data

Object Weight (lbs)
Sun (Earth's) 4,100
Jupiter 380
Moon (Earth's) 25
Eros (asteroid) 0.1
Carbon Atom 10-35
Dust Speck 10-27
Voyager 1 10-7
White Dwarf Star 4x107
Milky Way's

Black Hole

7x107
Neutron Star 2x1013
 

 

The device a jeweler uses to test for diamond authenticity works by measuring the heat transfer capacity of the stone. A diamond's thermal conductivity is much greater than that of any of the fakes...until recently when moissanite was developed. That synthetic diamond substitute has a coefficient very close to a diamond's, rendering the test unreliable. Even experts are challenged by the moissanite fakes. A reflectivity test had to be developed to guarantee detection.