This article begins with a story about the design and beauty of the circuitry inside Apple’s Mac computers, and explains the important role that EE plays in computer circuit design. It covers the complexity of circuits and the importance of design, emphasizing the essential role of EE as engineers constantly validate and modify their designs to perfect them.
Before we talk about EE, let’s talk about the Mac computer from Apple, a company synonymous with innovation. The common perception of the Mac is that it’s a relatively sleek, beautifully curved computer, but the real appeal of the Mac is not just in its appearance. Apple’s products have always been about the perfect balance of design and performance, and the philosophy behind them is that they should be beautiful even when they’re not visible to the consumer. This philosophy is evident in the development of the Mac. “The true beauty of the Mac is not on the outside, but on the inside,” the Mac’s development team said of the Mac’s internal circuitry, which is illustrated by a Steve Jobs anecdote.
When an engineer finished the internal circuitry of the Mac, Steve Jobs saw it and said it wasn’t beautiful and told him to redesign it. The engineer retorted that the customer doesn’t see the inside of the Mac, so ‘Steve Jobs’ said, “I saw it!” What was the internal circuit referred to in this anecdote, and what was the beautiful circuit that ‘Steve Jobs’ wanted? The answer lies in electrical and information engineering.
The typical circuit we know is a switch with a battery and a light bulb connected to it by wires with alligator claws, but that’s not what’s inside a slim computer like the Mac. Instead of a switch and a light bulb, there are tons of semiconductor chips. Still, the internal circuitry inside the Mac works just like the circuitry we know: you flip a switch and a light bulb turns on and off. But there are hundreds of millions of components, so tiny and microscopic that you can’t see them, connected by wires less than a millimeter across, and sitting on a green substrate that’s just a fraction of a millimeter thick. Each component sends signals to the other and produces some sort of output, like when you press a key on the keyboard and the computer puts the letters on the monitor screen.
The semiconductor chip is the brain of the computer, and it’s a collection of chips that together create powerful computational power. The substrate is the blood vessel that connects these chips together. If the chips are the brain, the substrate is the neural network. For a neural network to function properly, each wire on the board needs to be connected correctly, just as each nerve needs to be connected correctly.
But in order for the parts to produce the desired results, they need to be translated so that they can understand what each other is saying. When you translate, you don’t translate Korean into English, you translate it into a chunk of numbers called zeros and ones, because each part of the computer doesn’t know anything other than zeros and ones, so you translate it into a new language of zeros and ones. If you deliver the translation to a different part of the computer than the one that’s supposed to receive it, the computer will produce the wrong results. So the connections in the wires that carry the translation need to be correct.
And if the connections between the parts are wrong, it’s not just the output that’s weird. Sometimes, even if there’s nothing outwardly wrong, the circuit is wrong and the computer will catch fire, especially if it’s just a wire connecting two points with different voltages. For example, if a wire in a circuit connects two points, and the resistance of the wire between them is very small, say 1 ohm. If you apply voltages of 0 volts and 9 volts to each end of the wire, the current through the wire will be 9 amps, according to Ohm’s law. If you put 5 amps through an 8mm thick wire, it will start to spark where the connection is weak. This is just an example, but 9 amps is enough to start a fire in the thin wires in your computer.
It’s also possible for circuits to melt wires because of poor connections and overlooking the laws of physics. For example, when too much current flows through thin wires, the heat melts the components inside. It’s not just about the heat; when circuits are damaged in this way, the lifespan of the computer is dramatically reduced. It’s an important role of electrical and information engineering to make sure that the computers we use are designed to last. In fact, premature failure is often caused by poor design, so engineers must analyze data sheets with data and diagrams relating to the current or voltage of each component to estimate how much current will flow under an overload, and then apply mathematical formulas and the laws of physics to find out.
It’s not just one thing that goes into creating a circuit; it’s everything from design to verification to modification, which is why once a circuit is created, it’s verified by multiple people. But if the circuit is complicated, with parts located in a way that only the creator can recognize, and wires laid out in a twisty way, that can be a problem, because it’s hard for other people to know what needs to be fixed, and it’s hard for them to figure out how to fix it. That’s where the beauty of a circuit comes in. A really well-done circuit, no matter how complex, should be able to tell at a glance where everything is connected and how it’s connected, even if it’s the first time you’ve seen it. This isn’t just a matter of aesthetics; a clear, easy-to-understand design makes collaboration more efficient and reduces errors.
In other words, Steve Jobs wanted beautiful circuits that didn’t malfunction and catch fire, but also circuits that engineers could see at a glance how they were connected so that they could collaborate with others. Designing and solving problems with circuits to create these beautiful circuits is what we do in electrical and information engineering.
Engineers in EE wrestle with circuits day and night. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. Even when they win, they still have to go through a tremendous amount of theoretical calculations and verification experiments. If the battle with circuits is the first half, there are several second halves with other problems, such as communications and displays. Along the way, engineers encounter setbacks and discover new challenges, but if they keep going, they’ll eventually reach a beautiful outcome, like the Mac, and that’s where the discipline of electrical and information engineering comes in.
