I Became an Engineer Because of a Small FM Radio

这篇文章首先出现在ecn博客作为他们“我成为工程师”系列的一部分。

本周的故事来自ECN Reader Cees Links，GM在Qorvo的无线连接。

When my 15-year-old son has a friend over, the first question is, "What's the Wi-Fi password?" When I reply, "Do you know there was life before Wi-Fi?" I get back blank stares.

这些时刻提醒我为什么我爱工程，思考工程师是世界上最幸运的，最幸运的人。我们没有任何东西，刺激着我每天都会上班。

我自己的工程学故事开始于少年。我在1975年左右掌握了电气工程杂志 - 因为互联网没有存在，这实际上是一个papermagazine. The magazine contained a design, bill of material for 30 components and a schematic.

I took my bike to a local Radio Shack and bought the 30 components: some resistors, capacitors, a coil, crystal and a few other items. When I got home, I turned the little bag of components upside down on my desk and got my soldering gun.

Carefully following the schematics, I put the components together one by one. I connected an earplug, then the battery, fiddled a little — and it worked! The crystal-clear sound of music came through the earbud, and I was breathless. I had built a small FM radio from nothing. That is the magic I remember, as if it had happened yesterday.

将30个死缝转换为在我的桌子上展开的东西变成了让音乐是如何以及为什么我成为工程师的东西。这一刻将我的工程定义为今天的工程：制作东西的令人兴奋，这些东西大于其部件的总和。

Wi-Fi Pioneer Cees Links

Fast forward to 2004, when it became clear that Wi-Fi was moving toward higher data rates, but would also become increasingly difficult for simple, battery-operated devices in the home to connect online. This was another bag of 30 components for me to put together.

所以一些老朋友，前同事和我讨论了如何实现低功率Wi-Fi，以及芯片架构需要的是什么。我们不仅可以发现ZigBee优于低功耗Wi-Fi，但可以应用相同的架构观念来开发业内最低功率的Zigbee。

其余的是历史。

我最近被尊敬Design News与A.金色捕鼠器终身成就奖与Wi-Fi技术有所作为。借助这一奖项，我想庆祝所有工程师的积极力量和能量，以使东西无关。

• For the hours and days of thinking about what needs to be done, what can be done and how to bridge the gap.
• For the slogging and endless software debugging, because something just does not work the way it's intended.
• For rejecting the 90-percent-done syndrome, because we are idealists and perfectionists. We want it done right (ignoring those who just want to ship "as is").

We, engineers, have the creativity and the mind power to make a difference. We can make this world a better place through technology, and a connected world is a better world.