It's a mistake, though, because by nature the engineer's job is to field worst-case scenarios, which in a practical sense means adapting to the likelihood that in-house designs will need to be handled by general engineering staffs not fully familiar with a given subject or product. Indeed, books have been written for such practitioners by other practitioners whose business is to keep the generalist knowledgeable and at work.

"In the end, the customer doesn't care how it gets done," is a common response. That's true in most cases. But we don't have a "mutually exclusive" situation. Breakneck-speed technology certainly takes care of the details for making a particular device compliant to some standard or purpose, and the size and overall efficiency of a device will initially be more important than knowing what important MOSFET package and technique are used to get there. Tons of press releases and several product catalogs attest to that philosophy, many containing no such mention of, say, a company's use of its synchronous rectifier topology in its dc/dc converters.

But that may reflect manufacturers' underappreciation for promoting the technology they sell. Such information has to be made available up front.

"You've got to be a specialist today," says the time-worn phrase. But you've also got to be more of a generalist. Aside from the information being lost to all but a precious few (consider steam heat, considered obsolete but still a high-energy provider to our cities, and crying for experts because plumbers don't understand how it works), engineers are only expected to gain access to the info they need-and all the info they want-in an easy way. That's because the contour and scope of technical developments change daily, everywhere.

And however one twists or turns it, basic or future technology, today's designers simply can't grasp exactly what they may need to know tomorrow.