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  • Author Author: dougw
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Predicting the Future

Many people have tried to predict the future based on knowledge and historical precedent. Here is you chance to see how good you are at it....

Progress has a habit of taking mind boggling technology at a mind boggling high price and turning it into an everyday commodity at a mind boggling low price.

This is not a product pitch but Keysight has a new oscilloscope that just blows my mind:

The Keysight UXR 110GHz 4channel 10bit beast

UXR

Click on it for more info.

This amazing scope costs a cool $1.3M

My question is: What will equivalent capability cost in 10 years? (In today's dollars)

I really hope you are all around, and this forum is still around and the dollar is still around to check back on the accuracy of your predictions.

This may seem like a frivolous question, but it can be vitally important for us to figure out and think about how to make more accurate predictions.

  • I wonder if it will be trivial in 10 years and come as a promotional item in the mail. It'll be an Oscilloscope on a chip/ PCB kit. (OK - maybe not quite that bad; but at least there will be much cheaper knock-off versions). I think in 10 years, it will still be "really good" or at least "pretty darn good", but there will be much better things available. In 20 years, however, the story will be much different. We'll have all sorts of things that aren't even invented yet like "non-contact probing" and test instrumentation that doesn't alter the circuit.

     

    image

  • I don't think there has ever been a scope this expensive, so historical price erosion doesn't provide much of a guide.

    I think now that this performance level has been solved, the price can come down as component performance improves, processes improve and yields improve. Once yield is good and manufacturing is automated and manual calibration has been automated, the cost becomes more proportional to the mass of the material in the product.

    But the price will only come down if other companies also compete in this segment and that would be driven by demand. It will also take others some time to catch up. This performance level will still be at the high end in 10 years because all the lower performance requirements will still be there making up mainstream requirements for lower performance instruments.

    I expect such an instrument to still be at the high end of expensive instruments in ten years, although there could still be newer instruments starting off in the stratosphere. Depending on complexity I think this high end is somewhere in the $20K to $80K range.

  • I am already seeing devices for mm wave detection, so I think you are about to see a rapid advance in these types of instruments. In ten years, 110G will be standard.

     

    DAB

  • I'm picking 100k only because it seems a nice number image

     

    You're quite right about the cost reducing.

    We used to have some rather nice and large trackballs as part of the ATC system.

    I was told they were somewhere in the 10ths of thousands of dollars range when delivered in the late 80's??.

     

    Demand also has a large part to play as the cost of the development has to be spread over the sales, and if they happen to be projected at 10's/year, then it's going to represent a significant part of the sale price.

     

    Set the alarm clock for November 2028 and save the page to see if you're close ....

     

    Mark

  • I am assuming you don't want to factor in the tariffs which will probably push the price back up to the 1.3M. One the other hand 10 years from now if you don't mind recapping it you can probably get a deal on the original.

    John