Standards and measurements for electronics [Conference introduction]

The author gives his views on the three predominant characteristics of modern standards. He then goes on to discuss the timeliness of this reexamination of measurement needs and the critical role of standards in an expanding technology. The most predominant characteristic of modern standards is their dynamic nature. First, accuracies are continually being increased, and second, the range of conditions for which standards are required is continually expanding. Standards must be provided both for much larger and for much smaller quantities as well as for measurements over wider ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. Each extension of either accuracy or range involves the solution of increasingly difficult measurement problems. Another requirement for useful standards at any time but of particular criticality with modern standards is that they must be rigorously consistent within the whole chain of measurement leading back to the international prototype standards representing the fundamental units of mass, length, and time. In terms of an expanding science and technology this consistency is far from easy to assure. Very of ten the achievements of special and active segments of science outdistance the standards which can be provided. Finally, the third characteristic of modern standardization is that we are making effective steps to move away from arbitrary prototype standards as the basis of measurement to a reliance on natural constants.