Abstract :
The evolution of clock making, recounted in this article by Thomas H. Lee, advanced dramatically after low-power, quartz-controlled watches were first developed by Eric Vittoz and others at the Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) over forty years ago. Due in great part to their work, even the least expensive wristwatches today are so precise that the need for better stability no longer drives their evolution. Instead, the ability to integrate more functions per unit volume explains why many watches are becoming multipurpose information appliances including PDAs, infrared remote controls, pagers, radios, TVs, walkie-talkies and MP3 players. In the future, low-power will become increasingly important as engineers struggle to address the constrained power budgets of the wristwatch form factor.
