Who is your idole in Analog Design？

stanleyu
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 27
30 Apr 2004 8:01   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  

-Thomas Lee of Stanford Uni in RF CMOS design ..He has breed quite a lot of assosiate professor in other UNi such as Don Lee in Harvard Uni, Ali Hajimiri of Caltech and numerous more who published some good books about RF cmos.
-Paul Gray & Meyer from Berkeley Uni
-Asad Abidi from UCLA
-Paul Allen from Gatech Uni
and many many more ...  

flatulent
Joined: 19 Jul 2002
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Location: Middle Earth
30 Apr 2004 18:15   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


One problem in this area is that the best designers never wrote books or journal articles and very few people know about them. Most of these people worked on secret military and espionage projects that were decades ahead of their time and would be called state of the art several decades later, but they cannot claim the credit for them.
There is also the problem of credit for reinventing. The "Gilbert mixer" existed back in the valve/tube days. 28 GHz radar was operational in 1945. In 1943 there was a radar transponder the size of a paper back book which showed the location of the infantry units on the ground on the aircraft radar. It also contained a two way voice channel by modulating the pulse parameters in both directions. The US military had operational OFDM systems in 1950. The Germans had FHSS operational systems in around 1943.  

Puppet1
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 850
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04 Jun 2004 20:14   Re: Who is your idol in Analog Design?  


How about Gray and Meyer at Berkeley ?
I don't know about you guys but this is I feel the best book in Analog IC design from an explanation point of view. The new book is updated with CMOS too and is amazing, can start learning from scratch which is more than I can say for Razavi or Lee, which assume you are a PhD student.
As for other designers, most of electronics is shrouded in military secrecy: most of the work by Lee, Hajimiri, Gray, Meyer, and whoever else is done for the US military and I am sure it is the same in other countries around the world -- these of course cannot be published and you can be sure work at Caltech with Hajimiri involves military work, I mean that is what Caltech is for.
Most engineering work is not known, especially in the military arena and probably never will be.  

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v_naren
Guest
04 Jun 2004 21:17   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


I totally agree with Puppet1 about "the" book for starting to learn analog ic..why even analog design in general....I particularly love the way the in chapter 3 the small signal model is introduced and the way in which the need for biasing has been elucidated by plotting the Vo vs Vi curve for a simple single stage CE or CS stage!!!!
really love analog ic design by gray and meyer
another major book that I read even before gray and meyer is called
Electronic Principles: Physics, Models and Circuits
by Paul E. Gray, Campbell L. Searle
this is THE BOOK I would say to really really start analog circuit design in general...the design problems and examples are even better than gray and meyers!!!!  
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 9
16 Jun 2004 7:41   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


I will say Razavi may be the 11th (atmost) in analog design.
He may be the best textbook writer and best instructor but definitely no best designer at all means.
His book is good---only for students at college--you underderstand a lot from his book---but you still can not design a circuit after finishing his book. Or you can design one circuit, at the review, some body will ask how have been out off school.
There too most porpular book on RF: one is Tom Lee one is by Razavi. Tom make things simple, but razavi makes thing complex...But after reading Tom's book, i like his better. But it mat be better begin from Razavi's....
Industry influence? look which circuit by Razavi can be directly used in industry....you tell me one?
You can look at Huisjing's Opamp, yes, you can copy them and use in the product, and amazingly, it works!
RFIC? look circuits by Steyaert group...
A/D converter...look at Gray's....
PLL? look at Stanford Horowiz group's design....
OK you want to talk theory? Noise? Look at Tom's group....
Razavi, a good instructor...that is it  

xshou
Joined: 17 Aug 2002
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17 Jun 2004 2:13   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


On top of my list:
Widlar (reference)
Gilbert (translinear)
Adams (log domain signaling)
Tom Lee (fractional cap, oscillator phase noise)
Poschenrieder (SC)
We lack originality in analog IC design for the past two decades.
Does it imply analog is a mature topic?
Razavi at best is good teacher and he is not creative enough.


Puppet1
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 850
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21 Jun 2004 10:14   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


analog ic was once a topic that people didn't talk about or write textbooks about -- like picasso or matisse -- it was art - something few people could do outside of berkeley.
now analog ic has matured along with every other industry -- be it plastic, steel industry, textiles, railways, telephones, automobile, computers -- all of them -- microelectronics has matured.
one person you didn't mention was asad abidi -- who says in a recent IEEE paper that analog is dead, since the dynamic range is shrinking with shrinking voltage we are just assembling transistors to make systems, the circuit innovation is just done, now we are just making algorithms, and not designing new topologies or new circuit methodologies.
all that is left is mathematics, complexity, signal processing and extracting as much as you can out of a technology that is dead and dying with no new process or technology on the horizon.
microelectronics is saturated.  

rauol
Joined: 02 Oct 2002
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22 Jun 2004 17:24   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


Is analog design still considered as "black magic"
i have seen many engineers scared when you say "Analog" they felt more comfortable working with "1" and "0"
I think over the 50 years there have been many experts in analog design.
because "Analog" is a very wide term it is difficult to say who is the best.
In power supply design i think it is "Slobodan Cuk"
" Balu Balakrishnan" CEO of power integrations has many innovative patents in High voltage CMOS analog designs.
The list will become endless as there may be Thousands of engineers from the lot of Millions of Engineers all over the world.  

zanov
Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 60
21 Jun 2004 10:33   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


borodenkov wrote:
Do you know the names of analog designers working currently in National Semiconductors, Maxim, TI etc???

sometimes they keep the names in low profiles. I did one internship as student and the company keeps secret names of their engineers. If you need to talk to someone they send you to some manager guy which surely knows what the company is doing but if advanced questions asked he says that he will get back with another call for you for the question. He asks engineers. weird?  

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guamak_menanak
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 137
Location: malaysia
22 Jun 2004 2:58   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


sometimes they keep the names in low profiles. I did one internship as student and the company keeps secret names of their engineers. If you need to talk to someone they send you to some manager guy which surely knows what the company is doing but if advanced questions asked he says that he will get back with another call for you for the question. He asks engineers. weird?
It seems like analog designer are working with 'Secret Agent'!  
To hard to know them?
Are they double agent?
Working more than one company?
Hehe...not the double agent from SD-6 [from 'ALIAS'(drama story)]  
Joined: 10 Nov 2001
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26 Aug 2004 7:36   Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


guamak_menanak I get parts from TI or Fairchild. They all are manifactured in Malaysia.
Well they make the designs in US but how they protect their intellectual investment overseas factories. Are the manufacturing plants of TI or Fairchild kinda "secret" from prying eyes?
I just want to have a picture in my head of their manufacturing factories.  

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guamak_menanak
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 137
Location: malaysia
27 Aug 2004 3:06   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


I think because the cost of manufacturing is cheaper here!
But actually, now many manufacturers are looking at China because China provide cheaper salary and have many workers!
Malaysia is now trying to gain more on design and R&D...
One of the reason why some of the ICs are not design here is we are still gaining our skills and need more people on that filed...
Maybe in the future we will have our Malaysia'n IC, design, fabricated and manufactured by Malaysian!
Hope it will come true...  

DoctorX
Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 73
Location: USA
03 Sep 2004 23:01   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


Rolf Schaumann. He specializes in analog filter design, and with a full knowledge about analog IC design, 'cause that's the basis for analog integrated filter design. He is emeritus at Portland State.
Gabor Themes. He use to be the pioneer in A/D and SwitchCap filters in Oregon State.
Sergio Franco. Have not met him. But from his writing, he is knowledgeable, practical, and humble. The previous two people are also incredibly humble.
Stewart Taylor. He hardly publishes anything. But I attended his RF/Analog class, and he is great. He has a knack of putting complex things in a simple way, without much explanations. He is somewhat stern, so I am not quite at home with him.
I teach analog IC design and is just about to get my PhD on analog RF CMOS filters. I was always seretly annoyed when hearing others saying that "Analog design is an art", whether it is by outsiders out of awe or by insiders out of pride/joy. That scares away people!! I won't say that it is nothing, but all you need is an intuition (gift, if you will) and time. The former is essential. Interest does not count.
What is "intuition"? Well, grab a simple transistor circuit, look at it. If you have a good feeling, then you are on it. Feeling scared is OK. Feeling like to turn away is a bad sign.  

Puppet1
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 850
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15 Sep 2004 21:29   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


My idol in Analog Design are the people you never hear about in companies all over the world, that are looked over by the PHD's who have their names splashed all over the place.
In California, all the PhD's get the name recognition and publish papers... but can you imagine any of these professors actually working ? That would be a laugh !
So, my idols are the people who have worked for many years and actually KNOW in the REAL WORLD what is happening.
Thank you to all the un-named people who helped make analog design as it is today !  

Teddy
Joined: 15 Sep 2004
Posts: 234
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15 Sep 2004 23:51   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


somebody mentioned Razavi - or any other book author.
Could anyone use their books for real design? I mean it is nice to read and refresh the theory but they always use ideal environment for anything they present. When you try to use their stuff over temp, voltage, process corners you would find out what real analog designer has to deal with. Not talking about lead inductance and all that package crap. So to me hero is every one who makes working product!  

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guamak_menanak
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 137
Location: malaysia
16 Sep 2004 4:02   Re: Who is your idole in Analog Design?  


Eventhough they(razavi&others) are not the important person in designing latest product, but because of them we know the fundamantel of analog IC design...
Maybe they are not heroes, but they are like a main 'root' for an analog IC design 'tree'