Robert Widlar

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Robert J. Widlar (born November 30, 1937 in Ohio , † February 27, 1991 in Puerto Vallarta ) was a pioneer in the development of analog integrated circuits (IC).

Life

Widlar joined the US Air Force as a technical instructor in 1958 . A year later he began his studies at the University of Colorado , which he completed in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. During this time he worked at Ball Brothers Research on the control system for the Orbiting Solar Observatory . In 1963, Widlar moved to Fairchild Semiconductor , where he started developing linear ICs. There he began the development of the world's first monolithic operational amplifier µA702 without the knowledge of the Fairchild management and worked out a suitable manufacturing process for it together with process engineer Dave Talbert . The chip became a success because it offered the opportunity for the massive miniaturization of analog computing circuits. Until then, operational amplifiers were built from discrete components, making them large and expensive.

After a number of successful products for Fairchild, Widlar left Fairchild because they no longer wanted to meet their salary requirements. Together with Dave Talbert and Mineo Yamatake , he went to National Semiconductor in 1966 and built up the department for linear ICs. In 1970 he quit at the age of 34 and moved to Puerto Vallarta, claiming to be a millionaire. He finally worked as a freelance developer for National Semiconductor and Linear Technology from 1974 until his death from a heart attack that overtook him while jogging on the beach near his home. He died unmarried without children at the age of 54, leaving behind brothers Jim and Tom and sister Jane West.

Bob Widlar was considered extremely eccentric and difficult. He was a heavy drinker and known for being able to give excellent technical presentations even when drunk.

A large number of innovations in IC circuit technology have come from Bob Widlar. B. the band gap reference in the first integrated fixed voltage regulator LM109, the Widlar current mirror and the super gain transistor in the LM102. Many of his developments are still used today in quantities of billions.

He published more than 40 specialist articles (in addition to numerous publications accompanying the product) and worked a. a. on the following products:

  • µA702, µA709, µA710, µA711, µA712, µA726 at Fairchild
  • LM100, LM101, LM101A, LM102 to LM113, LM216, LM10, LM11, LM12 and LT10 (power transistor, never in series) from National Semiconductor
  • LT1017, LT1018, LT1016, LT1010, LT1011 at Linear Technology

Quotes about Robert J. Widlar

“I mean, he was such a great public spokesman and such a great engineer that he was like literally a religious symbol to analog users. And people would come across the country just to listen to him talk and he would lecture on circuit design and these things and he would do it half smashed most of the time. [...] There haven't been many personalities like him. He had courage. Hey what aggressive. Hey what, he was insane. He was all of those things. Ego. Widlar was natural. He just was, he was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch you've ever seen. "

“He brought National to the top of the largest market share in linear, just a very prolific guy. A very, very strange guy, but talent out of the eyeballs and he would design a product, he'd not only design it, it would be thoroughly designed. I mean no flaws in this design. He'd write the data sheet perfect in all respects. The English was perfect. Application notes, extensive and thorough. And it would drive you nuts because he wouldn't allow you to introduce the product until everything was perfect. But this man could work, you know, on a device for, you know, three or four months, sort of night and day until it was finished and then he would go on a drunk. He drank excessively, which I tolerated. I had no choice. I mean this guy was the company for a while. "

“Charlie Sporck, (who recently retired as the president of National) told me about the first time he met Bob. He was in the Fairchild hospitality suite during the IEEE show in New York City back in 1966. He was reading in Electronic News that Raytheon had just brought out an RM709 as a second source to the Fairchild UA709. Bob, who was not pleased at being second-sourced, came over and, uttering a generalized profanity, set fire to Charlie's newspaper. Charlie was astonished, and threw it into a metal wastebasket. Unfortunately the fire did not go out. As they tried to extinguish the fire, the smoke alarms went off and the fire department arrived. So much for first impressions [...]. "

swell

literature

  • Paul Rako: Bob Widlar cherry-bombs the intercom speaker . In: Electronic Design News . 2011 ( [1] ).
  • James E. Solomon: A tribute to Bob Widlar . In: IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits . tape 26 , no. 8 , 1991, pp. 1087-1088 .
  • Robert A. Pease: What's All This Widlar Stuff, Anyhow? In: Electronic Design . tape 41 , no. 15 , 1991, ISSN  0013-4872 , pp. 146-150 .

Individual evidence

  1. Interview with Jack Gifford on silicongenesis.stanford.edu (English)
  2. Interview with Charlie Sporck on silicongenesis.stanford.edu (English)
  3. The best of Bob Pease ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at www.national.com (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.national.com