Mixed-Signal, Bipolar vs CMOS

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"and analog-circuit wizards like Bob Pease are growing scarce".

Oh good -- maybe we'll get some analog-circuit wizards that actually do real things instead of writing stupid self-centered columns for industry rags.

Yep ;-)

My very thought.

However, there are many folk (quite a few of them seem to lurk here :-), that equate publication with competence. ...Jim Thompson

Publication certainly indicates competence _at publishing_. And it's a way to show off your competence (if you're wondering what sort of control systems work I can do, you can go read the articles section of my web site, or my book).

But yes, any idiot who writes well can get published.

(And I don't know that Bob Pease is necessarily that bad a chip designer

-- I just know that if I ever see an article from him titled "What's all this Colonoscopy stuff, anyhow?" I'm probably not going to read it).

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=A0 =A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

If Jim were to go to scholar.google.com and search with "R A Pease" he'd find more patents than publications.

Obviously someone at National Semiconductor thinks that Bob Pease is competent enough to justify spending money on patenting his innovations.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Bought it when it first came out :-)

Pease was perhaps a good designer at one point in time. Now I fear he's become a wee-bit demented... like Slowman, trying to re-live his past :-( ...Jim Thompson

Yes, but you're really not in my target audience -- unless you're demented enough to declare an ADC/processor/DAC chain an "analog component".

(I'm not sure you couldn't get by perfectly well without it even so).

I do mixed analog-digital all the time. I even recently designed a

Indeed! I buy books hand-over-fist... if the book gives me just one good idea it's a good buy!

Contrary to a lot of opinion floating around here, I'm quite up-to-date on integrated technologies.

I doubt that there are any lurkers here that could keep up with me doing analog design except, perhaps, Goldstein.

I pride myself in finding elegant solutions to bastard problems :-) ...Jim Thompson

I didn't say that Pease wasn't a good designer, I said that you couldn't tell this from his detailed articles about hiking in the Himalayas, or keeping elderly Volkswagens in good repair.

I suspect that the real problem is that he was pressured, or all too willing, to write articles faster than he could come up with good material -- hence the digressions.

I write about applying control systems and signal processing theory to practical problems using software. That doesn't mean I think that I can write an article about My Life with Toenail Fungus and have you find it the least bit interesting.

All I want from Pease is the same level of restraint.

I'll break my rule and reply to Slowman.

Pease has 17 patents, I have 18. Who cares?

I didn't pay for a single one of my patents. I even have some current ones. Does Pease?

Hardly. I know for a fact that Pease does no design. I'm pretty sure that Pease was laid off at the same time as Tom Frederiksen... both are attached now as small-stipend "consultants".

Same here. I've stopped reading his column... it's useless. And some of his "memories" are quite wrong... I was there, not at National, but right next door.

Slowman and his excuses get to be _very_ tiring.

I'm always pleased to note that I'm the highest standard for Slowman's disdain, but please don't feed the jerk. Let him die that most unpleasant of deaths... alone ;-)

-- ...Jim Thompson

| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

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None of us pay for the rags that publish Bob Pease on maintaining elderly Volkswagens. They send them to us for free on the assumption that we will read enough of the ads to keep their advertisers happy.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Actually, Jim is replying to Tim Westcott's comment on the response Charles posted to my post, but Jim doesn't pay much attention to detail.

Jim obviously does, or he wouldn't have counted them. Blumlein had accumulated 128 when he died at 38, which means that he was churning them out some twenty times faster than Jim or Bob.

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Who cares?

It's called retirement. Bean-counters do tend to impose it on elderly employees.

That excuse came from Charles, not me, but Jim-out-of-touch-with- reality-Thompson doesn't pay attention to that kind of detail. Would you want this man to design integrated circuits for you?

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Like everything else, they're important to Slowman when they're making his point, otherwise not so much. He'll now claim that you're aren't important but his will fix AGW, if only "they" would listen.

Slowman is *so* predictable. Go back to ignoring the loon.

I am flattered. Certainly there are others...

I won't buy anything pushed by a jock or celebrity, if there is another choice.

Possibly, but they seem to stay in hiding.

I think most "circuit designers" lurking here do most everything with off-the-shelf OpAmps, etc. The most they do at the transistor level is add a booster transistor.

...Jim Thompson

On Jan 20, 6:51=A0am, Jim Thompson wrote: ...snip...

=A0 =A0 =A0...Jim Thompson

Now if we could just find a political guru to do just that!

I have a solution, but it's not legal until we get into a civil war :-D ...Jim Thompson

To observe that Pease has gone the same demented way as Slowman, download the digital copy of the January 14, 2010 issue of Electronic Design, and read Pease's column and a retort :-) ...Jim Thompson

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I may be be getting older, but I'm not yet silly enough to spend my money on an Apple computer - they are reputed to be nice, and we have friends who earn their money by making them nicer - but they are expensive for what they offer.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen