Touchstone?

I thought "Touchstone" was a simulator. I don't know of this company. Link? ...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 http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Sort of like Arizona Microtech, fabless second source for expensive parts. Touchstone doesn't have much yet, but they will be interesting to watch, from the technology and legal standpoints.

Maxim has created this opportunity.

John

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Thanks! OK, Never heard of any of them, except Pierre Lamond, who I've met... he's been around longer than I have ;-) ...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 http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

No, it is the motion picture company that produced "Pretty Woman", "Sister Act" and "Sweet Home Alabama".

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

But who's using Maxim comparators in their designs? I sure don't.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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I'd still use the MAX900 if I could get it. It lasted about 15 years.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics Electro-optics Photonics Analog Electronics

55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net
http://electrooptical.net

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That pretty much sums up the problem with Maxim parts. It doesn't matter how long they last, they can really be a nightmare for my client's purchasing folks. So ...

Which is sad because from an engineering POV Maxim seems to be a good company.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.

The MAX900 was a quad ~10 ns device in an 18-pin package. It had an output latch that you could hang an RC on, and use as a pulse stretcher. Most latching comparators will oscillate if you try this.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics Electro-optics Photonics Analog Electronics

55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net
http://electrooptical.net

Yeah, they make all those nifty things. But what good does it do if you can't get production quantities? Or only for a few years?

I rather lash up something with discretes than taking such risks.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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MAX9690 was great, until you couldn't get them any more.

John

Oh, I don't disagree, for actual products. That one was a research system--the application was a noise tracking servo for the ISICL in-situ particle counter, circa 1993. It was actually pretty cute--it used the accurately known statistics of shot noise to automatically servo the false-count rate at about 1 per day (~0.00001 Hz), which was about

10**-11 times the bandwidth.

The way it worked was to use two thresholds, one about 6/10 of the other, iirc. The lower threshold comparator drove a charge pump feedback loop that servoed its false count rate to be 5 kHz, and the known ratio of the false count rates at the upper and lower thresholds made sure that the false count rate was 10**-5 Hz.

The 5 kHz number was chosen to be much higher than the maximum expected true count rate, so even though the lower threshold would detect both noise and signal counts, it wouldn't perturb the thresholds very much, and the perturbation was in the safe direction. That was really the parlour trick--it was the equivalent of being able to distinguish between false and true counts at the higher threshold.

The false count rate turned out to be a much better thing to servo on than the RMS noise level--the thing just worked. (There were a few layers of sanity checks on top of this, but they were rarely needed.)

The MAX900 was great for that--the data were Doppler tone bursts, and with AC feedback to the latch pins, I could stretch the pulse so it was longer than the burst, so I got only one pulse per event.

You can do something similar with AC feedback to the inputs, but that pushes crap back out the input, which would have screwed up the other channels.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics Electro-optics Photonics Analog Electronics

55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net
http://electrooptical.net

That is a nice feature. But you could also achieve it with digital tricks. For example by having a flip-flop set by the pulse and then reset by a delayed copy of itself. That's how we do that inside ICs where AC feedback is an issue because every capacitor is a real estate burden. And real estate prices inside ICs didn't fall as much ;-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Not exactly related, but it is surprising how often you see a zero-nulling servo opamp, especially in audio designs, when simple AC coupling is equivalent.

John

Sure, or use a whole bunch of 555s. (That's a joke, Bill, jes' a joke.) The well-behaved latch pin, 10 ns speed, and quad package were the right medicine for limited production. (I still have some left, and may use them in some Bud-box gizmo one of these days.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics Electro-optics Photonics Analog Electronics

55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net
http://electrooptical.net

[snip]

I'm just finishing up my 800-number killer. Sporting "brains" via two

555 timers, a package of 74HC14's and four COTO reed relays driven by 2N7000's ;-) [snip] ...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

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I know some of the insiders. The only thing to watch is this company to go down in flames. I don't want to say anymore since lawyers are everywhere.

Put it this way. I know who I would steal from Maxim to start a company, and they aren't at Touchstone. Now there is another Maxim "branch" that actually took some real talent, but I can't name it.

No problem here. Slow micropower comparators aren't very exciting parts.

John

at

ing

rs.

^^^

er

.

How does a company selling about $600 million a quarter not have sales?

I did a post on touchstone, but I guess google swallowed it. Trust me, it is not the A-team out of Maxim. I can't say any more other than to risk a lawsuit.