Page 15 - Analog Circuit Design Art, Science, and Personalities

Contributors

senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Audio Engineering Society. In his
spare time, he enjoys music and regards himself as a connoisseur of beer and exor-
bitantly spicy food.
A. PAUL BROKAW spent his early years investigating flashlight workings and dis-
emboweling toasters. After obtaining his B.S. in physics from Oklahoma State
University, he developed electronics for scientific satellites with Labko Scientific,
Inc. He also worked with Arthur D. Little, Inc., as a circuit design consultant. In
197 1, he joined Nova Devices, which eventually became the semiconductor divi-
sion of Analog Devices. He has held several positions at Analog, generally related
to design, and is now an Analog Fellow. He holds over 50 U.S. patents in such areas
as analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, references, amplifiers, and
application-specific integrated circuits. He has published technical papers in several
TEEE journals, and is an IEEE Fellow.

RICHARD S. BURWEN received a S.B. (cum laude) in physics in 1949 and an A.M.
in engineering sciences and applied physics in 1950 from Harvard. He was one of
the three founders of Analog Devices and worked as a consultant to the company,
designing several of the circuits for its initial product lines. Other companies with
which he was associated in their beginning phases have included Mark Levinson
Audio Systems, Cello Ltd., and Novametrix Medical Systems. He became a
founder of Copley Controls in 1984 and has designed many of the company’s
products. In the case of all companies he has helped start, Richard maintains his
independence by working as a consultant from his own laboratory. His home in
Lexington, Massachusetts is designed around his 20,000-watt, 169-speaker
recording and reproducing studio. He continues independent research in digital
audio.
GEORGE ERDI has been designing linear integrated circuits for a quarter-century.
In the 1960s, he designed the first precision op amp and and codesigned the first
monolithic digital-to-analog converter while at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1969,
he cofounded Precision Monolithics, Inc., and created such industry standards as
the OP-07 and REF-01 analog circuits. In 198 1, George was a cofounder of Linear
Technology where he designed 30 new circuits, including the popular LTlOl2,
LT1013, LTI028, and LT1078. He has also presented six papers at the International
Solid-state Circuits Conference. In September 1988, Electronic Engineering Times
cited George as one of the “thirty who made a difference” in the history of integrated
circuits.

SERGIO FRANCO is a professor of electrical engineering at San Francisco State
University, where he teaches microelectronics courses and acts as an industry
consultant. Prior to assuming his current professorship, Sergio was employed at
Zeltron, Zanussi’s Electronics lnstitute (Udine, Italy). He received a B.S. in physics
from the University of Rome, a M.S. in physics from Clark University, and a Ph.D.
in computer science from the University of Illinois. Sergio is a member of the IEEE,
and in his spare time enjoys classical music, gardening, and mountain hiking.

BARRIE GJ1,BEK’T has spent most of his life designing analog circuits, beginning
with four-pin vacuum tubes in the late 1940s. Work on speech encoding and syn-
thesis at the Signals Research and Development Establishment in Britain began a
love affair with the bipolar transistor that shows no signs of cooling off. Barrie
joined Analog Devices in 1972, where he is now a Division Fellow working on a

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