Rako moves on…but stays analog

As I explained in my anablog post, I am sad to say I am leaving EDN. I have a great opportunity at Analog Devices. I wanted to post some links to my articles and such that might help you folks with your designs, and I sure hope you liked my work editing Design Ideas. I don’t want to go all Mr. Weepytears on you, but I have to tell you that it is a misnomer to call these “my ” articles. Fran Granville re-wrote everything to conform with good usage, style, and grammar. Amy Norcross and the Editorial Directors would make up better titles, subtitles, and other improvements. And I really want to shout out to the art directors, especially Mike O’Leary, who made the articles something beautiful to behold.

2006 was my first year and I hit one out of the park with my article about circulating currents. This is where I show Alan Martin’s and Jon Dutra’s secrets of good board layout for switchers, among other things. Their trick is to do a top-side copper pour for a local ground plane, and then nail that to your real inner layer ground plane at the bottom of the output capacitor. All the ac currents circulate in the top-side pour, the real ground plane stays nice and quite. This had the highest clicks of any article that year, other than the 50-th anniversary article.

In 2006 I Also did a nice article on designing power subsystems.

In 2007, the “break the new guy in easy” period was over and I did 7 articles.

1. Selecting op amps was a hit.
2. My article about measuring nanoamperes was a big favorite; I featured my pals Jim Williams and Paul Grohe. Paul is now at Texas Instruments, and will have to help all us analog folk carry the torch for Jim, who passed away in June.
3. Everyone knows signal path and power are analog, but my article on interface chips showed how flipping solenoids and sending 3Gbps links are analog too.
4. Another article that had a really great reception in 2007 was my overview of field solver simulators. With circuits getting so fast the PCB (printed circuit board) and the enclosures matter, this article was a big hit. I am really proud you can search Google for Beyond Spice and the EDN article comes up third. Nobody assigned me article topics here at EDN, I could just explore where my curiosity led me. Since I am too old to have seen all these simulators in college, I learned as much as I could about how they can help us. I guess there were a lot of readers that agreed. I was really honored to get a complement on the article from Texas Instruments/National Technologist Dave Anderson.
5. When I was at National Semi, Paul Grohe taught me the joys of TDR (time-domain reflectometry). Like Bob Pease, I like to think in the time domain, and seeing scopes showing impedance over distance was a big deal for me.
6. Systems engineers spend a ton of time worrying about the thermal considerations of the design, so I made sure to have a 2007 article about the headaches of thermal design.
7. Another article spurred by my curiosity of machine-to-machine networks and all the Zigbee press releases, which have thankfully tapered off, was this article about M2M networks. I was really proud that EDN pointed out the problems with RF interference and battery maintenance first, before it became common knowledge.

By 2008, thanks to the help of Fran Granville and all my EDN co-workers I was really firing on all cylinders, and I wrote 8 articles. Since it is getting late, I will just list them. I had a lot of readers thank me for the analog switch article. It is a simple little part that does not get enough love and respect. I also want to point out my prototyping article. I was quite happy to show you folks what I have learned about designing and building with teeny tiny part.

1. Analog maestro plays to medical and other emerging markets (about TI VP Gregg Lowe, a great engineer and a good person, and that comes from a guy on his way to ADI).
2. Buck-boost converters change with the times
3. Heads and tails: Design RF amplifiers for linearity and efficiency
4. Magnetic measurement tools attract attention
5. Prototyping techniques: things to know before pulling the trigger
6. RFI: keeping noise out of your designs
7. Silicon germanium: fast, quiet, and powerful (Check out Mike O’Leary’s artwork)
8. Use analog switches to multiplex your signals

So in 2009 I did one of the best articles of my career, on isolation. I got interested in Analog Devices iCoupler devices, and then learned about TI’s capacitive parts, Silicon Labs isolators that use RF, Avago’s optocouplers and modulators, and there is even NVE part that uses electron spin. The comparator article was my worst overwriting- I turned in 5200 words and Fran Granville got it down to 3200 so it would fit in the magazine. She is a genius.

1. Analog floating-gate technology comes into its own, also see this blog post that finds another use for floating gate.
2. Comparing comparators: Measure signals, get results
3. Improving on PCB design, I was always curious why the old Orcad Layout program was so good, EDN paid me while I hunted down the developers.
4. Draw the line: Isolation shields systems from shocking surprises, (check out Mike O’Leary’s cover art on this one, I had it framed.)
5. Diagnostic ultrasound gets smaller, faster, and more useful
6. Making oscillator selection crystal clear, (I took the cover picture, Mike O’Leary made it beautiful).
7. Online tools home in on analog design, prescient of me, since my new job at Analog Devices will also involve analog tools.
8. Stress out; strain gauges in, current UBM VP Karen Field (then at Reed Business) asked me do something she could also use over at Design News. As a former auto engineer, I loved this topic.)

In 2010 I must have slacked off a bit, since I only got 7 articles out. I did get to do some Prying Eyes teardowns, so I kept busy and had fun. Now that the Darnell Digital Power Forum is just the Darnell Power Forum, most people see there was a bit too much hype around digital power. I tried to explain that digital power is the semiconductor company’s problem, not yours. Analog or digital PWM loop, who cares, just make sure the chip does what you want, not how it works inside.

1. Digital power, without the hype
2. EM simulation for EMC: keeping a lid on interference
3. Integration in the other direction, a neat article about why you shouldn’t put everything on one chip, even if you could.
4. Punching through the ether with RF-range extenders
5. Swimming in the channel, an article about signal integrity in high-speed serial interfaces.
6. Silicon TV tuners: The game is on, and this blog post.
7. Voltage references hold steady

So that brings us to 2011, where I had to write the saddest articles of my life, the obituaries of my friends Jim Williams and Bob Pease. I wrote my last cover story about error budgets, in Jim and Bob’s honor. They were always systems guys that saw way past the chip and made sure you understood the whole system and how all the chips work together. I tried to do the same.

1. Analog engineering legend Bob Pease killed in car crash
2. Analog guru Jim Williams dies after stroke
3. Battery-stack-monitor ICs scrutinize the cells
4. Designing offline ac/dc switching power supplies, brick by brick
5. Error budgets keep your analog-signal path honest
6. PC boards: Materials and processing are now a hot technology
7. Power-integrity simulation keeps your planes perfect, part 1
8. Power-integrity simulation keeps your planes perfect, part 2
9. RF predistortion straightens out your signals

I also figure you Designing Ideas readers might like my Prying Eyes product teardowns, so I guess I should group them. First I suppose I should list the more standard type features of some electronic gizmo like you might have to design one day:

1. The Dimage X50 digital camera
2. Rex 6000 PDA
3. The Motorola H500 Bluetooth headset
4. Bulldog Security RS82B remote-vehicle-starter system
5. The 15W Fender Squier guitar amplifier, (Thanks to Amy Norcross for catching the correct spelling of Squier)
6. Breaking up: diagnosing a dropped phone

Then there was the teardown I did of a gorgeous piece of Tektronix test gear; a power supply for older oscilloscope probes. This one was inspired by Jim Williams, who tipped me off how cool this design was. He died before I had a chance to write it up.

1. The Tektronix 1101 oscilloscope-probe power supply

Then there was the popular interactive one we did on the Tesla Roadster EV (electric vehicle), This was the only one assigned to me by management, and is also the most popular one I have ever done, demonstrating that sometimes management really does know what it is doing.

1. The Tesla Roadster: Sporty and electric

Off course, once management had shown me how to pick popular subject that got great reader response, I promptly went off the rails and started what I call my home appliance phase of teardowns. After all, how many sexy cars and green consumer electronic circuit boards can you look at before getting bored?

1. The Sharp R-6300 microwave oven (and here is a schematic of the oven).
2. The West Bend No. 1 electric-frying-pan thermostat
3. The Scrubbing Bubbles power sprayer, (I knew the art department would love the bright green color).
4. The Black and Decker GH1000 Type 2 string trimmer, (and the trimmer design redeemed).
5. The Titan 15000 laser level

I try to be a little analog and not just slew between consumer electronics and kitchen aids, so here are a couple of nice industrial designs that I tore down. The PR agency for the American branch of Kollmorgen wrote and asked where I got images for the motor teardown. When I told them that I bought a motor on eBay and took it apart, they were amazed. Maybe they are more used to mainstream media, which just runs stuff supplied by PR departments. Not here at EDN, we are hackers to the core, just like you.

1. The 24V, 300W, BLDC Kollmorgen motor integrated controller
2. The Schauer TB10012 battery charger

I hope to keep contributing to EDN, and I will always be a loyal subscriber. It was EDN that taught me analog design, and that has given me a lot of joy, something I will certainly be continuing at Analog Devices.