electronics industry awards supplement 2018


It’s an analog world


The world is an analog place. It is a message that Analog Devices (ADI) has presented many times over its history – now extending to more than 50 years – and one that has assumed greater importance as the world has gone ever-more digital. No matter how much digital processing takes place, interaction with the real world that we see and experience all around us requires electronic systems to act upon data captured in analog form, whether it be temperature, pressure, light level, received RF, or any other physical parameter. At the other end of the chain lies output and control; when the processing is done, and something in the real world needs to be transmitted, turned on/off, ramped up/down – often involving the control of power – Analog’s products come into play again. Jackie Rutter, director of marketing EMEA at Analog Devices tells us more


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ith a 50+ year history of product development and diversification, and having made many strategic


acquisitions along the way – of which the latest and most significant has been that of Linear Technology – it is often the case that customers only have a limited view of the company’s scope. “It is no exaggeration to say that, following on from the recent acquisition of Linear Technology, Analog Devices is now well positioned to support our UK customers, from entrepreneurial start-ups to very large multi-national customers, with a huge portfolio of innovative products and solutions. These range from DC all the way up to 100GHz and cover power, signal path, data acquisition, DSP, RF and mmWave,” says Alastair Boyd, sales director UK & Nordic with Analog Devices. A library of over 4,700 patents is testimony to its history of innovation. It might seem unlikely that an acquisition – that in many ways looks more like a merger – between companies with “Analog” and “Linear” in their names, could be done with minimal product line overlap, and with no need to “retire” products from either catalogue, but this is what has been achieved. The deal surprised most industry watchers, not least because Linear had not been regarded as 'up for sale'. Having started out in basic functions such as high-performance operational amplifiers, if any single product sector could be said to characterise Analog’s product lines, it might be A/D and D/A converters, while for Linear it is perhaps its power control devices. Other differences of emphasis included Linear’s focus on the broad market, while Analog tended to work more with larger corporate customers. “Product innovation, time-to-market, and hence,


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time-to-revenue, are factors that are important to all of us, regardless of our company size or the end markets we play in. Unlike other countries within Europe, the UK electronics industry has many hundreds, if not thousands of SME’s and entrepreneurial start-ups alongside large corporations. If the companies that make up the UK electronics industry are to play and make an impact on the world stage, it is essential that they have relationships with a likeminded semiconductor partner, such as Analog Devices,” continues Alastair Boyd. The integration of these two companies has created the premier analog technology company with the industry's most comprehensive suite of high-performance analog offerings and integrated engineering, manufacturing, sales and support operations that will accelerate innovation and revenue growth opportunities. Analog Devices is now capable of solving more of their customers' biggest and most complex challenges at the intersection of the physical and digital domains. This combination is already creating tremendous value for their customers, employees, and shareholders and it is expected to continue doing so for many years to come. The strategy going forward is to continue providing technical excellence to all customers, regardless of their size, across a vast range of markets such as the loT, smart factories, autonomous driving, electrification and battery management, as well as industrial applications and healthcare. Common to both strands of the combined company is a system-level approach


CIE electronics industry awards supplement 2018


that aims to provide not only the devices, but the design-in support that makes it easy for the engineer to apply the ICs and that also helps customers to get the best total solution rather than just the best performing component. In this short article, there is no space to explore


the breadth of Analog’s product offering; a hint can be gained from the product categories on www.analog.com; there are 16 of them, with entries not only for amplifiers and analog functions, for data converters and for RF and microwave, but also for high speed logic, and optical, to pick just a few. The company also maintains one of the most diverse portfolios of semiconductor processes in the industry. Just one example provides a classic illustration of how the company has built on that asset: the category of Sensors and MEMS. Today, MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) sensors are ubiquitous, detecting orientation and acceleration in myriad devices, not least in the smartphones in everyone's pocket; in 1993 Analog Devices took micro-machined structures from a laboratory-scale process into volume, producing an accelerometer for vehicle airbag triggering. It presented a superior solution to the mechanical switches used up to that time at a fraction of the cost, and was an instant “hit” with the automotive industry. For a time, a high proportion of all MEMS devices deployed anywhere were airbag sensors, and they were made by ADI. That product spawned an extensive line of micro-machined sensors including the most sensitive accelerometers and gyroscopes, that is a key part of the offering today. And, was that the word, 'logic' that appeared a few lines back? Surely Analog Devices concerns itself with everything analog and eschews the digital? That would be to overlook a long- established presence in digital signal processing and families of powerful, control-oriented microprocessors and microcontrollers. The combined talents of the Analog Devices and Linear Technology workforces deepen and


enhance the capacity to understand and to solve the challenges across and industry that is more than familiar with change and disruption; its core competencies of sensing, measurement and signal processing through RF, microwave and out to the optical, promise a future every bit as exciting as the last 50 years has been. Alastair ends: “It is very appropriate that Analog Devices is supporting this year’s UK Electronics Awards. I have been in the UK Electronics Industry for 36 years. Despite all the changes and disruptions our industry has undergone over the years, there is one constant, and that is my concern for the ‘health’ of our industry. I am glad that I can bring that ‘continuity of care’ to our UK customers with Analog Devices. I look forward to meeting many of you at the Electronics Industry Awards.”


www.analog.com Tel: 01628 477066


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