May 16, 2016 at 22:34The legendary Robert Widlar. Paranoid and Hermit
The name of Robert Widlar became known even during the so-called first semiconductor boom, he took an active part in many research works related to operational amplifiers. We can confidently say that he was one of the important figures in the early startups of Silicon Valley. Startups such as Fairchild and National Semiconductor were not left without his breakthrough ideas and developments. Paranoid and hermit, at times simply an unbearable type, a lover of indulging in alcohol ... and a brilliant engineer - Bob Widlar! According to colleagues, Bob could infuriate and discredit anyone, but they had to endure his antics, since electronics at that time was an area of “creative singles,” Robert was one such loner.
Who has not heard of such a process as “visualization”? The process is the destruction of defective parts and broken prototypes with nothing more than a hammer. Vidlar was very intolerant of this kind of “malfunction”, therefore, armed with a hammer, mercilessly sent them to a landfill: “... the ax hung in his office in a prominent place and part-time served as an anti-stapler: Vidlar chopped off the stapled corners of papers to them. There were probably such papers a lot: Vidlar made copies of everything he had read. " In an interesting way, Bob fought “with loud noises,” which he simply could not stand. Personally, in his office, the engineer installed a device that, if a visitor raised his voice or started yelling at Vidlara, emitted a piercing whistle. "The Hassler" - so colleagues called this device (from English - to pester).
In 60 years, a young specialist Robert Widlar became the head of the line integrated circuits department at Fairchild. He was a pioneer in the development of semiconductor operational amplifiers. Operational amplifiers were used to perform operations on analog signals (addition, multiplication, integration). The opamps remained the most important components of almost any electronic device associated with analog signals. Vidlar first came up with the idea that you should not save on elements, because the cost of the chip will not change due to the number of transistors on it, whether it will be 10 pieces, or 100 pieces. And ... Bob created an operational amplifier with characteristics unattainable for discrete circuitry. In 1966, Bob quit Fairchild and began working at National Semiconductors, and it was here that Widlar created the OA line, whose names begin on LM.
Bob Widlar - A Treasonous Genius
From 1961 to 1963, Fairchild was one of the most notable companies in business history. Many scientific and business talents “in great concentration” were gathered here ... “having achieved success in the business world, they asked themselves: what would happen if they could stay together and rule the world of semiconductors for more than one generation? ..” But Now it's all about Bob Widlar.
"... The door opened. The first person to go through it was Bob Widlar, a traitorous genius. Looking back at his past drunkenness, fights and erratic behavior, one cannot help but notice that Widlar was one of the most creative minds in the history of technology. His strongest the side was linear devices - non-digital circuits like amplifiers, which were the last best canvases of eminent artists in electronics. "
Fairchild's golden years are not only years of development of technologies of historical significance, but also crazy partying, parties, fun to the point of insanity: "... there were endless drunk parties in the nearby Wagon Wheel saloon, at which company employees were seduced, families were destroyed, hostility was maintained, and time - employees were lured by competitors. " Regular of these was the design genius Robert Widlar. He was considered the most insane of the inhabitants of Silicon Valley. In anger, he could go out into the street and cut down the trees that were planted to improve the environment due to an unsuccessful invention. Vidlar could take part in blood fights with competitors at a demonstration site of the industry exhibition.
Bob was very worried about his freedom, even more than his linear devices. Restrictions in anything were not for his nature. Lack of money was also a kind of limitation, which caused Widlar to leave Fairchild Semiconductor with the small semiconductor company National Semiconductor in 1966. His love of freedom was demonstrated by him when he was forced to go through the dismissal procedure and fill out a six-page list of questions about the dismissal. On each page in large block letters, Vidlar wrote - I WANT TO BECOME RICH and modestly signed at the end of "X".
A little biography
Robert Widlar was born November 30, 1937, in the city of Cleveland (Ohio). His family did not feel financially needy, his father was with German roots, his mother was Czech. Walter Widlar from an influential German family, was a self-taught radio engineer, published in the professional and local press, and was an expert in frequency modulation. Already at the age of 15, Bob Jr., following in his father's footsteps, started repairing televisions, successfully mastered the basics of radio engineering. At the age of 45, Bob's father died of a massive heart attack.
Robert Widlar took his father's place in a large family, he had to earn a living, initially he was engaged in cleaning, and later repairing radio equipment. After graduating from the Jesuit school of St. Ignatius in Cleveland, he worked as a technician for a year at a company where his father had once worked, and in 1958 he volunteered for the U.S. Air Force and served two full years as an instructor in electronic equipment at a base in Colorado. In 1960, the Air Force training department published his first book with a circulation of 100 copies. It was a tutorial on semiconductor devices.
In 1962, Bob graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1961, Robert quit the Air Force and became an engineer at Ball Brothers Research Corporation, an instrument-making company. The company, working on control devices for the NASA orbital station, first encountered the problem of radiation resistance of transistors. In order to figure it out, Amelco was forced to meet with the leaders (the only company at that time that produced a transistor with certified radiation resistance). Jean Ernie and Sheldon Roberts were former founders of Fairchild Semiconductor. After this meeting, Widlar decided to be in the center of events related to electronics, that is, to begin work in semiconductor industries. Fairchild Semiconductor violated its professional ethics and lured Robert to its client.
At the end of 1963, Bob moved to the southwestern United States, to California (Mountain View), to Silicon Valley. As I mentioned earlier, there he started working at Fairchild and headed the department of linear integrated circuits.
At 26, Robert Widlar developed his first monolithic op-amp chip, the mA702. Its price was 300 dollars apiece. Later Bob improved the circuit, and saw the light of a new operational amplifier, which received the designation mA709, sold such an op-amp at $ 70 apiece. After such an economically successful development, Widlar asked for a pay increase. After the refusal, he quit. Over the three years of work in this company, Vidlar developed and introduced into production its worldwide “linear series”: mА702 (14ОУД1), mА709 (153УД1), mА710 (521CA2), mА711 (521CA1), mА723, mА726. In total, from 10 to 100 million units were issued for each position.
MA700
MA709
He went to work for National Semiconductor, where Vidlaru was very happy, because even then he was considered the person who laid the foundation for the development of analog microcircuits.
In 1966, he became one of the founders of the National Semiconductors Linear IC Group (abbreviated NS) - not only a purely semiconductor company, but also a specialized linear company (Santa Clara, California). In 1967, Widlar developed an even more advanced op amp for National Semiconductor, which became known as the LM101. Vidlar took up the position of Director for Advanced Schemes in NS and began developing the following generation of microcircuits: LM101 (153UD2), LM108 (104UD14), LM118 (140UD10,) LM102, LM109, LM111 (521CA3).
Interesting fact. At Fairchild, they were worried about a sudden rival in the person of Bob Widlar, so in the company's research laboratory, a young employee, David Fullagar, began to carefully study the LM101 op amp. He found several flaws in the chip. In order to avoid frequency distortions, developers had to hang an external capacitor to the IC, and the input stage of some chip instances was very sensitive to external noise - this was due to the variation in manufacturing parameters.
Fullagar undertook to develop op-amp itself. He expanded manufacturing process tolerances by installing a 30 picofarad capacitor inside the chip. The input stage has been improved by adding a pair of transistors to the circuit. This add-on has improved chip repeatability. As a result, a new mA741 chip was developed, which has become the standard for operational amplifiers. This chip, its options were sold in hundreds of millions of pieces. For $ 300, you could buy almost a thousand 741 chips.
LM101 (153UD2)
Widlar developed the LM101 operational amplifier, which became the first second-generation op-amp; the LM101 block diagram became the basis for all subsequent universal operational amplifiers. Active loads provided the LM101 with large gain factors for each stage, input emitter followers loaded on a differential stage on pnp transistors, in turn, provided a wide range of permissible input voltages and low bias currents.
DC gain has reached 500,000 (50,000-100,000 for first-generation amplifiers). The input stage was protected from high voltages, the output stage had full protection against short circuit. Two stages of voltage amplification were used, the so-called two-stage circuit. The LM101 was stable with a single external correction capacitance of only 30pF.
This is where Vidlar made a mistake when he did not try to pack this capacity on the crystal of an operational amplifier. A year later, as mentioned above, this gap was filled by competitors from Fairchild, A741 was released - roughly speaking, clone LM101 with internal frequency correction. This easy-to-use chip has conquered the universal op amp market.
A741
In subsequent years (1968 - 1969), Widlar and Talbert developed and debugged new active beta-transistors , a multi-collector bipolar transistor and an epitaxial field effect transistor in production.
In 1969, Widlar developed the first operational amplifier on super-beta transistors. named LM108 .
At the end of 1969, a new operational accelerator was released, the functional equivalent of LM101 on a new element base - LM101A .
In 1970, the LM101 version was developed with an integrated correction capacity - LM107 .
Telbert’s six-hour process later enabled the implementation of pinch resistors, field effect transistors, super-beta transistors, and side pnp transistors with a current gain of over 100. The number of transistors serving current sources LM101A was reduced over due to the use of multi-collector pnp transistors. The input impedance of the operational accelerator, which did not use composite transistors at the input, for the first time exceeded the threshold of 1 MΩ.
From 1963 to 1971, Robert Widlar wrote more than 50 articles on linear topics, where he described the "insides" of the op-amp, and how to use them. Widlar patented integrated structures: lateral pnp, band-gap reference element, super-beta transistor, low-voltage (1.2 V) amplifiers and others.
National Semiconductor released the LM100 developed by Vidlar , which became the first integrated voltage regulator in history "... The LM100 allowed stabilizing voltages from 2 to 30V with a combined error in the military temperature range (from 55 to 125C) of no more than 1%. The reference voltage source was 6.3V zener diode, the regulating element is a relatively low-power composite transistor, so in practice the LM100 was used not as a complete stabilizer, but as a control circuit of an external power transistor. istichnye expectations. "
In 1970, the LM109 was produced - the world's first integrated three-pin 5V stabilizer, which became the direct predecessor of the A7805. Its creation was preceded by the requirement of customers to combine a control circuit and a power transistor on a single chip, while packing a full-fledged stabilizer in a case with three terminals: input, output and common. Vidlar said that such a placement of a power transistor and a control circuit on a single chip is not only permissible, but will also greatly simplify the overheat protection circuit. Such a stabilizer has already been implemented in silicon and was ready for serial production.
The LM109 microchip differed from the LM100 in the limits of current and power, ease of use, the source of the reference voltage in the op-amp was no longer the Zener diode, but the Vidlar bandgap .
the simplest implementation scheme of Vidlar's bandgap
Vidlar Bandgap is a transistor voltage reference source, approximately equal to the silicon band gap (about 1.2V). Widlar was the first to design the first practical scheme operating according to the bandgap principle (which was formulated back in 1964 by David Hilbiber). The LM109 was the first chip with a built-in bandgap.
In 1971, the LM113 was developed, which was a two-pin precision diode on a Vidlar bandgap. Replacing a high-voltage (about 6V) zener diode with a low-voltage (1.2V) bandgap made it possible to create economical stabilizers for low output voltages (3.3V, 2.5V and below) and amplifiers with low-voltage power supply (from 1.1V).
At the beginning of 70, Robert Widlar disappeared. In 1971, the legend moved to Mexico, then he began working in his new company Linear Technology Corp (abbreviated LTC). It was rumored that in Mexico the tax press was “more tender” than in the United States.
Many call Robert Widlar - Steve Jobs 70 years. He was brilliant, but at the same time paranoid. His addiction to a glass is repeatedly mentioned in the pages of his biography. But, surprisingly, he was unusually efficient, could work on a microcircuit for days, months ... and only then went into the bout. He was sick at work, not feeling tired - he worked.
Although Robert came to electronics before the spread of computer simulation of electronic circuits, he refused to use them until the end of his life.
Possessing the traditional skills of mathematical analysis, he could do calculations for several hours, without interruption, and then without a single mistake put the results on paper. Widlar wanted to control everything; the entire product development cycle, including sales, should have been under its control. Developing the schemes, he wrote all the technical documentation to them, up to a detailed guide to their application.
After Bob left Fairchild, the alcohol problem got even worse. He spent nights in bars, getting drunk to a semi-unconscious state.
He was cocky, in one of the night showdowns, after drinking, he “invited” Mike Scott (future president of Apple) to go out to talk, this conversation ended with a knockout of Widlar. Later, Vidlar began to drink continuously, his antics covered and even rescued him from custody. Here is what Spork recalled about Widlar's drunkenness: "... He drank too much, but I had to endure it. I had no choice: this guy, for a while, was National Semiconductor. Once at a seminar in Paris we gathered about 1200 engineers from France and Belgium, we made a mistake by opening access to the bar at lunchtime - in France it was so customary.
And so he began to drink gin, undiluted, in large glasses, and I realized - to be in trouble. After lunch, he returned to the hall with a full glass of gin. I got to Peter Sprag, who was sitting next to Vidlar, and told him: Peter, get rid of this gin before Vidlar falls under the table. Poor Peter sacrificed himself and drank everything to the bottom. At the beginning of his speech, Vidlar habitually reached for the glass, but it was empty. Vidlar cried out that he would not utter a word until he was poured a glass. There was no choice, I had to pour him a full glass, and he continued. He barely stood on his feet, but interestingly - even in this state, he charmed the listener. And then I took him to the hotel by metro. He stood staggering at the very edge of the platform, and I stood behind, ready to grab him. If he had fallen on the rails, the company would have died with him. "
The legendary sheep of Robert Widlar
At the end of 1970, Widlar decided to leave National Semiconductor. The company, in order to save money, refused to mow the lawns in front of the main building ... Bob decided to make a gift to the company). For $ 60, he bought a sheep from a friend of the farmer and, being dissatisfied with the view of the overgrown meadow (where he parked his two-seater Mercedes), he let the animal "cut" the lawn. Widlar invited a reporter from San Jose News to publicize, who wrote an article commenting on Bob about how "... the sheep left many gardeners out of work, but not only can shear, she can also fertilize!"
The sheep was abducted at night. There are many legends and myths around this story. Someone said that Vidlar himself took the sheep and drank it in one of the bars, according to another version the sheep was not a sheep at all, but was a goat, or, even better, a goat.
The last 20 years of his life, Vidlar worked under contracts with National Semiconductor and was engaged in some kind of indefinite development of production processes. From 1971 until the end of 1989, he filed a total of 8 patents for inventions. After his dismissal, he received a million dollars in his arms, left for Mexico and settled in Puerto Vallarta.
At thirty-three, Vidlar finally got the freedom he dreamed of. He did not work full time. Widlar continued to work alone on complex circuitry issues, periodically lecturing in the United States.
In 1974, Spork managed to persuade Widlar to return to National Semiconductor. Vidlar became an independent consultant to the company, while living in Mexico. Between 1974 and 1991, Widlar developed dozens of new projects for National Semiconductor.
In 1976, the LM10 was developed . This is a micropower operational amplifier and a reference voltage source that is capable of operating at a supply voltage of 1.1 to 40 V, the first operational amplifier that is fully suitable for operation from a single 1.4 V galvanic cell.
After that, LM11 was developed - a precision bipolar op amp, which was designed for electrometric measurements.
In 1987, the first powerful (10 A, 80 W) operational amplifier was launchedLM12 .
February 27, 1991 the body of Vidlar was found in the vicinity of Puerto Vallarta. A version was put forward that Bob died of a heart attack while jogging along the beach. But Bob Pease rejected this version, since Vidlar usually ran in the mountains, perhaps an attack caught him when he went down the hill, fell and died. The fact remains that the legendary person died at the age of 53 years. As Vidlar himself assured, recently he had settled down, even started a permanent relationship with a woman, stopped drinking alcohol. But the predisposition to heart disease and lifestyle in young years, alas, did not pass “without a trace”.
The unpredictability, genius of Robert Widlard, mixed with his love of alcohol, a hermit lifestyle, made him, even during his lifetime, a legend.
Who has not heard of such a process as “visualization”? The process is the destruction of defective parts and broken prototypes with nothing more than a hammer. Vidlar was very intolerant of this kind of “malfunction”, therefore, armed with a hammer, mercilessly sent them to a landfill: “... the ax hung in his office in a prominent place and part-time served as an anti-stapler: Vidlar chopped off the stapled corners of papers to them. There were probably such papers a lot: Vidlar made copies of everything he had read. " In an interesting way, Bob fought “with loud noises,” which he simply could not stand. Personally, in his office, the engineer installed a device that, if a visitor raised his voice or started yelling at Vidlara, emitted a piercing whistle. "The Hassler" - so colleagues called this device (from English - to pester).
In 60 years, a young specialist Robert Widlar became the head of the line integrated circuits department at Fairchild. He was a pioneer in the development of semiconductor operational amplifiers. Operational amplifiers were used to perform operations on analog signals (addition, multiplication, integration). The opamps remained the most important components of almost any electronic device associated with analog signals. Vidlar first came up with the idea that you should not save on elements, because the cost of the chip will not change due to the number of transistors on it, whether it will be 10 pieces, or 100 pieces. And ... Bob created an operational amplifier with characteristics unattainable for discrete circuitry. In 1966, Bob quit Fairchild and began working at National Semiconductors, and it was here that Widlar created the OA line, whose names begin on LM.
Bob Widlar - A Treasonous Genius
From 1961 to 1963, Fairchild was one of the most notable companies in business history. Many scientific and business talents “in great concentration” were gathered here ... “having achieved success in the business world, they asked themselves: what would happen if they could stay together and rule the world of semiconductors for more than one generation? ..” But Now it's all about Bob Widlar.
"... The door opened. The first person to go through it was Bob Widlar, a traitorous genius. Looking back at his past drunkenness, fights and erratic behavior, one cannot help but notice that Widlar was one of the most creative minds in the history of technology. His strongest the side was linear devices - non-digital circuits like amplifiers, which were the last best canvases of eminent artists in electronics. "
Fairchild's golden years are not only years of development of technologies of historical significance, but also crazy partying, parties, fun to the point of insanity: "... there were endless drunk parties in the nearby Wagon Wheel saloon, at which company employees were seduced, families were destroyed, hostility was maintained, and time - employees were lured by competitors. " Regular of these was the design genius Robert Widlar. He was considered the most insane of the inhabitants of Silicon Valley. In anger, he could go out into the street and cut down the trees that were planted to improve the environment due to an unsuccessful invention. Vidlar could take part in blood fights with competitors at a demonstration site of the industry exhibition.
Bob was very worried about his freedom, even more than his linear devices. Restrictions in anything were not for his nature. Lack of money was also a kind of limitation, which caused Widlar to leave Fairchild Semiconductor with the small semiconductor company National Semiconductor in 1966. His love of freedom was demonstrated by him when he was forced to go through the dismissal procedure and fill out a six-page list of questions about the dismissal. On each page in large block letters, Vidlar wrote - I WANT TO BECOME RICH and modestly signed at the end of "X".
A little biography
Robert Widlar was born November 30, 1937, in the city of Cleveland (Ohio). His family did not feel financially needy, his father was with German roots, his mother was Czech. Walter Widlar from an influential German family, was a self-taught radio engineer, published in the professional and local press, and was an expert in frequency modulation. Already at the age of 15, Bob Jr., following in his father's footsteps, started repairing televisions, successfully mastered the basics of radio engineering. At the age of 45, Bob's father died of a massive heart attack.
Robert Widlar took his father's place in a large family, he had to earn a living, initially he was engaged in cleaning, and later repairing radio equipment. After graduating from the Jesuit school of St. Ignatius in Cleveland, he worked as a technician for a year at a company where his father had once worked, and in 1958 he volunteered for the U.S. Air Force and served two full years as an instructor in electronic equipment at a base in Colorado. In 1960, the Air Force training department published his first book with a circulation of 100 copies. It was a tutorial on semiconductor devices.
In 1962, Bob graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1961, Robert quit the Air Force and became an engineer at Ball Brothers Research Corporation, an instrument-making company. The company, working on control devices for the NASA orbital station, first encountered the problem of radiation resistance of transistors. In order to figure it out, Amelco was forced to meet with the leaders (the only company at that time that produced a transistor with certified radiation resistance). Jean Ernie and Sheldon Roberts were former founders of Fairchild Semiconductor. After this meeting, Widlar decided to be in the center of events related to electronics, that is, to begin work in semiconductor industries. Fairchild Semiconductor violated its professional ethics and lured Robert to its client.
At the end of 1963, Bob moved to the southwestern United States, to California (Mountain View), to Silicon Valley. As I mentioned earlier, there he started working at Fairchild and headed the department of linear integrated circuits.
At 26, Robert Widlar developed his first monolithic op-amp chip, the mA702. Its price was 300 dollars apiece. Later Bob improved the circuit, and saw the light of a new operational amplifier, which received the designation mA709, sold such an op-amp at $ 70 apiece. After such an economically successful development, Widlar asked for a pay increase. After the refusal, he quit. Over the three years of work in this company, Vidlar developed and introduced into production its worldwide “linear series”: mА702 (14ОУД1), mА709 (153УД1), mА710 (521CA2), mА711 (521CA1), mА723, mА726. In total, from 10 to 100 million units were issued for each position.
MA700
MA709
He went to work for National Semiconductor, where Vidlaru was very happy, because even then he was considered the person who laid the foundation for the development of analog microcircuits.
In 1966, he became one of the founders of the National Semiconductors Linear IC Group (abbreviated NS) - not only a purely semiconductor company, but also a specialized linear company (Santa Clara, California). In 1967, Widlar developed an even more advanced op amp for National Semiconductor, which became known as the LM101. Vidlar took up the position of Director for Advanced Schemes in NS and began developing the following generation of microcircuits: LM101 (153UD2), LM108 (104UD14), LM118 (140UD10,) LM102, LM109, LM111 (521CA3).
Interesting fact. At Fairchild, they were worried about a sudden rival in the person of Bob Widlar, so in the company's research laboratory, a young employee, David Fullagar, began to carefully study the LM101 op amp. He found several flaws in the chip. In order to avoid frequency distortions, developers had to hang an external capacitor to the IC, and the input stage of some chip instances was very sensitive to external noise - this was due to the variation in manufacturing parameters.
Fullagar undertook to develop op-amp itself. He expanded manufacturing process tolerances by installing a 30 picofarad capacitor inside the chip. The input stage has been improved by adding a pair of transistors to the circuit. This add-on has improved chip repeatability. As a result, a new mA741 chip was developed, which has become the standard for operational amplifiers. This chip, its options were sold in hundreds of millions of pieces. For $ 300, you could buy almost a thousand 741 chips.
LM101 (153UD2)
Widlar developed the LM101 operational amplifier, which became the first second-generation op-amp; the LM101 block diagram became the basis for all subsequent universal operational amplifiers. Active loads provided the LM101 with large gain factors for each stage, input emitter followers loaded on a differential stage on pnp transistors, in turn, provided a wide range of permissible input voltages and low bias currents.
DC gain has reached 500,000 (50,000-100,000 for first-generation amplifiers). The input stage was protected from high voltages, the output stage had full protection against short circuit. Two stages of voltage amplification were used, the so-called two-stage circuit. The LM101 was stable with a single external correction capacitance of only 30pF.
This is where Vidlar made a mistake when he did not try to pack this capacity on the crystal of an operational amplifier. A year later, as mentioned above, this gap was filled by competitors from Fairchild, A741 was released - roughly speaking, clone LM101 with internal frequency correction. This easy-to-use chip has conquered the universal op amp market.
A741
In subsequent years (1968 - 1969), Widlar and Talbert developed and debugged new active beta-transistors , a multi-collector bipolar transistor and an epitaxial field effect transistor in production.
In 1969, Widlar developed the first operational amplifier on super-beta transistors. named LM108 .
At the end of 1969, a new operational accelerator was released, the functional equivalent of LM101 on a new element base - LM101A .
In 1970, the LM101 version was developed with an integrated correction capacity - LM107 .
Telbert’s six-hour process later enabled the implementation of pinch resistors, field effect transistors, super-beta transistors, and side pnp transistors with a current gain of over 100. The number of transistors serving current sources LM101A was reduced over due to the use of multi-collector pnp transistors. The input impedance of the operational accelerator, which did not use composite transistors at the input, for the first time exceeded the threshold of 1 MΩ.
From 1963 to 1971, Robert Widlar wrote more than 50 articles on linear topics, where he described the "insides" of the op-amp, and how to use them. Widlar patented integrated structures: lateral pnp, band-gap reference element, super-beta transistor, low-voltage (1.2 V) amplifiers and others.
National Semiconductor released the LM100 developed by Vidlar , which became the first integrated voltage regulator in history "... The LM100 allowed stabilizing voltages from 2 to 30V with a combined error in the military temperature range (from 55 to 125C) of no more than 1%. The reference voltage source was 6.3V zener diode, the regulating element is a relatively low-power composite transistor, so in practice the LM100 was used not as a complete stabilizer, but as a control circuit of an external power transistor. istichnye expectations. "
In 1970, the LM109 was produced - the world's first integrated three-pin 5V stabilizer, which became the direct predecessor of the A7805. Its creation was preceded by the requirement of customers to combine a control circuit and a power transistor on a single chip, while packing a full-fledged stabilizer in a case with three terminals: input, output and common. Vidlar said that such a placement of a power transistor and a control circuit on a single chip is not only permissible, but will also greatly simplify the overheat protection circuit. Such a stabilizer has already been implemented in silicon and was ready for serial production.
The LM109 microchip differed from the LM100 in the limits of current and power, ease of use, the source of the reference voltage in the op-amp was no longer the Zener diode, but the Vidlar bandgap .
the simplest implementation scheme of Vidlar's bandgap
Vidlar Bandgap is a transistor voltage reference source, approximately equal to the silicon band gap (about 1.2V). Widlar was the first to design the first practical scheme operating according to the bandgap principle (which was formulated back in 1964 by David Hilbiber). The LM109 was the first chip with a built-in bandgap.
In 1971, the LM113 was developed, which was a two-pin precision diode on a Vidlar bandgap. Replacing a high-voltage (about 6V) zener diode with a low-voltage (1.2V) bandgap made it possible to create economical stabilizers for low output voltages (3.3V, 2.5V and below) and amplifiers with low-voltage power supply (from 1.1V).
At the beginning of 70, Robert Widlar disappeared. In 1971, the legend moved to Mexico, then he began working in his new company Linear Technology Corp (abbreviated LTC). It was rumored that in Mexico the tax press was “more tender” than in the United States.
Many call Robert Widlar - Steve Jobs 70 years. He was brilliant, but at the same time paranoid. His addiction to a glass is repeatedly mentioned in the pages of his biography. But, surprisingly, he was unusually efficient, could work on a microcircuit for days, months ... and only then went into the bout. He was sick at work, not feeling tired - he worked.
Although Robert came to electronics before the spread of computer simulation of electronic circuits, he refused to use them until the end of his life.
Possessing the traditional skills of mathematical analysis, he could do calculations for several hours, without interruption, and then without a single mistake put the results on paper. Widlar wanted to control everything; the entire product development cycle, including sales, should have been under its control. Developing the schemes, he wrote all the technical documentation to them, up to a detailed guide to their application.
“Widlar called this approach minimizing future phone calls. But, despite this, colleagues not only called, but also wrote to Vidlar many letters with questions. Vidlar’s precise and prompt answers generated in the professional community the opinion that he himself wrote the answers to each addressee. In fact, Widlar's letters consisted of model paragraphs reprinted from his compendium. Having received a letter with a question (and the questions were inevitably repeated), Widlar merely indicated to the secretary paragraphs of the abstract, which should have been reprinted, and then signed the finished answer. ”
After Bob left Fairchild, the alcohol problem got even worse. He spent nights in bars, getting drunk to a semi-unconscious state.
He was cocky, in one of the night showdowns, after drinking, he “invited” Mike Scott (future president of Apple) to go out to talk, this conversation ended with a knockout of Widlar. Later, Vidlar began to drink continuously, his antics covered and even rescued him from custody. Here is what Spork recalled about Widlar's drunkenness: "... He drank too much, but I had to endure it. I had no choice: this guy, for a while, was National Semiconductor. Once at a seminar in Paris we gathered about 1200 engineers from France and Belgium, we made a mistake by opening access to the bar at lunchtime - in France it was so customary.
And so he began to drink gin, undiluted, in large glasses, and I realized - to be in trouble. After lunch, he returned to the hall with a full glass of gin. I got to Peter Sprag, who was sitting next to Vidlar, and told him: Peter, get rid of this gin before Vidlar falls under the table. Poor Peter sacrificed himself and drank everything to the bottom. At the beginning of his speech, Vidlar habitually reached for the glass, but it was empty. Vidlar cried out that he would not utter a word until he was poured a glass. There was no choice, I had to pour him a full glass, and he continued. He barely stood on his feet, but interestingly - even in this state, he charmed the listener. And then I took him to the hotel by metro. He stood staggering at the very edge of the platform, and I stood behind, ready to grab him. If he had fallen on the rails, the company would have died with him. "
The legendary sheep of Robert Widlar
At the end of 1970, Widlar decided to leave National Semiconductor. The company, in order to save money, refused to mow the lawns in front of the main building ... Bob decided to make a gift to the company). For $ 60, he bought a sheep from a friend of the farmer and, being dissatisfied with the view of the overgrown meadow (where he parked his two-seater Mercedes), he let the animal "cut" the lawn. Widlar invited a reporter from San Jose News to publicize, who wrote an article commenting on Bob about how "... the sheep left many gardeners out of work, but not only can shear, she can also fertilize!"
The sheep was abducted at night. There are many legends and myths around this story. Someone said that Vidlar himself took the sheep and drank it in one of the bars, according to another version the sheep was not a sheep at all, but was a goat, or, even better, a goat.
The last 20 years of his life, Vidlar worked under contracts with National Semiconductor and was engaged in some kind of indefinite development of production processes. From 1971 until the end of 1989, he filed a total of 8 patents for inventions. After his dismissal, he received a million dollars in his arms, left for Mexico and settled in Puerto Vallarta.
At thirty-three, Vidlar finally got the freedom he dreamed of. He did not work full time. Widlar continued to work alone on complex circuitry issues, periodically lecturing in the United States.
In 1974, Spork managed to persuade Widlar to return to National Semiconductor. Vidlar became an independent consultant to the company, while living in Mexico. Between 1974 and 1991, Widlar developed dozens of new projects for National Semiconductor.
In 1976, the LM10 was developed . This is a micropower operational amplifier and a reference voltage source that is capable of operating at a supply voltage of 1.1 to 40 V, the first operational amplifier that is fully suitable for operation from a single 1.4 V galvanic cell.
After that, LM11 was developed - a precision bipolar op amp, which was designed for electrometric measurements.
In 1987, the first powerful (10 A, 80 W) operational amplifier was launchedLM12 .
February 27, 1991 the body of Vidlar was found in the vicinity of Puerto Vallarta. A version was put forward that Bob died of a heart attack while jogging along the beach. But Bob Pease rejected this version, since Vidlar usually ran in the mountains, perhaps an attack caught him when he went down the hill, fell and died. The fact remains that the legendary person died at the age of 53 years. As Vidlar himself assured, recently he had settled down, even started a permanent relationship with a woman, stopped drinking alcohol. But the predisposition to heart disease and lifestyle in young years, alas, did not pass “without a trace”.
He did not sleep and did not fall. In no case. He was fine, he was in his right mind death came when he lived with dignity and sobriety.
The unpredictability, genius of Robert Widlard, mixed with his love of alcohol, a hermit lifestyle, made him, even during his lifetime, a legend.