Analog ICs - unsung force of electronic revolution

Electronic News, August 12, 1996 by Crista Hardie

Mountain View, Calif.--A feeding frenzy is afoot. Sophisticated consumers are demanding the latest in electronic gadgets and services for the home and office: digital cellular phones, multimedia modems for PCs and TV set-top boxes, digital versatile discs (DVDs), the Internet and World Wide Web.

Some have called it a digital revolution, fueled by the proliferation of personal computers. But the real force behind the phenomenon is not Microsoft, or even Intel. It's the well-known but often overlooked companies with analog integrated circuit know-how.

Analog Devices, National Semiconductor, Motorola, SGS-Thomson Microelectronics, Philips Semiconductors and many others of the analog world started out long ago supporting industrial, military and telecommunications markets and now focus largely on computing, communications (wired and wireless) and consumer applications.

Meanwhile, communications applications--inherently analog--are increasingly seeping into the consumer market. Personal computers are being transformed into communications platforms for the office and the home. Modems that enable high-speed transmission of voice and video are expected to bring the Internet into homes through the PC and the television. Wireless communication devices such as cellular telephones--once a tool of the traveling businessman--now are a mass consumer market.

"It's interesting how 10 years ago, being in the consumer electronics business was viewed as being at the low end of the food chain. Those applications were seen as margin-busting. Now it seems like the PC end of the business has taken on that role. We see our competitors taking up the consumer business more and more, and getting away from PCs," said Mike Pawlik, VP of marketing for Burr-Brown.

Until the PC came along, industrial and instrumentation markets were the bread and butter for analog IC makers. Eventually, cheaper and less power-consuming digital audio brought computer system costs down and created a lot of sockets for analog technology.

Analog ICs typically lurk somewhere back in the power supply or in the shadow of the microprocessor--quietly converting signals and tones, sensing light or pressure, regulating temperature and current and generally providing the "real-world" interface for electronic devices. Advances in analog technology are what made the so-called digital revolution possible, industry executives say.

"Analog is the kind of thing that you can sell stock to your grandma and feel good about it. It's had steady growth and diverse products to carry it along," said Mel Thomsen, principal and co-founder of Pathfinder Research.

The buzzword right now is mixed signal, he said. "More parts--the hot ones--have a combination of digital and analog on the same chip." Mixed-signal chips enable lower-cost networks, modems and wireless devices, because they require fewer supporting components.

"Analog tends to be the higher-frequency stuff. RF (radio frequency) front ends are turning into a big, big market. Cellular phones are one of the first markets for analog that has been a huge mass market, outside of TV and radio," Mr. Thomsen said.

Beyond cellular communications, analog leaders are putting significant resources into supporting emerging high-speed digital transmission technologies like asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), high-speed digital subscriber line (HDSL) and hybrid coaxial cable.

"The lines are blurring in telecommunications. The cable people are trying to transmit using existing telephone copper wire, and the telephone companies are trying to use coax cable. All of them are trying to get to the end-user and be the conduit for information into the home," said Michael McDonald, advanced television ICs product manager for Siemens.

Modems and TV set-top boxes supporting these high-speed digital transmission technologies require the most robust and reliable signal conversion possible in order to provide the quality consumers demand.

"We see high-speed converters as being an enabling technology that will bring high-speed communications to consumers," said Doug Bartow, high-speed DAC product marketing manager for Harris Semiconductor.

There are probably more places analog circuits are used in than any other--and a wider variety of them. A spectrum of digital-to-analog converters (DACs), analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), operational amplifiers (op amps), DC/DC converters and such, exist to serve a diverse customer base.

Burr-Brown is a leading supplier of devices like these. Currently, the company is designing an analog front-end driver circuit for ADSL modems, which will bring information into the home at 6 megabits per second (Mbps) over traditional telephone wire.

"We have a huge diversity at the hardware level. In many cases, we will take a new technology and capability and develop what will be the highest performance circuit, just to prove it can be done, and move that rapidly into a high-volume standard product version. We see spinning standard products as a model at the leading edge of technology and using that as a springboard into ASSP applications that will have enough volume to justify their own customized solutions," Burr-Brown's Mr. Pawlik said.