On Fri, 6 Mar 2020 09:22:53 -0000 (UTC), news@rblack01.plus.com wrote:>On Thu, 05 Mar 2020 18:53:02 -0500, Phil Hobbs wrote: > >[snip] > >> I usually use a directive block with a comment in the first line, e.g. >> >> ; SIMULATION COMMAND >> .tran 1 >> ;.ac blah blah >> >> That way if you right-click on the first line, you don't get the >> training-wheels dialogue box for AC, transient, or noise. > >Yep. I have been doing similar, but hadn't twigged that the first-line >comment makes the whole mess go away. > >The dialogs for V and I sources don't seem to have this problem. The >syntax for PULSE has changed since IV, though, or rather it doesn't have >defaults for any of the parameters, which broke a lot of my old sims.I've changed a voltage source from, say, sine to pulse, and had the dialog box params get scrambled, the same problem as switching between time and frequency simulation. Apparently a smart editor is too dumb to realize that it's editing the wrong kind of line.> >PULSE(0 5 1m) would turn on the source after 1ms, with a default rise >time of 1 ns IIRC, and leave it on forever, which was good enough for a >lot of situations. That no longer works.Default rise and fall times are wild.> >> Like many of us, Mike's not especially young, so his passing the torch >> isn't unexpected. Is there a reason to suppose that he didn't jump, but >> got pushed? > >I met him about two years ago, at a seminar he gave. Which, now it looks >likely there won't be any more, I'm very glad I attended. He didn't seem >on the verge of retirement, quite the opposite. My money would be on >corporate meddling, but we'll probably never know.I found an actual bug in LT Spice that crashed it. I emailed Mike, who was in Hungary or somewhere, and he sent me a fixed binary in a couple of hours. -- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet. "Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"
"Mike Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices"
Started by ●March 4, 2020
Reply by ●March 6, 20202020-03-06
Reply by ●March 6, 20202020-03-06
jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote...> > I wonder if ADI will adjust the premium LTC pricing any.I hope not. It's a specific strategy to make enough profit on low volumes to create specialized parts that are super- helpful to engineers working on unique problems. They make enough $$ to well document their designs. This might all go away if AD makes big changes. -- Thanks, - Win
Reply by ●March 6, 20202020-03-06
On Friday, March 6, 2020 at 1:45:13 PM UTC-5, Winfield Hill wrote:> jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote... > > > > I wonder if ADI will adjust the premium LTC pricing any. > > I hope not. It's a specific strategy to make enough profit > on low volumes to create specialized parts that are super- > helpful to engineers working on unique problems. They make > enough $$ to well document their designs. This might all > go away if AD makes big changes.Change is inevitable, progress is not. -- Rick C. + Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●March 6, 20202020-03-06
On Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 2:23:14 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:> On Fri, 6 Mar 2020 04:44:18 -0800 (PST), Klaus Kragelund > <klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote: > > >On Thursday, March 5, 2020 at 10:07:18 PM UTC+1, John Larkin wrote: > >> On Thu, 05 Mar 2020 12:53:21 -0800, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> > >> wrote: > >> > >> >On 2020-03-04 19:19, Rick C wrote: > >> >> On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:55:22 PM UTC-5, Simon S Aysdie > >> >> wrote: > >> >>> "This does not bode well for the future of LTspice now that Mike > >> >>> Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices."---analog spiceman > >> >>> > >> >>> > >> >>> https://groups.io/g/LTspice/topic/cloud_over_ltspice/71467233 > >> >> > >> >> Time will tell. I don't know how ADI views LTspice. It's a free > >> >> tool that likely provides only a minimum return. Maybe they will > >> >> find someone else to take it over. Or maybe they will allow it to > >> >> continue without much further effort. > >> >> > >> > > >> >"Minimum return"? That sure would be a very short-sighted view and a > >> >major marketing blunder. For me and many other engineers LTSpice is the > >> >core reason why we use rather expensive switcher chips from the former > >> >LTC and now AD. > >> > >> Exactly. We use LTC parts because the models work. > >> > >> > >We do not use and have never used LTC parts. Simply way too expensive > > > >The models from other manufactors also work :-) > > > >Cheers > > > >Klaus > > We're in a market where performance sells and time-to-market matters > and parts cost is almost in the noise. A few of the LTC parts are > worth the cost. We made a lot of money off LT1028, and we use a lot of > the LTM regulator bricks so we don't waste time on power supplies. > Some of their serial DACs are nice. > > But we use a lot more TI and ADI. I wonder if ADI will adjust the > premium LTC pricing any.Why should they? They sell into exactly same market. https://au.element14.com/search?st=AD797 The AD797 (which doesn't have the vices that the LT1028 does) sell for about $20. https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/linear-technology-analog-devices/LT1028CS8-PBF/LT1028CS8-PBF-ND/888545 That's about twice what Mouser are asking for the LT1028. Not altogether surprising. The process Analog Devices uses to manufacture the AD797 is remarkably fancy. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●March 7, 20202020-03-07
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: ...> > Not altogether surprising. The process Analog Devices uses tomanufacture the AD797 is remarkably fancy.>Can you shed some light? -- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 1623569 ------- Fax. 06151 1623305 ---------
Reply by ●March 7, 20202020-03-07
On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 10:22:33 AM UTC+11, Uwe Bonnes wrote:> Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: > ... > > > > Not altogether surprising. The process Analog Devices uses to > manufacture the AD797 is remarkably fancy. > > > Can you shed some light?Not a lot. I can recall talk of ion-implanted PNP transistors that were really fast, high gain parts, and some comment to the effect that it was a 20-stage process, where regular processes were about 12 stages, but it was all from some Analog Devices presentation, and I haven't been to one for a decade or so. Googling did reveal that Analog Devices still make their high-end analog parts and MEMS parts in-house, rather than relying on foundries, but nothing all tht specific. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●March 7, 20202020-03-07
On Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 8:13:49 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:> On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 10:22:33 AM UTC+11, Uwe Bonnes wrote: > > Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: > > ... > > > > > > Not altogether surprising. The process Analog Devices uses to > > manufacture the AD797 is remarkably fancy. > > > > > Can you shed some light? > > Not a lot. I can recall talk of ion-implanted PNP transistors that were really fast, high gain parts, and some comment to the effect that it was a 20-stage process, where regular processes were about 12 stages, but it was all from some Analog Devices presentation, and I haven't been to one for a decade or so. > > Googling did reveal that Analog Devices still make their high-end analog parts and MEMS parts in-house, rather than relying on foundries, but nothing all tht specific.I would expect that given the equipment doesn't get out of date as fast as the state of the art stuff used for making advanced digital chips. So they can continue pounding out the same parts using fully depreciated assets. I was very surprised to recently learn that Intel is no longer the point of the spear when it comes to process technology which I likely read here somewhere. Seems abandoning fabs at the bleeding edge is the better way to go. One has to assume AMD is paying through the nose to use TSMC's bleeding edge processes, but smaller chips are cheaper chips with more profit margin with all else being equal. Once you get into the huge volumes they have all else is pretty much equal. Some years ago I told a friend to ditch AMD stock. With nearly a 1 year lead in process technology Intel was likely out of AMD's reach forever. Guess I got that one wrong. -- Rick C. -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●March 8, 20202020-03-08
On Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:19:12 -0800, Rick C wrote:> On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:55:22 PM UTC-5, Simon S Aysdie wrote: >> "This does not bode well for the future of LTspice now that Mike >> Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices."---analog spiceman >> >> >> https://groups.io/g/LTspice/topic/cloud_over_ltspice/71467233 > > Time will tell. I don't know how ADI views LTspice. It's a free tool > that likely provides only a minimum return. Maybe they will find > someone else to take it over. Or maybe they will allow it to continue > without much further effort. > > Probably the only real work it requires is to support models for new > parts. I'd be willing to bet that is already handled by the groups who > produce the various parts.Mike's 2018 interview says that his main job at AD is creating AD part models in LTSpice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6TrbD7-IwU His linkedIn profile says he's at AD---does someone has a source quote for his leaving?
Reply by ●March 8, 20202020-03-08
On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 2:19:06 PM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:> On Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 8:13:49 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote: > > On Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 10:22:33 AM UTC+11, Uwe Bonnes wrote: > > > Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: > > > ... > > > > > > > > Not altogether surprising. The process Analog Devices uses to > > > manufacture the AD797 is remarkably fancy. > > > > > > > Can you shed some light? > > > > Not a lot. I can recall talk of ion-implanted PNP transistors that were really fast, high gain parts, and some comment to the effect that it was a 20-stage process, where regular processes were about 12 stages, but it was all from some Analog Devices presentation, and I haven't been to one for a decade or so. > > > > Googling did reveal that Analog Devices still make their high-end analog parts and MEMS parts in-house, rather than relying on foundries, but nothing all that specific. > > I would expect that given the equipment doesn't get out of date as fast as the state of the art stuff used for making advanced digital chips.They might have less of a drive to get the highest possible resolution, and anyway ion implantation can offer you that rather more cheaply than optical techniques anyway - and has been able to do that for ages. It's as slow as a wet week, so you can only have the high resolution at a few critical spots on the device, which is probably all you need for something like the AD797 Analog parts do tend to be less modular than digital parts. You probably need to think about the state of the relevant art, rather than thinking that making big fast digital chips is the only art that matters.> So they can continue pounding out the same parts using fully depreciated assets.That's probably not the way they see it. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●March 8, 20202020-03-08
On Sun, 8 Mar 2020 04:01:13 -0000 (UTC), Przemek Klosowski <przemek@tux.dot.org> wrote:>On Wed, 04 Mar 2020 19:19:12 -0800, Rick C wrote: > >> On Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 9:55:22 PM UTC-5, Simon S Aysdie wrote: >>> "This does not bode well for the future of LTspice now that Mike >>> Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices."---analog spiceman >>> >>> >>> https://groups.io/g/LTspice/topic/cloud_over_ltspice/71467233 >> >> Time will tell. I don't know how ADI views LTspice. It's a free tool >> that likely provides only a minimum return. Maybe they will find >> someone else to take it over. Or maybe they will allow it to continue >> without much further effort. >> >> Probably the only real work it requires is to support models for new >> parts. I'd be willing to bet that is already handled by the groups who >> produce the various parts. > >Mike's 2018 interview says that his main job at AD is creating AD part >models in LTSpice > >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6TrbD7-IwU"Intuition is the most important part of engineering." That's great. -- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet. "Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"
