Maxim well positioned for future success!

A view of Maxim's Analyst Day 2011.

According to Tunç Doluca, CEO, Maxim Integrated Products, the analog market is changing. Maxim is the analog integration pioneer. Integration accelerating in growth markets. The company has been executing its strategy via innovation, integration and balance. It is well positioned for success in the future. Doluca was speaking at the Analyst Day 2011 event held recently.

Speaking about the evolution of analog, Doluca touched upon analog integration, system solution and building blocks. Six areas act as market growth drivers — automotive electronics, HD video infrastructure, energy, mobility, security and healtcare.

Key market trends in automotive electronics include electronic content increasing, infotainment now becoming standard, and hybrid and electric vehicles. Maxim’s product investments include lighting and body electronics, infotainment solutions, automotive connectivity and battery management. The analog TAM is said to be $10 billion as per IC Insights. Automotive electronics is likely to grow at 9.2 percent CAGR through 2014, according to DQ 2010.

Key trends in HD infrastructure include infrastructure for HD video, smart TVs – Skype TV, and wireless HD in the home. Maxim’s product investments include the optical transceivers, video SoCs including so]ware and wireless HD 1080p chipset. The Internet traffic is likely to grow 13x times from 2006 to 2014.

Key trends in energy include energy measurement everywhere, which requires communication. Maxim’s product investments include energy metering and measuring, smart grid communications and low-power product focus. As per Frost & Sullivan, 2011 should see 116 million meter installations.

Key trends in mobile devices include richer features and smaller devices, emergence of tablets and touchscreen displays. Maxim’s product investments include Power SoC — analog integration, sensing — proximity and imaging, ModelGauge technology, TacTouch controllers and Flexsound audio. Year 2011 should see 1.6 billion cell phones, including 428 million smartphones, as per Oppenheimer, and also 220 million laptops and 55 million tablets, as per MS Research.

Key trends in security include rise of electronic transactions, stringent security requirements and digital surveillance. Maxim’s product investments include key acquisitions for secure SoCs, H.264 SoCs — IP cameras and DVRs, and end-to-end silicon solutions. Financial terminals should grow 6.3 percent CAGR over the next five years, as per BCC Research.

Key trends in healthcare include diagnostics closer to patients, home-based care and enabling healthier lifestyles. Maxim’s product investments have been in areas such as integration for miniaturization, low-power for portability and high-performance analog. Medical electronics is said to grow at 10 percent CAGR over the next five years, as per Databeans.

Maxim has been executing its strategy based on three key areas — innovation, integration and balance. Maxim is doing innovation in areas: 0.18 micron process on 300mm wafers, 10 touch capacitive touchscreen controllers, mobile power SoCs that integrate analog functions, and energy metering SoCs that are said to replace seven discrete ICs and reduce costs up to 40 percent. The integration trend has been progressing across all markets.

In five years, Maxim should be a leader in integrated analog solutions, have the industry’s fastest growing rate, have high profitability and be one of best companies to work for. A new world headquarters is under construction in San Jose. Relocation is scheduled for 2012.

 

AnXplorer: New generation analog and RF circuit optimization

Analog and RF design is rapidly growing. Risk of respin remains high with predominantly manual design process.

AnXplorer from AgO can automate key manual optimization and simulation activities. High performance optimizer produces designs meeting objectives and constraints. Benefits include design team productivity, yield improvement, as well as reduced respins.

Design methodology has changed little over the years. Manual, iterative design with many SPICE runs are common. In the AgO design methodology, the AnXplorer automates device resizing and SPICE runs.

AnXplorer uses industry standard inputs, which are compatible with existing design flows. It generates optimized and centred netlist that meets or exceeds objectives.

It works with existing environments.  Supported simulators include Cadence Spectre, Synopsys HSpice, Legend Design Technology MSim and Mentor Eldo. It also provides multi-threading support. AgO’s AnXplorer uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 OS.

NXP India achieves RF CMOS in single chip

NXP Semiconductors India has developed the PNX4902, an ultra low-cost GSM/GPRS single chip, which was announced this February. The highlight — the entire analog and RF work done has been in Bangalore! You might wonder what’s so unique about this!

Well, let’s start with what is tough about RF CMOS in single chip! CMOS is primarily a digital process. The analog circuit design in CMOS is tough, and the RF circuit design in CMOS is even tougher. Now, the co-existence of RF CMOS circuits with noisy digital in a single chip was (and is) considered the holy grail of chip design.

Next, cellular standards (such as GSM, EDGE) and specs are much tougher than other comparable standards like FM, Bluetooth, etc. Also, some key cellular parameters like RX sensitivity become tougher for single chips aimed at emerging markets. Especially, we all know that base stations are sparse in rural areas. Taking all of these as a whole — RF design in presence of digital noise is the biggest challenge in a single chip!

Factors enabling single chip design
There are said to be three factors. One, RF CMOS is the high quality analog/RF design in CMOS. The high-performance RF blocks like LNA, mixers, etc., used to be the domain of BiCMOS, a higher cost technology. Next, fine-line CMOS (0.18mm and lower) provide high fT and lower noise.

Two, there are new architectures that minimize analog signal processing. Chip designers to convert the analog signal to digital — so they might as well do it early — analog-to-digital conversion at the IF, instead of at DC. There’s also a need to move the final down-conversion and filtering into digital domain.

Three, the use of DSP to calibrate the analog performance. Things like temperature and process sensitivities in analog circuits need adjustments. Also, the digital engines can provide the ability to ‘lock-in’ the performance. Finally, a strong ‘engineering culture’ is a MUST to execute on complex chips.

Factors enabling AeroFone single chip design
NXP had acquired Silicon Labs Wireless group in 2007. Silicon Labs was a leader in RF CMOS, and so it also acquired numerous patents and trade secrets. Trade secrets for integration of RF CMOS circuits with noisy digital provide an edge over competitors as the integration intensifies.

Thereafter, NXP went on to form the NXP India single-chip design team. As single chip products are designed for emerging economies, NXP India invested heavily to develop the design expertise in Bangalore. The seed group of chip leads and system leads relocated from USA to India to start an analog/RF competency center for developing highly integrated chips.

The NXP India single chip design team has the vision to be the best center of competence in architecture and design of highly integrated circuits (ICs) for emerging market products. It is building the best analog/RF group in India.