General > General Technical Chat
Analog Devices in talks to buy Maxim
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: DrG on September 24, 2020, 05:35:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: DrG on July 13, 2020, 03:13:52 pm ---So many years ago, back in the day so-to-speak, I bought a few shares of Dallas Semiconductor, and ended up owning fewer shares of Maxim. If this goes through, I guess I will end up owning still fewer shares of AD.
--- End quote ---
The other day, I received several hundred pages of "Merger Proposal". I read the cover to learn that in the proposal, it is 0.63 shares AD / share of Maxim. Apparently, my goal is to own only one share of the biggest, baddest and only semiconductor in existence. :)
--- End quote ---
It won't stop until there is just one company left - "The Firm" - that does absolutely everything! :D
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on September 24, 2020, 05:54:00 pm ---
It won't stop until there is just one company left - "The Firm" - that does absolutely everything! :D
--- End quote ---
And that will be the end of innovation :-\
Best,
james_s:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on July 14, 2020, 03:53:28 pm ---Too much exposure to software, I guess! :D
To a software engineer, using a virtual machine to emulate an older architecture is a commonly used approach, and gives "near perfect" albeit not 100% exactly the same result as the original designs - but "good enough for Australia", even though the new technology it runs on has absolutely nothing to do with what was available back when the original was designed.
It doesn't seem beyond imagination that an older part could be emulated with a newer design, one that might have a completely different schematic diagram that suits the newer processes, yet ends up behaving like the older part at least on a "good enough for Australia" basis?
--- End quote ---
Well, you can, sort of. FPGAs and related parts can be made to emulate the function of many digital ICs, however it requires considerable effort and even then the result is often not compatible as a drop in replacement in an existing system. A new IC could be designed to replace an old IC but it's going to be an entirely new part requiring a lot of effort to design and test for what may be a small market. Perhaps a comparison that is more easily visualized, try to design a solid state replacement for a vacuum tube, in most cases it's a lot harder than it sounds. Sure you can design an entire new circuit that does what the original tube based circuit did, but it's probably going to have entirely different supply voltage and thermal requirements and it may not behave *exactly* the same under all circumstances. Designing a solid state module that plugs into a tube socket and works with all the original circuits that were made to use that tube is in most cases a difficult or impossible task. The tube might be a lot lower tech than a modern transistor but that doesn't mean that a transistor fab can crank out vacuum tubes.
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: james_s on September 24, 2020, 06:26:39 pm --- Perhaps a comparison that is more easily visualized, try to design a solid state replacement for a vacuum tube, in most cases it's a lot harder than it sounds. Sure you can design an entire new circuit that does what the original tube based circuit did, but it's probably going to have entirely different supply voltage and thermal requirements and it may not behave *exactly* the same under all circumstances. Designing a solid state module that plugs into a tube socket and works with all the original circuits that were made to use that tube is in most cases a difficult or impossible task. The tube might be a lot lower tech than a modern transistor but that doesn't mean that a transistor fab can crank out vacuum tubes.
--- End quote ---
Some time ago I recall some folks working on a "Solid State Tube" where a vacuum tube was integrated on a silicon die. Think these were tiny triodes, with a proper cathode, plate and even a suspended filament in a sub-surface sealed vacuum. This may have been related to vacuum tubes having extremely good nuclear radiation tolerance.
Best,
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: james_s on September 24, 2020, 06:26:39 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on July 14, 2020, 03:53:28 pm ---Too much exposure to software, I guess! :D
To a software engineer, using a virtual machine to emulate an older architecture is a commonly used approach, and gives "near perfect" albeit not 100% exactly the same result as the original designs - but "good enough for Australia", even though the new technology it runs on has absolutely nothing to do with what was available back when the original was designed.
It doesn't seem beyond imagination that an older part could be emulated with a newer design, one that might have a completely different schematic diagram that suits the newer processes, yet ends up behaving like the older part at least on a "good enough for Australia" basis?
--- End quote ---
Well, you can, sort of. FPGAs and related parts can be made to emulate the function of many digital ICs, however it requires considerable effort and even then the result is often not compatible as a drop in replacement in an existing system. A new IC could be designed to replace an old IC but it's going to be an entirely new part requiring a lot of effort to design and test for what may be a small market. Perhaps a comparison that is more easily visualized, try to design a solid state replacement for a vacuum tube, in most cases it's a lot harder than it sounds. Sure you can design an entire new circuit that does what the original tube based circuit did, but it's probably going to have entirely different supply voltage and thermal requirements and it may not behave *exactly* the same under all circumstances. Designing a solid state module that plugs into a tube socket and works with all the original circuits that were made to use that tube is in most cases a difficult or impossible task. The tube might be a lot lower tech than a modern transistor but that doesn't mean that a transistor fab can crank out vacuum tubes.
--- End quote ---
Back in the day, you could actually buy transistorized "tube substitutes", at least for some tubes, for TV repair purposes. These devices were probably optimized for that particular role, so likely couldn't work in every conceivable circuit that the original tube would have worked with - but good enough to fix the TV, and a lot longer lasting!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version