Jim Williams, analog design guru, reported to have died today - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2011, 06:15:50 pm
content: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4216916/Passing-of-Jim-Williams--analog-circuit-guru--mentor--teacherAbout Jim Williams in Forbes:http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/23/etrash-cash-linear-tech-personal-cx_bc_0825etrash.htmlE-Trash Into CashBrian Caulfield, 08.25.08, 6:00 AM ETBURLINGAME, CALIF. -Present-day Silicon Valley is filled with slick marketing pitches, shiny gadgets that rely on invisible transistors and magical lines of code.But Jim Williams knows where to find the real gears that make technology work.For the past 26 years, Williams has been a scientist at Linear Technology, which designs much the analog circuitry essential to everything from music players to hybrid cars.When Williams needs inspiration, spare parts or a good giggle, he knows where to find it: the badly lit recesses of a bland building not far from the Mineta San Jose International Airport. There, among 12-foot high stacks of old oscilloscopes and signal-conditioning gear, Williams points to a clunky black metal box about the size of an underwear drawer."Turn this knob," he directs a reporter, with just the slightest smile.Twisting it isn't easy. You've got to grab the fist-sized Bakelite knob of the 1960s-era machine and put some muscle into it. When it gives, it sounds like a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica has hit the concrete-slab floor."General Radio had a thing about knobs that clunk," Williams says, and resumes crab-walking his way through the heaps of electronics, in search of more treasures.You'll find no better guide to Silicon Valley than Williams. Part of his job is writing the clear, precise notes that lay out for engineers in hundreds of companies how to use the analog components Linear Technology makes to bring life to everything from hybrid cars to digital cameras. The better he can explain this stuff, the more parts Linear sells. "He's a rock star," declares Linear founder and chairman Robert Swanson.William's insights have been key to helping make the Milpitas, Calif.-based Linear one of the most consistently and richly profitable companies in the analog niche. Last year, Linear reported gross margins of 77.7%, up there with the likes of Oracle and Microsoft. Intel, by contrast, wrings out just over 50 cents in gross profit on every buck in sales.To do his job, Williams builds and tests systems himself. But rather than order parts from catalogues, Williams is a first-class junk-picker, trawling flea markets and junk dealers in his Jaguar sedan. A ride with Williams through the lesser-known corners of Silicon Valley says a lot about the value that can be scavenged from yesterday's technology.Some of the junk he finds relies on designs that are Williams' own. He doesn't complain. "It keeps the geeks off the streets," Williams quips.Williams found early on that he had a knack for scavenging old electronics. Before joining Linear, he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he used a surplus flight computer from an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile to research the control of fermentation for use in fields such as pharmaceutical production."We got a few theses out of it," Williams say, noting that the trick saved him the cost of buying a new minicomputer. The innards of that one-time war machine now adorn one wall of his home, mounted like a work of art.At Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale, Calif., Williams picks up an old Mac laptop. Years ago, he spent months struggling to help design a system that would backlight the 1990s-era laptop screen properly; now the once-coveted laptop can be found covered in dust in the back of a junk shop.But along with obsolete and useless computers are innumerable valuable parts--at least to an expert eye. At the back of Weird Stuff store, Williams spots a plain metal box. But what a box. Inside, Williams explains, is a receiver tailored to make use of a signal from an atomic clock carried by a global positioning system satellite. That effectively means, for a few hundred bucks, Williams can turn it into an atomic clock that he could slip into his pocket.Not everything Williams buys is quite so valuable. Williams looks at his purchases much the way a venture capitalist evaluates opportunities. Some parts will save his employer a few hundred bucks. Other purchases will save Williams time, allowing him to create a design in a weekend's time for a customer struggling to build a new product.The most valuable finds, however, allow Williams to walk new engineers through the process of repairing older machines, exposing them to the craft--and the art--of solving problems. To do that, they'll have to read the manuals for their old gear, learning the trade of technical writing from the ground up. There's value to be wrung out of old parts, and old ways of solving problems, he explains.Glancing at a Linear part kept behind Plexiglas at one junk shop, Williams recalls the first time he saw a Linear device in a junk shop in the early 1980s. Swanson had made a bold move by walking away from National Semiconductor, in 1981, to focus on analog technology."When I saw that, I went into Swanson's office and I told him right away," Williams says. "We would make it, we had arrived."Linear was building parts valuable enough to save.

author: tekfan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2011, 06:31:00 pm
content: RIP. He truly was a one of a kind man. I'll never turn a knob again and not think about what he contributed to the electronic industry.

author: Lawsen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2011, 06:50:07 pm
content: I used to shop at Weird Stuff, too. I enjoy copying a circuit from a projects book and travel to Weird Stuff in Sunnyvale and buy most of it, even though it often do not match specification exactly. My Pentium 2-266 MHz came from there, too. Wierd Stuff is an electronics surplus store, but eventually, as electronics leave the Bay region to Asia for cheaper labor, then there will be less surplus stuff to enjoy.Lawsen