One of My High Technology Contributions to Microchip Design

One of My High Technology Contributions to Microchip Design...

http://www.glade.com/wisp.asp

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

So, what's your estimate of the total number of JT-designed ICs that
have ever been produced? I mean actual individual chips, not designs.

John

 

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
4ax.com>) about 'One of My High Technology Contributions to Microchip
Design', on Fri, 16 Jul 2004:

Have you got versions for elderly electronic engineers that emit 'sawing
Ebonite', 'hot Paxolin' and 'selenium dioxide'? (;-)

 

I wouldn't know where to begin.

Probably the 1488/1489 RS-232 chip set would have had the highest
volume.

Although my alternator regulator chips would be up in the millions
also.

The PLL stuff would be high volume but not astronomic.

Then I have probably 100 custom chips, designed for
application-specific use, probably each in the 10K/year category.

But this latest one for SC Johnson will probably be an all-time
high... only way the volume could be any better would be if it fit
into a TP dispenser ;-)

BTW: This design runs off a single cell, boosts its own VDD, and has
also a HV output to drive a piezo actuator that drives the pump. Also
counts the time between "squirts" ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

must be one of those obscure definitions of "contribution"
with which I am not familiar.

 

I laid myself off in 1970, so anything after that is someone else's
work.... although there's really nothing new, just process
improvements on designs by Ron Treadway and myself.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

ROTFLMAO! That's a constant problem with circuit designers... when to
let it loose and call it completed... I'm always in a quandary with
"perfection" ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

I don't think SC Johnson would find those odors acceptable ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

'Twas tongue-in-cheek. It's my chip in the product. But it's this
sort of thing that makes more money than PLLs, for instance.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

Nice.

Just out of curiosity (I'm not after $$ figures), but how is a chip project
like that handled?

Did you design that chip specifically for SC Johnson, under contract?

On what are your payments based? Was it a fixed-amount one-time payment,
per-piece license fee? Who owns the rights to the design?

Finally, who handles your licensing/contract agreements?

Thanks for any info --

 

That's pretty cute. My wife wants to know if you could add a sensor to it
that would increase the squirt frequency when I need a shower.

 

Hi John,

How about "drilling bakelite"? Or "overloaded carbon resistor", "eau de
electrolytics" and "parfume de tubes with dust on them"?

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

Hi Jim,

If you count the "C" siblings that came after your original I probably
added another boat load of consumed chips here ;-)

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

...Jim Thompson
I don't know what ROTFLMAO stands for, but an old engineer once
said to me "Shoot the engineer, deliver the product".

Mark

 

ROTFLMAO => Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

Can you give any more info about the pump, sounds like it might be handy
for micropumping applications, at a fraction of the price of a proper one.

Can the timer be defeated so it runs whenever it gets power?

Just shows that though it's a simple circuit, that even I could
design in a couple of hours, and probably use no more than 7 components
that there'll be a place for custom silicon for a while yet.

 

Not so easy there. There's a 60 day refill life, but there's a 6
month battery-life spec ;-)

It's a custom ASIC, not publicly available; and the piezo-mechanical
pump was developed by Fitch, an SC Johnson subsidiary.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

But not due to lack of ruggedness. Every Radio Snack carries (or
carried) these, and they just gathered dust on the shelf, indicating to
me that there were not many of them going bad. Must've been built like
the proverbial brick sh#thouse. ;-)

Each one being connected to an automobile, so you can get a good idea of
the quantity by looking at the number of vehicles sold.

Unfortunately huge volume would mean very low cost, and not a lotta $$$.

Who makes them? Or who makes the circuit board? Or who makes.... :-?

 

I thought that's why god made EEPROMs - so you could make major changes
with a chip change. You can just charge the customer a couple thou to
fly a tech out and 'upgrade ' the box, and recal it.