Bob Dobkin

Last updated
Bob Dobkin
Born
Robert C. Dobkin

1943
NationalityAmerican
OccupationElectronics engineer
Known for Integrated circuits designer and electronics entrepreneur

Robert C. Dobkin (born 1943 in Philadelphia) is an American electrical engineer, co-founder of Linear Technology Corporation, and veteran linear (analog) integrated circuit (IC) designer. He has over 100 patents. [1] [2]

Contents

Career

Dobkin studied Electrical Engineering at MIT, but did not complete a degree. After early employments e.g. at GE Reentry Systems, he joined Philbrick Nexus in Massachusetts working on IC development with Bob Pease. He joined National Semiconductor (NSC) in January 1969. He resigned the position as Director of Advanced Circuit Development at NSC in July 1981 and co-founded Linear Technology with Robert H. Swanson in the same year.

Dobkin continued to serve as the company's Chief Technical Officer through its acquisition by Analog Devices in 2016. [3] He was on the board of directors of Spectra7 Microsystems Inc. from 2013 [4] until his retirement in 2021. [5]

Dobkin holds more than 100 patents in the field of analog circuits. [1]

In 2021 Dobkin was charged by the SEC with insider trading for sharing non-public information regarding the merger of Analog Devices and Linear Technology. [6] Dobkin was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of $252,092.16 and barred from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company. [7]

Works

Related Research Articles

National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power supply</span> Electronic device that converts or regulates electric energy and supplies it to a load

A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, current, and frequency to power the load. As a result, power supplies are sometimes referred to as electric power converters. Some power supplies are separate standalone pieces of equipment, while others are built into the load appliances that they power. Examples of the latter include power supplies found in desktop computers and consumer electronics devices. Other functions that power supplies may perform include limiting the current drawn by the load to safe levels, shutting off the current in the event of an electrical fault, power conditioning to prevent electronic noise or voltage surges on the input from reaching the load, power-factor correction, and storing energy so it can continue to power the load in the event of a temporary interruption in the source power.

In electronics, a linear regulator is a voltage regulator used to maintain a steady voltage. The resistance of the regulator varies in accordance with both the input voltage and the load, resulting in a constant voltage output. The regulating circuit varies its resistance, continuously adjusting a voltage divider network to maintain a constant output voltage and continually dissipating the difference between the input and regulated voltages as waste heat. By contrast, a switching regulator uses an active device that switches on and off to maintain an average value of output. Because the regulated voltage of a linear regulator must always be lower than input voltage, efficiency is limited and the input voltage must be high enough to always allow the active device to reduce the voltage by some amount.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Switched-mode power supply</span> Power supply with switching regulator

A switched-mode power supply (SMPS), also called switching-mode power supply, switch-mode power supply, switched power supply, or simply switcher, is an electronic power supply that incorporates a switching regulator to convert electrical power efficiently.

A bandgap voltage reference is a temperature independent voltage reference circuit widely used in integrated circuits. It produces a fixed (constant) voltage regardless of power supply variations, temperature changes, or circuit loading from a device. It commonly has an output voltage around 1.25 V, close to the corresponding theoretical band gap of silicon. This circuit concept was first published by David Hilbiber in 1964. Bob Widlar, Paul Brokaw and others followed up with other commercially successful versions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voltage regulator</span> System designed to maintain a constant voltage

A voltage regulator is a system designed to automatically maintain a constant voltage. It may use a simple feed-forward design or may include negative feedback. It may use an electromechanical mechanism, or electronic components. Depending on the design, it may be used to regulate one or more AC or DC voltages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analog Devices</span> American semiconductor manufacturer

Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), also known simply as Analog, is an American multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion, signal processing, and power management technology, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

A voltage reference is an electronic device that ideally produces a fixed (constant) voltage irrespective of the loading on the device, power supply variations, temperature changes, and the passage of time. Voltage references are used in power supplies, analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, and other measurement and control systems. Voltage references vary widely in performance; a regulator for a computer power supply may only hold its value to within a few percent of the nominal value, whereas laboratory voltage standards have precisions and stability measured in parts per million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Low-dropout regulator</span> DC linear voltage regulator

A low-dropout regulator is a DC linear voltage regulator that can operate even when the supply voltage is very close to the output voltage. The advantages of an LDO regulator over other DC-to-DC voltage regulators include: the absence of switching noise ; smaller device size ; and greater design simplicity. The disadvantage is that linear DC regulators must dissipate heat in order to operate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Widlar</span> American electronics engineer (1937–1991)

Robert John Widlar was an American electronics engineer and a designer of linear integrated circuits (ICs).

Linear Technology Corporation was an American semiconductor company that designed, manufactured and marketed high performance analog integrated circuits. Applications for the company's products included telecommunications, cellular telephones, networking products, notebook and desktop computers, video/multimedia, industrial instrumentation, automotive electronics, factory automation, process control, military and space systems. The company was founded in 1981 by Robert H. Swanson, Jr. and Robert C. Dobkin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LM317</span>

The LM317 is an adjustable positive linear voltage regulator. It was designed by Bob Dobkin in 1976 while he worked at National Semiconductor.

John Haslett Hall was a pioneer in the development of low power CMOS integrated circuits. Hall was a pioneering semiconductor process and device design expert. He founded or co-founded multiple innovative Silicon Valley companies, including Intersil, MicroPower Systems, Linear Integrated Systems, Inc., and Integrated Wave Technologies, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Pease</span> American electronics engineer (1940–2011)

Robert Allen Pease was an electronics engineer known for analog integrated circuit (IC) design, and as the author of technical books and articles about electronic design. He designed several very successful "best-seller" ICs, many of them in continuous production for multiple decades.These include LM331 voltage-to-frequency converter, and the LM337 adjustable negative voltage regulator.

onsemi is an American semiconductor supplier company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona and ranked No. 483 on the 2022 Fortune 500 based on its 2021 sales. Products include power and signal management, logic, discrete, and custom devices for automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, LED lighting, medical, military/aerospace and power applications. onsemi runs a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific regions. Based on its 2016 revenues of $3.907 billion, onsemi ranked among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor sales leaders.

Precision Monolithics, Inc. also known as PMI, was an American company based in Santa Clara, California, that developed and produced mixed signal and linear integrated circuits (ICs). It was a pioneer in the fields of digital-to-analog converters and operational amplifiers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power management integrated circuit</span> Computer component

Power management integrated circuits are integrated circuits for power management. Although PMIC refers to a wide range of chips, most include several DC/DC converters or their control part. A PMIC is often included in battery-operated devices and embedded devices to decrease the amount of space required.

James M. Williams was an analog circuit designer and technical author who worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1968–1979), Philbrick, National Semiconductor (1979–1982) and Linear Technology Corporation (LTC) (1982–2011). He wrote over 350 publications relating to analog circuit design, including five books, 21 application notes for National Semiconductor, 62 application notes for Linear Technology, and over 125 articles for EDN Magazine.

Gabriel Alfonso Rincón-Mora is a Venezuelan-American/Hispanic-American electrical engineer, scientist, professor, inventor, and author who was elected a fellow of the American National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in 2017, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2011, and Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in 2009 for contributions to energy-harvesting and power-supply integrated circuits (ICs). Rincón-Mora is the Motorola Solutions Foundation Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he's been Assistant/Associate/Full Professor since 2001.

Bruno Murari is an Italian inventor. During his career he has patented about 200 inventions in the field of circuit design, power technologies and MEMS devices. He is the only Italian to have received the Elmer A. Sperry Award., which is awarded to those who have distinguished themselves with proven engineering contributions to advance the field of transport. He was defined "legendary analog engineer" and "father" of the BCD technology

References

  1. 1 2 "Bob Dobkin and Jim Williams 960-page book of app notes". Electronics Design Network. Retrieved 2013-07-05.
  2. Search of patents with inventor name Robert Dobkin; Google Patents.
  3. "Linear Technology Corporation /CA/ - Form 10-K". Internet FAQ Consortium. August 19, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-25.
  4. "Executive Profile: Robert C. Dobkin". Bloomberg Business Week. Archived from the original on July 6, 2013. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
  5. "Spectra7 Announces Retirement of Robert Dobkin". Spectra7 Microsystems. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
  6. "SEC Charges Former Linear Technology Corporation Officer and Three Others with Insider Trading". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
  7. "FINAL JUDGMENT AS TO DEFENDANT ROBERT C. DOBKIN" (PDF). UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN JOSE DIVISION. Retrieved 2023-07-18.