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Chipmaker Analog Devices to acquire Maxim Integrated for $21B
- jeffbee 6y agoIf you'd told me in, say, 2005 that old-line semiconductor businesses like TI and ADI would be trading at all-time highs in 2020, I would have said you were nuts.
- dragontamer 6y agoSomeone's gotta make IGBTs to support all those fancy new electric stuff, be it batteries, cars, transformers, etc. etc. IGBTs have had incredible process gains, leading to improved efficiencies (and therefore: less waste heat / waste power) in many applications. The march of progress continues forward. Its not computer tech per se... but power-tech and analog-tech is incredibly important still. I'd argue that without modern IGBTs, it'd be impossible to make an electric car today. Its probably one of the most major sources of efficiency in the modern electric vehicle. The power-switch that controls "on" vs "off" needs to be incredibly efficient when you're shoving 200+ kW of energy through it!! Case in point: lets say 200kW of power is being used by the motor at 375V. That's 500+ Amps of current. A resistance of 0.1 Ohms would waste 25,000 Watts of energy (power == current^2 * resistance)... in the switch / transistor itself before the motors even got the energy.
- jeffbee 6y agoMy bull case on CREE was their silicon-carbide rectifier tech was important for power supplies, but I can tell you without even glancing at the chart that CREE is not trading at an all-time high :=) I always thought of ADI as a company with ASICs like PLLs and MEMS and whatever. Are IGBT drivers an important line of business for them (I don't follow the company closely). If you look at another company that makes a shitload of power semiconductors, like Infineon, they are struggling.
- dragontamer 6y ago> I always thought of ADI as a company with ASICs like PLLs and MEMS and whatever. Are IGBT drivers an important line of business for them (I don't follow the company closely). IGBTs were more of a TI-comment. I see TI as more of the power-company. I like talking about IGBTs because its superficially a simple subject. It just a switch: power turns on, power turns off. But when you really consider the shear level of efficiency being developed today, its mind-boggling. ----------- You're right that I don't see ADI as an IGBT (or similar) company. But I just sorta went on a tangent, hooking into your TI-comment more so than ADI.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y agoI think it's AD/DA conversion product lines that are really driving profitability - and I suspect mainly the RF stuff.
- hristov 6y agoYou should look again. CREE is very near all time highs actually (especially if you ignore the 2000 bubble). CREE is a large but shrinking LED business tied to a small but growing SiC business. At some point the SiC part will overshadow the LED part and CREE will be seen as a growing successful tech company again.
- phkahler 6y agoThe power-switch that controls "on" vs "off" needs to be incredibly efficient when you're shoving 200+ kW of energy through it!! Yeah, when I was working in EVs everything was about reducing losses. Not just for efficiency but because a few percent loss is a LOT of heat. I ran an inverter at 200kW that was not rated for that. The weak point was actually the DC connector. I didn't find that out the hard way, just looked it up as I was closing in on 600 Amps DC. BTW I just needed to find 2 values empirically and was unable to because of that DC current. Strange enough I figured running at a lower voltage would reduce max power and I could get my values. Unfortunately half the voltage is half the power but still the same current. Higher speed had similar issues. Project got cancelled before I found that motors limits.
- hwillis 6y ago> I'd argue that without modern IGBTs, it'd be impossible to make an electric car today. Er, everybody switched to SiC MOSFETs, so... definitely not. > The power-switch that controls "on" vs "off" needs to be incredibly efficient when you're shoving 200+ kW of energy through it!! Even before SiC became economical, FETs were edging out IGBTs in most applications. The voltage drop across IGBTs is just too high. In fact SiCs have worse on/off efficiency, but are still preferred because they can switch more quickly and in the end that makes them more efficient, overall. > Its probably one of the most major sources of efficiency in the modern electric vehicle. I would give that to the battery or the motors before the controller. Controller have been >97% efficient for ages and ages, but motors are another thing entirely and better computers, salient rotors and permanent magnets, and better characterization have led to bigger gains than the switching elements have seen. Neither hold a candle to batteries though. The resistance of switches is <10 milliohms, and motor resistance isn't much higher. The resistance of a 400 volt, 250 Ah NiMH battery is around 180 milliohms. The same battery built with venerable NCR18650Bs (original model S) is 68 milliohms. That's a full 7x improvement, or an 86% reduction in loss, and by far the biggest inefficiency besides aerodynamics and rolling friction.
- keefe8 6y ago> The resistance of a 400 volt, 250 Ah NiMH battery is around 180 milliohms. The same battery built with venerable NCR18650Bs (original model S) is 68 milliohms. That's a full 7x improvement Power dissipated by resistance is only linearly (not quadratically) related to resistance when current is relatively fixed: P=(I^2)R. So reducing the parasitic resistance from 180mΩ to 68mΩ is only a 2.6x improvement, albeit still quite significant.
- baybal2 6y ago> Er, everybody switched to SiC MOSFETs, so... definitely not. Definitely not everybody are on SiC parts, let alone MOSFET only designs. Though, the trends is for at least some hybrid SiC parts as they are getting cheaper. When switching speeds are low enough (as is in EVs,) you don't need that much switching performance. Current Si IGBTs are quite viable in EVs, if you switch high enough voltage. There is a reason why rail is still preferring high voltage AC for traction. That's because Si IGBTs for that are cheap, and efficient enough.
- ThePhysicist 6y agoIt seems ADI still hasn't surpassed its all-time high of 108 $ (which it reached in 2000), though it's awfully close. Then again if we add the inflation we are still nowhere close the earlier valuation.
- jeffbee 6y agoIt closed at $124.50 last week.
- guenthert 6y agoDo we actually know where we're at in terms of inflation after the $2T were pumped into a lame economy earlier this year?
- guenthert 6y agoDownvoted by anonymous cowards yet again. Is it because - the idea of injecting money into a lame economy causing inflation is preposterous - comparing historic stock market prices w/o inflation data is perfectly sensible or - that inflation data is readily available to everyone and doesn't need to be dragged into the discussion here? Well, I'm afraid, we'll never know.
- ThePhysicist 6y agoSeems I overlooked that, you're absolutely right. Still with the inflation I think the stock isn't worth as much as on its historic high, though it seems to gain good momentum again.
- dragontamer 6y agoI've actually liked Analog Device's documentation as a hobbyist. Their chips are a bit of a premium compared to others, but Analog Devices often have LTSpice and PSpice models that I can play with in a simulator before buying. I guess Analog Devices makes LTSpice, so it makes sense that they'd be all in for that kind of support.
- ISL 6y agoAD is my benchmark for datasheets.
- madengr 6y agoIt used to be my benchmark for data sheets, but it has gone downhill. An example is the datasheet for the HMC6300, which has some wrong register values, and other errors. Of course that's Hittite pedigree. The ADI website still sucks; I wish they would have kept LTI or Hittites. Obvious the web designers are not EE.
- hatsunearu 6y agoI personally like TIs datasheets the best. They always have the same layout and has the right amount of detail.
- mercurywells 6y agoLinear Technologies makes LTSpice - Analog bought Linear in 2016.
- jeffbee 6y ago"Analog Dialogue" contains an approximation of all human knowledge. Download the archives today.
- _Microft 6y agoThanks for pointing this publication out, looks pretty interesting! https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/archives.html https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/archives.html
- cpach 6y agoI must admit I’m not familiar with these companies. Is anyone willing to explain the significance of this merger?
- R0b0t1 6y agoThey focus on slightly different markets. Analog devices produces passives and semiconductors as well as processors and ASICs targeted at data acquisition and digital signal processing as well as power electronics. Maxim tends to produce special purpose devices and processors that are analog front ends with some minor forays into the other areas. There is overlap, but the portfolios are complementary. It seems to be a good acquisition save the sticker price seems too high.
- asn0 6y agoRecent HN post about counterfeiting of Maxim Integrated DS18B20 temperature sensor https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839
- simias 6y agoI guess they're companies you might not hear a lot about if you don't deal with designing electronics but if you do they're all over the place. You probably have at least a dozen components made by these companies within one meter of you as you're reading this message. If you want practical examples of what they do, go to digikey.com, search for the company names and click randomly on one of the thousands of hits. Here's a microcontroller: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/MAX3088CSA-T/MAX3088CSA-TDKR-ND/1799955 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/M... Here's an I2C temperature sensor: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/MAX31875R2TZS-T/175-MAX31875R2TZS-TTR-ND/11484098 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/M... Here's an RF amplifier: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/MAX2233EEE-T/MAX2233EEE-TCT-ND/5820970 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/maxim-integrated/M... Here's a 3v3 DC-DC: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/linear-technology-analog-devices/LT1764AEQ-3-3-TRPBF/LT1764AEQ-3-3-TRPBFCT-ND/3830652 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/linear-technology-...
- neilmovva 6y agoLatest in a trend of silicon industry consolidation. A few other major moves in the embedded market over the last five years: NXP + Freescale in 2015 Microchip + Atmel in 2016 ON Semi + Fairchild in 2016 Infineon + Cypress in 2020
- jononor 6y agoGonna be left with just 2-3 major players soon...
- markrages 6y agoIn this same market: Analog bought Linear Tech, TI bought National.
- andromeduck 6y agoI'm waiting for them to buy Vicor
- formerly_proven 6y agoCan't say I like the prospects of all these companies consolidating and throwing out "redundant parts".
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago+1. This can be terrible. When Avago acquired Broadcom (and kept Broadcom's name), initially they continued selling existing components for a while, then suddenly discontinued hundreds of discrete RF/microwave parts (some were inherited from Agilent and even Hewlett-Packard's days) because they are "legacy parts". No! It was a huge pain. Many of those, despite their old age, are still good and useful, it's just because the demand and profit from discrete parts are low, and the new management decided it's not worth keeping them. On the other hand, after Analog purchased Linear, many of the high-performance Linear parts are still sold side-by-side with competing Analog parts today, Analog even created a "Powered by Linear" product line for selling Linear power converter chips. It was a wise decision, apparently the management knew those parts from Linear are of great value. I hope Analog will adopt a similar solution for these Maxim parts.
- raverbashing 6y agoWait, but this morning the speculation was $17Bi https://www.marketwatch.com/story/chip-maker-analog-poised-to-buy-rival-maxim-integrated-for-more-than-17-billion-2020-07-12 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/chip-maker-analog-poised-t... Crazy values nonetheless
- ptarmigan 6y agoMore as background to ADI's acquisition of Linear Tech, but often these acquisitions come down to one chipmaker's desire to offer a full system. Take for instance Analog Devices' RF converters: https://www.analog.com/en/applications/technology/rf-converters.html https://www.analog.com/en/applications/technology/rf-convert... These chips cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and are meant for base stations. Analog Devices wants to get a contract with Nokia or anyone else and then also be able to sell the LDOs, PLLs, and clock devices that go along with it (https://www.analog.com/en/products/AD9213.html#product-tools https://www.analog.com/en/products/AD9213.html#product-tools). Linear Tech was the leader in power and the name is still used for new power products under the "Power by Linear" name with ADI. Hittite offers a number of RF chips. If you're paying $1k for a data converter, what's an extra $50 for all the analog/RF support circuitry? They may even throw it in for free. If you have a complex system with analog/RF/digital circuitry, offering a full reference design with other parts from your own catalog is a great way to ensure that those parts are used.
- markrages 6y agoDoes this mean that Maxim will finally have reasonable lead times and availability? If so, that's a pretty big change to the industry.
- jacquesm 6y agoGood chance of that. As a 'smaller' (compared to the giants) player Maxim was doing everything they could to not pay a premium for fab capacity and this has at times hampered their ability to supply product. Overall though I'd say they were quite good and one of the effects of them being a bit unreliable at times was that companies would stock up by buying larger batches which in turn worsened their ability to supply product.
- mNovak 6y agoAD sells chips at quite a premium.. Really hoping they don't drive up Maxim prices.
- exmadscientist 6y agoThey actually drove down prices on some LTC SKUs, and there's the 800-pound gorilla that is TI to contend with, so I think pricing will be fine through this merger. (The caveat to the above is that LTC pricing was previously absurd.)
- sleavey 6y agoPart of my job (scientific researcher) involves designing high bandwidth circuits with analog electronics (op-amps, transistors, LCR filters, etc.). I really enjoy this part but it's not really my core responsibility. Thinking of potential (long in the future) career changes, does anyone know if this sort of stuff is still done commercially in more than just a few niche fields? Or is it all FPGAs/ASICs these days? And are there any tech companies employing people to mix this sort of thing with software and firmware development too? A sort of "full stack" developer where the stack also includes the hardware side.
- pjc50 6y agoIt's definitely done commercially. It's "niche", in the sense that you'll have to go where the jobs are, but those niches can be huge. Audio, power, and RF electronics all need analog design.
- jpm_sd 6y agoLook into software-defined radio. An opportunity for you to learn something about FPGAs and ASICs, but good analog design skills are vitally important to make it all work in the end!
- topspin 6y agoAD got Linear and Hittite. Now Maxim. Who does that leave for high performance ADC/DACs? Texas Instruments. Microchip has a limited selection. That's about it. Lovely.
- beezle 6y agoBack in the early/mid 2000's I used to basis trade LLTC against MXIM and now and then ADI. Always thought TI would be the buyer of LLTC or MXIM.
- teleforce 6y agoMost of the commentators in this topic are probably EE guys, may be I can find my old classmates here, hi guys:-) Joke aside, AD is probably one of the most profitable companies with unprecedented monopoly on analog components and circuits business. Last week somebody mentioned about Visa and Mastercard duopoly in HN, but with this Maxim acquisition, AD is now the Visa and Mastercard combined while TI is the American Express. To see how profitable AD is please check this article on the AD's 3rd generation transceiver chip and if you are not reading it, basically it's more profitable than drug [1]! I am using every single versions of this AD's transceiver chip for my work, now it is in the latest 6th gen. Suffice to say if you're building 5G transceiver you will need AD's 5th gen transceiver. It's probably not an exxaggeration to say that ITU radio/wireless cellular standards' bandwidth actually following the AD's transceiver chips generations since 5G system can be built by the 5th gen chip but not the 4th gen chip (it's for 4G). The closest competitors are transceivers from LT (already acquired by AD) and the Lime Microsystems from Cambridge, UK. [1]https://zeptobars.com/en/read/AD9361-SDR-Analog-Devices-DAC-ADC-65nm https://zeptobars.com/en/read/AD9361-SDR-Analog-Devices-DAC-...
- apcragg 6y agoEven with Lime Microsystems, their chip barely functions compared to the equivalent ADI part. Sure, it's nameplate specs are nice but it the dynamic range is crap and the EVM barely passes the LTE spec. Even worse is that basically the only product using the chip is Lime themselves so trying to spin your own product would be a nightmare. ADI has a nice eval board and reference design for their chips and you can control it using the lib-iio framework which is built into mainline linux.
- ohazi 6y agoI really wanted Lime to succeed here, because we could all use the competition, but man, that Lime chip really is absolute crap. It has dead zones all over the spectrum where the LO PLL won't lock, even within the temperature spec. [1] I returned my LimeSDR Mini after a frustrating weekend and bought a USRP instead, which uses the AD chip, and there's really no comparison. This is one reason why I said in another comment that I thought it'd be difficult for a fabless upstart to complete on a complex / high-performance design like an ADC. The chip Lime designed is an absolute monster -- it has multiple ADCs, DACs, filter banks, switches, oscillators, PLLs. If any one of them isn't perfect, the whole design is shot. I'd still like for them to succeed, but when you're selling a hundred dollar IC, it really does need to be flawless. [1] https://discourse.myriadrf.org/t/new-limesdr-mini-loopback-test-failed/6067 https://discourse.myriadrf.org/t/new-limesdr-mini-loopback-t...
- satya71 6y agoNot good. If you want high performance analog now there are basically two big players: ADI and TI. On Semi has a bit. I guess inevitable. The high-performance business is getting smaller in volume and consolidation allows prices to go up.
- jacquesm 6y agoMaxim always was an interesting company. They started out iirc with the lowly MAX232, an all-in-one single supply level converter for RS232 applications, then went on to crank out one neat package after another. Good to see such innovation deliver a payday of this magnitude, and Analog Devices is another top of the line company so for once I'm not afraid that the acquired company will be mismanaged or the product lines killed.
- squarefoot 6y agoA prayer: please bring back the MAX038. That chip was discontinued ages ago and never replaced, although it would still be handy today in places where DDS or PLL are too noisy and/or complicated.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y agoHow many do you need? I might have a handful.
- squarefoot 6y agoThanks for the offer. I don't need them actually, although if they became mass produced again, their availability at decent prices (now they're way overpriced as every rare chip) could spark some ideas. I don't understand why they never replaced them; the glorious MC1648 itself was upgraded as MC12148 and MC100EL1648.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y agoWell, even a cheap 8-bit MCU can do pretty much everything they did in firmware using DDS, so I'm guessing that had a lot to do with it.