Analog Aficionados, at its annual dinner, recognizes some key people in the analog electronics industry. These are the ones from 2020.

Alan Martin is retired from TI/NSC where he worked on Simple Switcher products for 13 years. Previously he was an FAE at Linear Technology and Sipex. He holds 12 patents, and is a KCBS certified BBQ judge. You can find him lending a helping hand at Linear Integrated Systems, SweetVinyl, RAM Tubes, and Music Reference.

Ask him about: his test gear, and latest method for cooking bacon.

Arlie Stonestreet II is Vice President of Engineering at Ultra-ICE, an aerospace company with a unique mix of engineering and manufacturing in Kansas.

Ask him about: WheelTug, Advanced Power Conversion, High Power Motor control, and the More Electric Aircraft (MEA). His visits to semiconductor companies in the Valley, the Computer History Museum, and retro technology.

Bernice Loui: The Analog personalities history project.

Ask her about: *Why history of technology is important, *Analog circuit, RF & Microwave and systems design, *Hewlett Packard, Tektronix and other vintage test gear, *History of Photographic lens and Photography, *Vintage Leitz, Wild Heerbrugg, Zeiss microscopes, *Art, Literature, Science, Math, Nature and how they are all tied together in surprising ways, *Serious problems with the current education system and *Music.

Bob Dobkin was a founder and chief technology officer at Linear Technology and is working for Analog Devices after its acquisition. Dobby worked at National Semiconductor before starting Linear.

Ask him about: bipolar design, three terminal regulators, references or any type of analog circuit. Also ask about his time at National Semiconductor or years of working with his friend, Jim Williams.

Earl McCune is an RF and wireless design consultant. He has over 90 patents. He co-founded two start-up companies. He has written a great second book (Dynamic Power Supply Transmitters) and is now a Fellow of IEEE citing the polar developments he has led.

Ask him about: Multipath, how many bits per hertz you really get, wireless power transmission, his ham license (WA6SUH), and the energy impracticality of 5G as 3GPP is defining it.

Ed Fong - WB6IQN - BSEE, MSEE from UC Berkeley. Ph.D. Univ. of SF.

Ask him about: All the cool radio circuits, 12 patents and over 40 publications he has. Ed also has designed some really cool antennas over the years. He also holds standing room only parties over his house for the the local ham clubs.

Glen Brisebois Glen got Bachelor’s degrees in Physics (’85) and Electrical Engineering (‘91) at the University of Alberta, Canada. His intro to electronics was through audio, when his Dad gave him a Stereo Review (’77). He entered a Carthusian monastery in 1987, but couldn’t stop thinking about circuits (among other things). His greatest honors are receiving the Best Article Award at EDN 2006, actually being cited in the Art of Electronics 3, and getting on the Analog Aficionados napkin.

Ask him about: European pilgrimage, Western monasticism, getting fleeced twice in Marseille and once in Damascus, dysentery at Krak des Chevaliers, low noise JFETs he has loved, Class A power and homeschooling.

Greg Schaffer retired from 10 start-ups, Maxim and a host of other companies. For several decades, Greg has been pushing the boundaries of ultra-low power analog design.

Ask him about: nano-amp charge-pumps, current-sense amplifiers, the worth of an MIT education and what it takes to set up a rock climbing gym.

Jeffrey Pawlan worked as an analog, RF, and microwave design engineer for 50 years. His work included designs for research in the UCLA School of Medicine, TRW Semiconductors, Hughes Aircraft, Varian, and several startups. He also was a consultant for 25 years which included microwave antenna design. He has been licensed as WA6KBL for 60 years. He has published articles and has patents and is an IEEE Life Senior member.

Ask him about: his most unusual job designing ultra low frequency amplifiers for Magnetotellurics using liquid helium cooled superconducting magnetometers. Ask him about communicating with hams in Europe via signals bounced off of the moon (EME).

Jeri Ellsworth is an American entrepreneur and computer chip designer and inventor. She gained fame in 2004 for creating a complete Commodore 64 system on a chip housed within a joystick, called C64 Direct-to-TV. It runs 30 video games from the early 1980s, and at peak, sold over 70,000 units in a single day via the QVC shopping channel.

Ask her about: How to build a TSA "naked" scanner using repurposed satellite antenna parts

Julie Willey (KG6MEV) works at Facebook Oculus as a Senior Systems Design Engineer.

Ask her about: Off-grid homesteading, robots, construction equipment, cooking, toy design, educational pedagogues.

Keiko Kaleta is a project manager and semiconductor process expert.

Ask her about: Her National Semiconductor alumni luncheons, working on the Geode, flower arranging, living in Japan and living in Portland Maine.

Keith O. Johnson is a recording engineer whose more than 150 releases in classical and jazz include two Grammy winners and seven nominated for Best Engineered Classical Recording. Keith co-founded Gauss, Microsonics, and Reference Recordings, and holds any number of patents. He received a Silver Medal from the Audio Engineering Society at the 125th AES convention in San Francisco, California "for outstanding contributions sustained over 40 years, to the advancement of audio quality of recordings through innovation in the areas of analog and digital recording technology, transducers and music recording techniques." In addition, he is a fellow and a Lifetime Member of the Audio Engineering Society.

J.Kirkwood H.Rough Sr. RF Engineer @ Comet Plasma Control Technologies.

Ask him about: 20KV Operational amplifiers, 10KW Diamond deposition chambers, Linear Systems Dual Fets, Low Noise audio design, Electron Beams, and all things analog and high voltage after 50 years of designing this stuff.

Len Sherman is a former Senior Scientist from the mobility group at Maxim Integrated. He graduated from MIT a million years ago, and spent 5 years building crazy hardware in the (in)famous Building 20 at MIT before succumbing to westward forces to work at National Semiconductor. The most recent decades have been spent defining and working on applications for everything from little 5-pin SOT DC-DC converters to giant “boat anchor” power management chips.

Ask him about: DC-DC Converters, old Widlar and Williams stories, home shop metal working, tube amps, and gene sequencing with semiconductors.

Mark Stansberry is a writer, illustrator, tutor and electronic engineer. He also codes on occasion. He has worked in the electronics industry for decades and has written on almost every electronic topic imaginable: analog, digital, mixed, and EDA.

Ask him about: smart textiles, smart shoes, automatic drawing generators or for that matter just about anything.

Mike Engelhardt was the Director of Simulation Development at Analog Devices. He is the sole author of LTspice. He’s delivered analog design and simulation seminars in over 40 countries.

Ask him about: SPICE, self-authoring assembly, stochastically-cooled multi-threaded solvers, and his favorite topic: international travel.

Ricardo Salaverry is at Video Rules. Previously he was a head of engineering at NDS. Previously at Tyco ELO Touch. Prior to innovating touchscreen technology he worked at Zoran designing digital still cameras.

Ask him about: Emigrating from Chile, antennas, the overly-complex ATSC standard, getting 135 of 137 boards working on the first spin, and innovation in America.

Ron Quan’s most recent book is: "Troubleshooting Electronic Circuits: A Guide to Learning Analog Electronics", published in January 2020.

Ask him about: His dozens of patents, Macrovison video scrambling systems, low power bar code readers, MPS transistors. His AES papers. His old transistor radio collection. Working at Ampex and Sony. How to get a radio to work 5 years off of one C cell.

Sergio Franco is a Emeritus professor at San Francisco State University. He was born in Friuli. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ask him about: His EDN blog, his three books, Analog Circuit Design-Discrete and Integrated, Design with Operational Amplifiers & Analog Integrated Circuits, and Electric Circuit Fundamentals.

Swamy Venkidu has both BSEE & MSEE degrees in Advance Electronics from the IIT-M in India. Besides being Chairman and majority share holder of OnChip, Swamy currently serves as President of BiCMOS Foundry. His past experiences include OnSpec where he was founder, Modular Semiconductor as president. Prior to that he was part of the founding team at Faraday where he was Director of Engineering and led the ASIC development of the PC industry’s 1st core logic chipset.

Tim McCune is president of Linear Integrated Systems, Inc., a 30-year-old company that develops and manufactures small-signal discrete components. He is also the host of Analog Aficionados.

Ask him about: Restoring an 87 Buick Grand National and a 68 Norton Commando, and his just-published novel based on his travels in Afghanistan.

Tunç Doluca: CEO by Day. Engineer by design. Fell in love with analog in school, and always accused of being an engineer. Still 100% dedicated to Maxim after 30+ years. And still loves every minute. Focused on growing Maxim and industry with products and technology that empower design innovation to make a difference in people’s lives.

Ask him about: His1991 hand-drawn sketch of the MAX782 and Jack Gifford stories.