Date: 27/08/2012

Precision analog and a smart digital semiconductor in a SoC or SIP is hot trendPrecision analog and a smart digital semiconductor in a SoC or SIP is hot trendPrecision analog and a smart digital semiconductor in a SoC or SIP is hot trendPrecision analog and a smart digital semiconductor in a SoC or SIP is hot trend

Somshubro (Som) Pal Choudhury, recently appointed Managing Director of Analog Devices India Private Limited shared his parent company Analog Devices Inc (ADI)' focus and the role of Analog Device India team to this writer. Earlier to ADI he was working at Netgear, a telecom equipment supplier. ADI, though a name with word 'analog' offers ICs with a mix of high performance analog and smart digital processor, making the system designer's life simple by offering complex device in one package, it can be monolithic SoC or a System in Package (SiP). So the high-potential mix is: extremely high performance analog and extremely smart digital.

Som shared these below points on his company's focus and specialization areas:

Analog Devices India team takes complete ownership of some of the semiconductor products from concept to implementation.

Analog Devices unlike other analog IC suppliers, it has exited from some of the businesses where the level of commoditization is high. It's key focus is on signal processing chain(amplifier, ADC, and DAC), DSP, MEMS and power management.

System In Package (SIP) is one of the major area of ADI's focus.

ADI is offering solutions (reference design, set of ICs, software) for each of the applications areas. The applications areas of focus are automotive, communications (mainly infrastructure and not so much in handset), consumer, healthcare, industrial and instrumentation.
He proudly says "If we look at the DNA of ADI, we are more in terms of high precision, high quality, high reliability. If it is just price, it doesn't really play that strongly in our DNA." Even in highly commoditized consumer electronics space ADI supplies high value devices such as MEMS Microphones, precision accelerometers and lens drivers for digital cameras.

Globally in the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) market, ADI has more than 48% share. In the general amplifier market space, ADI's share is around 22% and in the high performance amplifier market, ADI's share is 42%.

In energy meter market too ADI has a big share, Som says in Indian energy meter market, almost all of the meters use ADI's analog chips (Som has clarified with another note on this subject, see his clarification at the end of this article). ADI has long term customers in the Indian aerospace and defense markets. Surveillance is also an important emerging opportunity for ADI in India. ADI applies its MEMS, RF, analog and DSP technologies in providing safety to drivers of automotives for both driver's mistake and otherwise. Health care is another big space for ADI, since it demands precision and reliability and performance, a very made-for-ADI domain. Medical imaging such as CT scanning, X-ray, MRI, vital sign monitoring ECG, Oximeter, and blood pressure monitoring are some of the examples Som quoted in medical electronics domain. ADI is trying to further Miniaturize and reduce power consumption of its components used in medical electronics.

Though an analog expert, ADI is not a key player in power electronics which is now called as green power (solar). Som accepts that, and they are going to improve in this area.

If somebody asks how ADI keeping an edge over others in the analog semiconductor market, its mainly because of its talented senior engineers (called fellows) who are working at ADI for decades. Analog semiconductor is a kind of black-art where ADI engineers have mastered over the years, according to Som.

But the Indian ADI team has higher stake in ADI's digital product DSP.

Analog Devices India has demonstrated to this writer a lane-departure warning system, where ADI has used high performance analog, RF, and high MIPS DSP. The lane-departure warning system is a right product for congested Bangalore roads. Here below the pic of the demo.

Smart Phone

Shivaramakrishnan S, Senior Engineering Manager, ADI and Somshubro (Som) Pal Choudhury

Clarification by Som on India's energy meter IC market: ADI has a large share of the Indian energy meter market. However, this share is with regard to the meters that have already been deployed in the market and does not include new meters that are being shipped out (where ADI does not have a dominant share).