atn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Alan Nishioka) (03/20/91)
Copied without permisson from the San Francisco Chronicle, 5 March 1991.
Services were held Saturday in Mexico for Robert G. Widlar, a
circuit designer known in Silicon Valley as much for his oddball
antics as his skill, who died in Puerto Vallarta last Wednesday
[27 February 1991] of a heart attack. He was 54.
"If brilliance is measured by creativity, then Bob Widlar is one
of the few true geniuses Silicon Valley ever produced," wrote Michael
Malone, a former reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and the New
York Times, in "The Big Score," a history of Silicon Valley.
A 1962 alumnus of the University of Colorado, Mr. Widlar designed
the first industry standard operational amplifiers, voltage
comparators and voltage regulators. More than two dozen of his
inventions --- some of which he conceived more than 20 years ago ---
continue to be mass produced. Mr. Widlar also pioneered innovations
such as the bandgap reference and the supergain transistor.
In 1963, Mr. Widlar joined Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View,
where he headed the development of linear intergrated circuits such as
those used to amplify music in stereo systems. In 1966, he moved to
National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara.
Mr. Widlar is survived by two brothers, Jim, of Santa Clara; Tom,
of Cincinnati; and by a sister, Jane West, of Virginia Beach, Va.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Nishioka KC6KHV atn@cory.berkeley.edu ...!ucbvax!cory!atn
974 Tulare Avenue, Albany CA 94707-2540 37'52N/122'15W +1 415 526 1818