Interview: Maxim at S.E.E

In a busy corner of the S.E.E showroom, Anders Reisch, Executive Director Marketing, Europe, begins to talk about why the Nordic market is important to Maxim's business. Home to important customers like Ericsson, the Nordic market is advanced, says Reisch, and acts as a valuable testing ground for the company. Customers are willing to adopt new technologies in a variety of applications and this allows Maxim to predict the future needs of the wider market. Reisch is here with Jim Templeton, Executive Director Computing, Communication, and Industrial Power, to display the company's latest InTune Digital technology. Its something they've been working on for years, and was released last year as an Alpha model. It's now getting a wide release. They say it's a big step forward. “These products are rarely talked about but they do an important job,” says Templeton. “They provide the power for other chips. That's become incredibly complex in the last few years. Our customers used to only require three power supplys in their whole design and now we have communication customers with sixty different power supply rails on a single PC board. It's like conducting an orchestra to manage and coordinate all those sixty power supplys so they are well behaved”. “This product makes it simple again like the good old days,” he explains. “This chip essentially self designs the power supply”. This enables the customer to save weeks in complex engineering time according to Templeton, something that usually requires a “guru” in analog design. Tempteton says that while being automated, the technology actually improves performance. “It's not that this has come out of nothing,” says Reisch. “We've been trying to do this for years. Acquiring technology, acquiring companies, hiring very senior staff. Now finally we've got it right”. Part of this effort included acquiring a small company in New Hampshire who was developing similar technology as well as IP from a professor in a Canada researching self designing and self configuring technology. While targeted at communication customers, Reisch says Maxim is receiving interest from automotive players as well – somewhat of a pleasant surprise to him. The company plans to expand its product range using the core technology over the course of this year.