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NEWS BRIEFS
NEWS BRIEFS
Maxim Reports Record Revenues and Earnings and Continued strong demand for its
products
2
IN-DEPTH ARTICLE
New IC caps two decades of UART development
3
DESIGN SHOWCASE
Tiny analog switch alleviates I
2
C address conflicts
11
Transformer-driver IC controls bidirectional switch
12
IR sensor/monitor wakes host system
13
Small photodiode receiver handles fiber optic data rates to 800kbps
15
NEW PRODUCTS
Data Converters First 2x4-channel, 14-bit ADCs to sample four channels simultaneously
(MAX125/126)
17 13-/12-/10-bit, low-power dual DACs fit QSOP-16
(MAX51525159)
17
Amplifiers/Buffers/Comparators High-speed, low-power comparators are optimized for 3V/5V applications
(MAX976/978/998)
17 Fast differential line receivers deliver 90dB CMR at 10MHz
(MAX4144/4145/4146)
18 Single-supply, gain of +2/-1V/V closed-loop buffers deliver rail-to-
rail outputs
(MAX4214/15/17/19/22)
18 Low-noise, low-distortion amps ideal for portable/battery-powered
applications
(MAX42494257)
18
Power Management ICs DAC-controlled boost/inverter LCD-bias supply has internal switch
(MAX686)
19 Micropower linear regulators for notebook computers accept inputs to 28V
(MAX1615/1616)
19 Precision PWM buck controller is optimized for next-generation
notebook CPUs
(MAX1637)
19 High-accuracy step-down controller powers high-end CPUs
(MAX1638)
20 Digitally controlled fuel-gauge interface has ±1% absolute accuracy
(MAX1660)
21 Step-up/step-down DC-DC converter fits in tiny QSOP
(MAX1672)
20 Switched-capacitor voltage doublers offer 98% efficiency and low power
in SOT23
(MAX1682/1683)
20 Low-dropout linear regulators feature low 30µV
RMS
noise
(MAX8867/8868)
21
µP Supervisors SOT reset ICs draw only 500nA
(MAX6326/6327/6328)
21
Wireless ICs Low-cost, 1.7GHz to 2.05GHz downconverter includes low-noise
amplifier
(MAX2406)
22 Low-noise, 2.5GHz downconverter mixer occupies 10-pin µMAX
(MAX2690)
22
Interface ICs RS-485/RS-422 transceivers offer software-selectable,
(MAX1481/84/85/86)
half- or full-duplex operation
22
Fiber Optic ICs 3.3V, 622Mbps laser driver has automatic power control
(MAX3667)
23 622Mbps LAN/ATM laser driver has programmable modulation current
(MAX3766)
23
Delay Lines 5-tap silicon delay lines cover the 4ns to 500ns range
(MXD1000/1005)
23
Volume Thirty MAXIM REPORTS RECORD REVENUES AND EARNINGS AND CONTINUED
STRONG DEMAND FOR ITS PRODUCTS
Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., (MXIM) reported record net revenues of $135 million for the second
quarter of fiscal 1998 ending December 27, 1997, compared to $104.7 million for the same quarter in fiscal 1997.
Net income increased to $42.8 million in Q298 compared to $33.3 million for the second quarter of fiscal 1997.
Diluted income per share was $0.29 per share for Q298 compared to $0.23 per share for the same period a year ago.
During the quarter, Maxim invested a total of $59.7 million in capital equipment, including the acquisition
for $42 million of a sub-micron wafer fabrication facility in November 1997. The Company also purchased
$55.1 million of its common stock during the quarter. Annualized return on average stockholders equity for the
quarter was 32%, one of the highest in the industry today.
During Q298, backlog shippable within the next 12 months increased to $208 million from the $182 million
reported at the end of Q198. Eighty percent of the ending Q298 backlog consists of orders that were requested for
shipment in Q398 or earlier. Customer inventories of Maxim products remained at low levels worldwide.
Net bookings in Q298 exceeded the record booking levels set in Q198. Although net bookings in the
Pacific Rim were down slightly from Q198, they remained up from the levels recorded in Q3 and Q4 of fiscal
1997. Net bookings in Japan were lower in Q298 than in the previous four quarters. Net bookings in Europe and
the United States were strong and exceeded Q198 levels.
Net bookings across the majority of the Companys product areas continued to be strong; however, the
Company has seen significant weakness in orders from automatic test equipment customers, including several
who primarily serve the Pacific Rim markets.
Gross margins for the second quarter increased slightly to 67% compared to 66.8% in Q198. Research
and development expense increased by $1.5 million, to 12.6 % of net revenues. During the quarter, the Company
also recorded a charge of $4.8 million to reduce the carrying value of certain pieces of capital equipment related
to production, research and development, and administration.
Jack Gifford, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented on the quarter: We believe that
the combination of record order rates and relatively low customer inventory levels suggests that end market consump-
tion (demand) for the Companys products continues to be strong. Our broad product line, our new products targeted
on emerging markets, and our geographically diverse business continue to serve Maxim well. Three-fourths of our net
bookings during the quarter were derived from customers located in the United States and Europe.
Gifford continued: Despite the economic issues affecting Pacific Rim companies, overall demand for our
products is strong, reinforcing our belief that Maxims ICs, and the value they offer, are critical to exports of elec-
tronic equipment by manufacturers worldwide.
MAXIM IS A FINALIST FOR 1997 INNOVATION OF THE YEAR AWARD
Maxims MAX2102 has been named a finalist in EDN Magazines 1997 Innovation
of the Year competition. The MAX2102 is a direct-conversion tuner IC designed for
digital direct-broadcast satellite applications. It directly tunes L-band signals to baseband
using a broadband I/Q downconverter, thus eliminating expensive dual downconverter
tuners in broadband systems.
EDN Magazines Innovator and Innovation Awards are elected by EDN readers,
who constitute an elite audience of design engineers.
Maxim also was honored by Microwaves & RF Magazine, which selected the MAX2102 as one of its
Top Products of 1997. Maxim received top billing in that competition.
News Briefs
FINALIST New IC caps two
decades of UART
development
Maxim has introduced a tiny universal asynchronous
receiver/transmitter (UART) that is compatible with the
miniature electronic components in todays portable
products. Compared with well-established UARTs
already on the market, the new MAX3100 offers
numerous advantages: lower cost, higher speed (to
230kbaud), lower power and lower voltage operation
(<3V), and special features that include IrDA timing for
IR communications and a FIFO buffer to relieve the
processing burden in small systems.
Although more than 40 UART devices are available
today, they either fail to satisfy some requirements of
todays applications, or they satisfy requirements only
through unwelcome trade-offs in size, power, or speed.
Maxim has identified a needand a market opportu-
nityfor a newly designed UART that directly meets
todays speed and power requirements and offers the
latest special features, without unwieldy workarounds.
Our efforts have resulted in a new UART, the MAX3100.
The reason that such an extensive inventory of UARTs
still fails to meet every modern requirement lies in the
incremental nature of UART development. In this article,
we review the UART in terms of its major technical
developments, market evolution, and current trends.
UARTs in PC applications systems
One of the first large-scale-integration (LSI) chips ever
developed (predating the single-chip microprocessor by
several years), the UART has been available since the
early 1970s. Constantly refined rather than reinvented, it
has shown little change over the years in its pin names,
function names, or general mode of operation. Modern
CMOS UARTs like the National Semiconductor 16550
and the Zilog 8630 are traceable to early classics like the
Intel 8250 and Intersil 6402.
In 1981, an 8250 UART was included on the original
IBM PC motherboard to provide communications with
modems and serial printers. Along with BIOS support in
the PC, this early usage established the 8250 architecture
and feature set as a de facto standard for UARTs. The
basic architecture was extended over the years. As faster
modems and application software such as Laplink
drove the need for higher data rates, the 8250 responded
with improved bus timing and higher speedfirst to
115kbaud, then to 230kbaud. The result was a direct,
high-speed extension of the 8250: the 16450 UART.
Higher speeds, however, revealed weaknesses in the
interrupt latency and the response time of software
buffering within the PC. At 115kbaud, for instance, a
byte is available every 100µs. With 20µs of interrupt
latency and a 30µs buffering time, this baud rate usurps
50% of a PCs CPU bandwidth. Such performance was
clearly unacceptable for large applications running under
a sluggish, non-real-time, windowed operating system.
The next extension in UART capability was to alleviate
this overhead by including hardware buffer