Hans Camenzind

In 1970, Camenzind founded Interdesign Inc., the first company to develop, manufacture, and market semicustom ICs. During the company's startup phase, Camenzind conceived and designed several standard linear ICs, notably the 555 timer for Signetics, which has become the highest-volume IC. He also developed the concept of the phase-locked loop for ICs for Signetics. For Intersil, he conceived and designed the 8038 waveform generator. Camenzind sold Interdesign to Ferranti (GEC Plessey) in 1977. Since 1978, Camenzind has been responsible for the development of linear ICs (bipolar and CMOS) at Array Design Inc. Designer of more than 100 standard, custom, and semicustom linear ICs, and holder of 20 patents on linear ICs, Camenzind has written more than 25 articles and two books on linear circuit and system design.