What you’ll learn:
- Derek Bowers passed away in his 71st year, leaving behind a legacy of almost a half century of analog design
- Bowers influenced many designers and managers in Silicon Valley with his larger-than-life personality, his innovations, and his design philosophy. He will be missed.
Derek F. Bowers stands out as a highly accomplished semiconductor designer whose career spanned several decades and includes significant contributions to analog and mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC) design. Notably, he held key engineering roles at industry leaders such as Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) and Sound Semiconductor, and is recognized for his technical innovations, particularly in the field of operational amplifiers and audio processing circuits.
Derek doesn’t have an entry in Wikipedia at the time of this writing, but most certainly deserves one. Derek passed away last week, at age 70.
Educational and Early Professional Background
Derek F. Bowers was born in Maesteg, Wales, in 1954 and first started using analog integrated circuits in hobby projects in the early 1970s. Derek earned a B.Sc. in physics and mathematics from the University of Sheffield in 1976 and his career began with the University Space Physics Group and Triad Computing Systems, after which he joined Precision Monolithics Inc. (PMI) in the UK. In 1980, Bowers transferred to Santa Clara, California, as a senior design engineer, marking his entry into the heart of Silicon Valley’s semiconductor industry.
Technical Achievements at Analog Devices
Bowers’ tenure at what in 1990 became Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) is marked by a series of technical breakthroughs and patents that have had a lasting impact on analog circuit design. He rose to the position of Staff Vice President, Design, and was responsible for more than 30 integrated-circuit designs that reached volume production. His portfolio includes:
- Operational amplifiers: Bowers is credited with inventing advanced low-noise operational-amplifier designs. For example, U.S. Patent 7,339,428 describes a multiple op-amp IC that can be configured to achieve superior output drive and noise performance by paralleling amplifier circuits on a single chip.
- Current-mirror architectures: He developed innovative current-mirror circuits, such as those described in U.S. Patent 7,081,797, which introduced multiplying current mirrors with base current compensation, improving accuracy and efficiency in analog signal paths.
- Input bias current cancellation: Bowers filed patents for circuits that minimize input bias current, reducing noise and improving the fidelity of sensitive analog front ends—a critical requirement in high-performance instrumentation and audio applications.
- Surround sound and audio processing: His work also extended to audio signal processing, as evidenced by patents like U.S. Patent 7,035,413, which outlines a dynamically variable spectral matrix surround system for multichannel audio decoding.
Bowers' inventions have been widely adopted in industrial, medical, audio, and consumer electronics, underscoring Bowers’ influence on the analog IC landscape.
Industry Recognition and Publications
Bowers’ reputation is reflected in his service on the program committee for the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) for 10 years, a testament to his standing among peers in the semiconductor community. He has authored 35 technical articles and publications, with 20 cited by IEEE, and wrote a short contributed article for Electronic Design, “Simple Circuit Offers Single-Adjustment Tone Control,” contributing to the broader knowledge base in analog and mixed-signal design.
His expertise is cited in reference works such as Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science, and Personalities by Jim Williams, with his contributed chapter: “Reality Driven Analog-Circuit Design” (starting on p. 233). Here’s one inciteful[sic] excerpt that Derek wrote in Jim’s book:
“Integrated circuit engineering (and most engineering, for that matter) centers around compromise. Infinite time and resources are simply not available for any given design. Many elegant and thoroughly cogitated designs have not worked as expected, or have not been commercially successful; conversely, many designs of a somewhat trivial character, from an engineering standpoint, have made companies (and occasionally the designers) a large sum of money.... I feel that the engineer who feels he, or she, has mastered an understanding of all significant variables in a particular design has, almost certainly, not considered all of the significant variables.”—Derek F. Bowers
Career at Sound Semiconductor
After his impactful period at ADI, Bowers continued to innovate at Sound Semiconductor, a company specializing in high-performance audio ICs. Here, he applied his deep knowledge of analog circuit design to develop products that set new benchmarks for audio quality and performance. While specific details of his projects at Sound Semiconductor are less widely documented, his reputation for technical excellence and creativity in circuit design continued to grow during this period:
“Designer Derek Bowers has been imagining this chip since building his first synth during college! The FatKeys™ SSI2130 provides beautiful triangle, sawtooth, pulse, and square waveforms with unprecedented temperature stability; and adds an on-chip mixer, low distortion sine wave generator, through-zero FM/PM capability and more in an ultra-compact PCB footprint.”—Sound Semiconductor
Patents and Lasting Legacy
Bowers holds at least 10 patents, covering a range of analog circuit innovations from operational amplifiers to audio processing systems. His designs are notable for their elegance, efficiency, and practical impact, with many entering high-volume production and becoming industry standards.
Though Derek has been preceded by greats like Bob Widlar, Jim Williams, Bob Pease, and others, he clearly left his mark on a generation of designers who worked with him, as his legacy:
"A sad loss, Derek Bowers was an Analog Aficionados founder and a great member of the analog electronics community."—Tim McCune, QSPICE Business Dev. Mgr.
“I got to know Derek at the early Analog Aficionados parties. Then I had the pleasure of working with him when I was at ADI in San Jose. It was humbling having an analog great just a few feet away. He never minded when I tramped into his office and asked about op-amp noise and modeling. He was a giant and will be missed.”—Paul Rako, Rako Studios
“Derek’s work is impressive not only for the areas he addressed but its significance in the electronics space as well. He was a giant in the analog space along with the likes of Bob Pease and Jim Williams.”—Bill Wong, Editor, Electronic Design
“I was the newly promoted Director of R&D for Teledyne Semiconductor, then a division of Teledyne Corporation in Mountain View. Because of my promotion, I had an open position for my old job as Manager of R&D, and I wanted to staff it with the very best technical talent. I recall interviewing Derek Bowers, then at PMI (now ADI), and Bob Pease, then still at NSC (now a division of TI), for the position.”—Sam Seiiero Oichi, founder of Maxim (now ADI)
"I have many fond memories of Derek both as a boss and a friend, but one of my favorites was when I complained to him about one of my op amp’s specs not matching the models. His response: “Welp, I guess the silicon is wrong then!” Thanks for all the great advice over the years my friend, and please rest in peace knowing that you helped a great number of us in this wiley business of analog design." - Eric M., Design Mgr. at ADI
Analog design legend and author Walt Jung said, "I am very sorry to hear of Derek’s passing. He was one of ADI’s most prolific designers, responsible for numerous OP series of op amps, and SSM series of audio parts."
Summary
Derek F. Bowers’ career exemplifies the spirit of Silicon Valley innovation. With a foundation in rigorous academic training and a passion for analog circuit design, he has delivered solutions that address real-world engineering challenges in signal processing, instrumentation, and audio. His technical accomplishments, spanning patents, publications, and successful product launches, have left a lasting mark on the semiconductor industry, making him a respected figure among engineers and designers worldwide.
Derek was one of the founders of the Duke of Edinburgh pub in Cupertino, bringing his love of British beer to an unsuspecting American crowd and much joy to the local British expats. He was also a founder of the (Intersil) Analog Aficionados gathering, which often held their annual event at "The Duke.”
Derek leaves behind his wife Noni, son and daughter, and a lasting legacy of analog ICs and circuit design philosophy and innovation. Another of the greats of a generation of analog designers has left us – R.I.P.
We could not get quotes from everyone before publishing this sad news. Please leave a tribute to Derek, or a memory of your interactions with him, in the comments section below.
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