But the thin edge of the ax has been driven into the debate, and it has continued to cleave the “electronics” community at large into the Haves and the Have-nots: The Haves are those masters of device physics, circuit analysis and topological innovation, who interpret the modern world as a very exciting place, where more opportunities for their skills are popping up every day, fueled by the expansion of electronics to global proportions. The Have-nots are the regiments of graduates who may never experience the joy of making a circle of transistors dance to some new tune, or the pleasure of crafting exquisite gems of invention, small in scale but magnificent in importance; the Have-nots are the Lego-architects of VLSI, who manage to get by with a paucity of knowledge about semiconductor physics, devices or circuits and often without much idea of the realities of hardware or the rigors of manufacturing.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in
Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, p. 120.

In today’s Information Age, the electronics industry is witnessing the disappearance of passionate and resourceful analog cell inventors. We are already at a time when many constructors of mixed-signal ICs draw their basic cells (pre-cut; some assembly required), from a library of circuits, conceived, one must assume, by the gods. Many of these young people seriously expect that they should be able to always find the precise analog solution to some problem they are facing “out there,” perhaps at a company’s internal website; or from a book, a trade magazine, or a manufacturer’s application note. Students often ask me: “What is the best way to make a [certain analog circuit]?” I am quite baffled by this perspective, and at a loss for the “best” answer.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in
Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, p. 120.

Unfortunately, in the analog world, this increasing dependence on re-utilization is causing many eminently useful, powerful and robust cell concepts to be forgotten, and valuable new ones to be passed by, in the rush to market. Now, it is less important to know how to implement an analog function from scratch than to know the URL where a ready-made solution is to be found. A firm grip on device physics is no longer commonplace. Indeed, it is becoming rare. ...This rather dismal characterization of the contemporary scene is enough to lead an old-timer to declare that we must be in the wrong age—surely not the Age of Information, but the Age of the Ignoramus, at least in analog matters.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in
Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, pp. 120-121.

Similar demands on analog talent will be felt in the endless variety of products having significant analog content, that is, practically every one. ...We might pause and wonder what ever happened to the analog computer so crucial to simulation studies of all kinds during the mid-point of the past century. It did not die and become obsolete.... Quite the opposite is true. In the 21st century we are, and will increasingly be, surrounded by millions of tiny, inexpensive and highly specialized analog computers that just don’t get called that. They are woven so deeply into the tapestry of our world that we don’t even notice them.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in
Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, pp. 123.

There is so much for a talented analog designer to look forward to with keen anticipation. Nevertheless, the rules have been changed forever. Nowadays, it is more important to embrace a much broader view, based not on the arrogant and opposing positions of the [Haves], the analog designers that have physics in their heads, and the [Have-nots], who live only in the black, white and gray world of digital data and algorithms, but on the far greater importance of cooperation between these disciplines, and the realization of an even more powerful union. A few of the rules are:

1) There is no virtue in analog innovation as an abstract pursuit of something called elegance;

2) If a general function can be implemented fully in the digital domain, it should be;

3) In the mastery of modern electronics, never imagine that you can afford to leave it to someone else to understand the analog world, or, conversely the digital world;

4) If you need an unfamiliar analog function in your mixed-signal IC, don’t expect to be able to order it, like pizza;

5) When you locate that precious cell, never dream of incorporating it into your product without first understanding it; be prepared to modify it, for [an analog] circuit is not [like] event-driven state machines, but bidirectional at its boundaries;

6) Be prepared for major organizational changes in our industry and understand why they are inevitable.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Analog Design in the Information Age,” in
Proceedings of BCTM 2001, 2001, pp. 123.

These imperatives are rarely addressed in technical university courses. It is common to pursue only those aspects of design which one most enjoys, such as exploiting an exotic new technology, conceptualizing intriguing and bold new approaches, constructing grand system architectures, devising new circuit functions, discovering novel topologies, laying down a fine theory, acquiring a patent or two, or writing a paper for a major conference or professional journal. At times one may lean toward a highly favorable, idealized viewpoint of the task, deferring criticism and ‘second order effects’ for another time. If not careful, one may completely lose sight of the fact that the variables which are so confidently manipulated in spread-sheets and simulations (gain, noise, intermodulation, power, matching, and stability criteria, bandwidth, phase margin, frequency, and the like) are but a simplification of harsher realities.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Design for Manufacture,” in
Trade-Offs in Analog Circuit Design, 2002, p. 15.

Our technologies have always had their greatest significance and influence when applied within the context of everyday life. Very often, their latent values lie in reserve for years, waiting to be understood and appreciated, and then imaginatively exploited through the inventive efforts of the community of pragmatic and resourceful product designers. We must each be self-challenged to pursue genuine novelty, and seek to transform our personal bag of tricks, assorted and many-modal, into the affordable and reliable products that will rapidly leave our realm of the intriguing and arcane, to take their place with all the other modern indispensable commodities, and become unremarkably commonplace.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Current Mode, Voltage Mode, or Free Mode? A Few Sage Suggestions,”
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 2004, vol. 38, p. 100.

In practicing design with the purpose of solving pressing contemporary problems, and satisfying specific and difficult real-world needs, we must keep in mind that the generic circuit fragments and tricks, that we designers amass in our portfolios over time, are for the most part servants-in-waiting, for future... adaptation and deployment in meeting a variety of practical objectives. Unless and until they are developed to complete, robust products that are able to address increasingly stringent real-world demands, cells remain of little value, except as mental stimulants and didactic tools.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Current Mode, Voltage Mode, or Free Mode? A Few Sage Suggestions,”
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 2004, vol. 38, p. 100.

Novelty has no intrinsic value. There is no merit in presenting an elegant-looking current-mode concept if the completed circuit requires the use of many auxiliary elements to meet practically meaningful objectives. When it is known that a proposed circuit is actually more complex than revealed, or that it under-performs what can be achieved by well-established means, one must doubt the legitimacy of its inclusion in the professional literature, except as a matter of curiosity. Circuits are not products; only the latter have the power to enrich our lives. Cells are merely the fragmentary servants of a more complex set of down-to-earth practical needs, of value within the context of product design.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Current Mode, Voltage Mode, or Free Mode? A Few Sage Suggestions,”
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 2004, vol. 38, pp. 85-86.

But for the designer of products—which must be complete, robust, high-yielding in mass production, inexpensive, benign, free of artifacts, insensitive to supplies and temperature—this [the practical utility] is the only important criterion. A current-mode circuit, just like any other, must earn its reputation through widespread use, or risk being soon forgotten, along with hundreds of other curiosities that fill the pages of our proceedings, transactions, letters, and journals.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Current Mode, Voltage Mode, or Free Mode? A Few Sage Suggestions,”
Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 2004, vol. 38, pp. 92.

I say at short courses that translinearity is so valuable that one can base a career on it—and I did!

— Barrie Gilbert, quoted in EDN On-line, 2003.

I’ve been fortunate in enjoying a modicum of success as a spin-off from the sheer pleasure of tinkering with a few transistors.

— Barrie Gilbert, quoted in EDN On-line, 2003.

But any large organization has its share of doubters and naysayers, who should be politely but firmly ignored. The creation of something truly novel requires swimming against powerful undercurrents of ingrained opinion.

— Barrie Gilbert, quoted in EDN On-line, 2003.

It’s bad enough that hundreds of people are already “designing” CMOS VLSI without any significant knowledge of silicon devices and circuits and sometimes without much idea of the physics of hardware in the broader sense. As electronic systems become increasingly complex, this type of design will inevitably dominate, certainly for large-scale digital systems. But I wonder how many potentially useful ideas in the meadowlands of analog circuits will never be discovered because the world of the twenty-first century was taught that analog is dead?

— Barrie Gilbert, “Where Do Little Circuits Come From?” in
Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science, and Personalities, 1991, p. 186.

I get the feeling that the development of new circuit topologies is viewed by the newcomer to circuit design as something akin to magic. I’m not speaking here of architectures of increasing grandeur—LSI, VLSI, ULSI—those best expressed on flickering VDUs as annotated rectangles linked by one-way causal arrows or described by the liturgy of disciplined algorithms, syllogism upon syllogism. Rather, I’m thinking about those happy little tunes that weave three of four active elements together in some memorable relationship, the themes, rich in harmonic possibilities, from which countless variations unfold. In these deceptively innocent and simple systems, cause and effect are inextricably bound.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Where Do Little Circuits Come From?” in
Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science, and Personalities, 1991, p. 179.

Some twenty years ago, I asserted at a seminar presented at U. C. Berkeley that the art of analog design demanded 30% attention to the signal path and 70% to biasing. The comment was met with tolerant disbelief. However, after having taught this maxim widely and persistently during the intervening decades, I find no reason to change my mind.

— Barrie Gilbert, “Biasing Techniques for RF/IF Signal Processing”

I am not an anti-digital lobbyist. I don’t want to change the world and get rid of digital. It does valuable things. It’s changed the face of society.... I just don’t like doing it.

— Barrie Gilbert, quoted in the San Fransisco Chronicle, 1999