Robert John Widlar (pronounced wide-lar;[1] November 30, 1937 – February 27, 1991) was an American electronics engineer and a designer of linear integrated circuits (ICs).

[3] His father, Walter J. Widlar, came from prominent German and Irish American families whose ancestors settled in Cleveland in the middle of the 19th century.

"[15] Four years later he returned to National Semiconductor as a contractor[16] and produced a series of advanced linear ICs, including the first ultra-low-voltage operational amplifier with precision 200mV voltage reference (LM10).

"[5] Work at Bell Research brought Widlar in contact with Jean Hoerni and Sheldon Roberts, the creators of radiation hardened transistors and co-founders of Fairchild Semiconductor.

[20] According to Thomas Lee, Fairchild also wanted to have Widlar on board, and breached professional ethics by recruiting a key employee of their customer.

[note 1] Before Widlar, Fairchild's engineers had designed analog ICs in a style not unlike conventional circuits built with discrete devices.

[23] In response, Fairchild's R&D chief Gordon Moore directed the company to favor digital integrated circuits, which were simpler and also promised high production volumes.

[28] Widlar was a hard person to work with, but the few men and women who could, like Talbert and Jack Gifford,[30][note 3] joined his inner circle for life.

[36] Armed with this strategy and Hung-Chang Lin's theory of compensated devices, he designed the industry's first true linear integrated circuit,[36] and the first monolithic operational amplifier,[37] the μA702.

[38] Each of the nine NPN transistors was sized and shaped according to its function, contrary to an earlier, arbitrary practice of employing standard minimal-area patterns.

[39] Widlar introduced three innovations: Interfacing a long-tail with a single-ended stage without losing half of the gain, shifting the DC level using only NPN transistors, and providing optional frequency compensation with an external capacitor.

[30] The device set the direction for the industry for decades, despite limited common-mode range, weak output drive capabilities, and a price of $300 (equivalent to $2,947 in 2023).

[41][42] According to Jack Gifford, the top management of Fairchild noticed the novelty and learned of Widlar's existence only after receiving enthusiastic feedback from the market.

[note 5] Widlar locked himself up for 170 hours of continuous experimental work and came out with a robust design that blended two resistive diffusion areas into a usable lateral PNP device.

[45][note 6] Gifford, one of the few men who fully understood Widlar and his work, contributed to the market boom by introducing a dual in-line package.

In addition to the groundbreaking designs discussed above, Widlar also put into production the μA710 and μA711 comparators, each exhibiting then-record 40 ns response time.

An additional device, the μA726 differential pair, used an on-chip heater with embedded thermostatic control to suppress the effect of ambient temperature on electrical performance.

In November 1965 the two engineers accepted Peter Sprague's offer to join National Semiconductor's Molectro facility in Santa Clara.

[54] In 1967 Widlar designed the LM101, an operational amplifier with improved gain, decreased input current, and protection against short circuit.

[56] Widlar's solution minimized die area and current drain, and enabled operation over a wide range of power supply voltages.

[34] In the late 1960s Widlar experimented with the band gap phenomenon and converted his basic current source block into a bandgap voltage reference.

[63][note 10] Widlar's popularity in the industry soared: advertised as "the man who designed more than half of the world's linear circuits",[65] he frequently gave lectures to fellow engineers, and on May 23, 1970, spoke to an audience at Madison Square Garden.

[66][note 11] Regis McKenna, former National Semiconductor executive, said in 1995 that "most of the linear devices that were probably built and marketed for the period of the sixties and seventies were based on Widlar and Talbert's technology.

I mean they created, in many ways, this industry... they were the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates, and whatever fame you want to give to anybody, they were famous people of those days.

[72] His proud statement: "I don't work" caused him frequent troubles when crossing the Mexican border and eventually, Widlar created a set of fake business cards presenting him as a "road agent" for "Morgan Associates".

[72] Richard Hodgson said in 1995: [Widlar] lived up in the hills behind the campus I think someplace for a while when he was working for National and did the outback designs for them and he'd come back out of his cabin and whatever and go to work for Charlie Sporck for a while and then disappear back again either there or down in Mexico as far I knew...Some of Widlar's designs like the LM12 power amplifier and the LM10 ultra-low-voltage amplifier introduced in 1978, remain in production in the 21st century.

On one occasion he was "absolutely clocked" by the offended Mike Scott, a future CEO of Apple Inc.[26] Charles Sporck retold another incident: during a European roadshow Widlar got drunk and publicly refused to speak to the audience unless he got more gin.

He installed "hassler" devices that emitted high-pitched sounds whenever someone talked too loud, and even blew up an annoying public address speaker with firecrackers.

[80] However, the story about Widlar bringing a goat to trim the lawn in front of his office, retold by The New York Times after his death,[14] was incorrect.

[19] It was a sheep, not a goat;[69] Widlar brought her in his Mercedes-Benz convertible for just one day, which included a photo op for the local journalists.