This is the sixth digest in a series of ongoing updates to keep you informed about progress we’re making as the new ADI and the integration of our two companies. These updates are intended to let you know what’s happening, what we’ve accomplished and what’s next.

Leader Update:

It has been about six months since we began integrating our two companies – a good point in time to reflect on the process thus far and look ahead. From my vantage point, the integration teams are making great progress and the new organization is really taking shape. That’s not to say it’s all been smooth – there were some challenging times at the start largely due to both organizations getting familiar with the process and getting used to each other – but I believe we have now hit our stride.

The Operations teams got off to a flying start, and there are currently integration activities in all of the functional groups within Ops. Some of this work is very structured and some is not, but employees are talking and learning from each other every day. What has pleased me the most – maybe surprised me too – was how quickly employees on both sides of the integration were willing to “jump in” and get involved. Once the leadership team in both organizations initiated the process of engagement, it was great to see how quickly the interactions gained momentum. In one of our early Ops team engagements with the Fab teams, VP/GM of Internal Frontend Operations and Technology, Denis Doyle and I told the teams, “Don’t be waiting for permission to talk to your counterparts in Camas, Limerick, Hillview or Wilmington; look them up and call them!” I think both of us were very surprised at how open and frank the discussions have been and how quickly the team-to-team interactions gained momentum. Quite honestly, we haven’t looked back since.

The same can be said of the Final Test Teams in both Singapore and the Philippines. The teams have had multiple video calls, conference calls and a number of face-to-face visits to each facility. The level of collaboration has been excellent, with good engagement in all functional areas. In fact, we have begun a benchmarking process of business processes of both legacy LTC and legacy ADI. Essentially, we get to benchmark, for free, two very well run organizations and re-assess what gets done and why it gets done that way. In terms of Singapore and the Philippines, it would be natural to think that two world class factories would have little to learn from each other, right? But actually, through this benchmarking process we identified five work streams to focus on, ranging from how to improve operational efficiency to implementing Quality Assurance best practices. We have two very capable teams engaged in this process and we are starting to see the recommendations for improvement filtering through for discussion.

More broadly, with the changes to the organizational structure largely behind us, we are all able to fully engage in our roles. In fact, I see many employees seeking ways to add value to the organization. The legacy LTC employees have had a chance to explore and understand ADI, digest the mission and experience the new culture for themselves. I think we all recognize the benefits of the combined organization, such as the complementary sets of customers and the wide-ranging product and technology portfolios – and we have heard of some of the early success stories around the 1+1>2 theme. As we emerge from the uncertainty of the early days of the post-close period, it’s clear that we have moved into the exploration phase of the change process. This will result in “unleashing the power” of the employees and that is what will fuel the future success of the organization.

Moving forward, our role as leaders is to ensure we continue to communicate, maybe over-communicate, to our employees about what’s happening with the integration. This will help promote transparency and ensure that everyone has the facts. We have many reasons to be optimistic and as we execute to our potential, the company will continue to perform at a high level, we will outpace our competition and everyone will get to be the beneficiary of our combined success.

• Don’t forget to reference the FAQ page for answers to key questions. The FAQ is updated periodically to reflect recent decisions and up-to-date information.
• Updated Policies have been posted to the Policies and Related Documents page.

Together, We Will Create Disruption in the Market

By General Manager, Precision Converters Mark Barry; Design Manager, Precision ADCs Atsushi Kawamoto; and Design Manager Precision ADCs Asif Ahmad

A best-in-class product is the pinnacle of its category. But what if you combine two best-in-class products into one?

You get 1+1>2!

Prior to the integration closing, we knew that Analog Devices’ AD4020 was the best-in-class SAR analog-to-digital converter (ADC) on the market in terms of ease-of-use and low power drive. Likewise, we knew that Linear Technology’s LT2378-20 SAR ADC had best-in-class absolute accuracy and stability. Additionally, both converters were the highest performance 20-bit SAR ADCs on the market.

As soon as the close was official, the legacy LTC and ADI precision converter teams met and began sharing information about our respective portfolios. Very quickly, we established a high level of trust and mutual respect with our new colleagues.

As ADI and LTC had pursued complementary investments in their SAR ADC strategies (ADI had focused on customer ease-of-use and LTC had focused on absolute accuracy), we immediately recognized that we had an unprecedented opportunity to drive even more clear water between ADI and its competitors. Only a few weeks after the official close, we began moving ahead with a bold plan to combine the market-leading functionality of the AD4020 and the LT2378-20 into a new SAR ADC that we believe will be a truly disruptive product when it is released.

How will this 1+1>2 SAR ADC provide application-level impact to customers?

The primary target market for this new SAR converter development is the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) market. In order to effectively test the most advanced electronic devices, our ATE customers demand incredible precision and performance, requiring the most advanced data converter solutions. At the same time, as the increasing sophistication of electronic devices being tested drives ATE costs up, our customers must increase parallelism and improve the solution density of their ATE equipment. This drive to test more devices simultaneously is fundamentally limited by solution size and thermal considerations.

The AD4020 and the LTC 2378-20 each solve complementary aspects of these challenges. By leveraging the unique IP from both best-in-class products to create a new 1+1>2 SAR ADC, we expect to deliver the highest performance solution at the lowest overall system power in the industry. These advances are not incremental – we expect to achieve a 10x improvement over our competitors along multiple vectors in a single product. Further, this revolutionary product is designed to deliver tangible application-level impact to our ATE customers, allowing them to test more devices in a smaller space with less heat dissipation.

Work has already started on this new project, which will combine resources from the Milpitas and Newbury sites. Staff Scientist Rich Reay and Fellow Peter Hurrell will lead the technical aspects of the project and drive new innovations forward by leveraging our newly integrated precision converter portfolio.

The combination of LTC and ADI brought together the two most advanced precision converter teams and portfolios in the industry. Fast decision making and decisive action have made our integrated organization even more powerful, and we are embracing the promise of 1+1>2 by developing a new, disruptive solution that will further extend ADI’s competitive advantage and keep our ATE customers Ahead of What’s Possible.

Neither ADI nor LTC could have developed this new SAR ADC alone. But it is only the beginning of the impact we can make together.