Media Focus | Maxim has taken several measures to enhance its online services

Anders Reisch, Managing Director of Maxim TTS (Training and Technical Services)

Service and training are often considered as the company's logistics department or behind-the-scenes heroes. In fact, online training services are now the real front-line support and Internet celebrity. Because FAE (field application engineers) can only focus on a few large customers, but the vast majority of small and medium-sized customers and even some large customers will first look for a department that can provide 7 days/24 hours online service.

Nowadays, the integration of analog ICs (integrated circuits) is getting higher and higher. Is it easier to provide services? In fact, as the chip system is more complex, it needs more support from manufacturers. For example, as the density of power management chips increases, circuit heat dissipation becomes the key, and the PCB layout in the design becomes complicated. The chip manufacturer needs to provide customers with certain design guidance, or even ready-made layout files for customers to use directly.

Many digital chip suppliers like to build online communities for everyone to exchange ideas. But analog companies may not do this. Because digital chips are standardized and have short product lines, it is easy for engineers to help each other. But analog chips often have a wide product line and their applications are also rich and diverse. Directly seeking help from the application engineers of the analog original manufacturer can get a faster solution, so the original manufacturer's targeted personalized service is more effective.

Many analog IC companies are experiencing such changes: in the past, customers were concentrated in the industrial, automotive, PC, well-known brand mobile phone manufacturers, etc., these fields have high design barriers and are mostly large customers. Now, with the development of application fields such as consumer electronics/IoT, wearables, and automotive aftermarket, more and more small and medium-sized customers are emerging rapidly. These markets are characterized by a large user base and small and scattered customer scale. How to provide convenient technical support channels for small and medium-sized customers is more important than in the past.

So the website is one of the most important support resources. More and more engineers may not want to contact the manufacturer's sales directly when starting a new design, but search online.

At this time, the timeliness of customer feedback is very important. In addition, Chinese engineers hope to get support in Chinese. In addition, several years ago, it was enough for manufacturers to provide samples and data sheets, but now the needs are more detailed, and some customers care about whether they can get a complete reference design. There are two main reasons for this. First, the integration of analog chips is getting higher and higher, the functions are getting more and more complex, and the design of the application circuit of the IC itself is getting more and more complex; in addition, users have more urgent requirements for product launch time, and may not have the patience to carefully read dozens or even hundreds of pages of data sheets and pay attention to many details to complete the design. Especially in China, the pressure from superiors will be greater, so the time requirement will be more urgent.

From the perspective of time-to-market and cost control, many engineers want to make sure that the circuit can work on the system before doing prototype development before they are willing to build the actual circuit, because they do not want to waste time and cost.

When there are many customers, website services become important

This poses a challenge to chip suppliers: online training and service departments need to have more efficient solutions and tools to support more engineers in a shorter period of time.

1. Users can contact manufacturers at any time and in any form, that is, 24/7 uninterrupted service, including online chat tools or telephone.

The Chinese market also needs to provide some targeted services. For example, Maxim has built a battery fuel gauge modeling system in China to serve Chinese users. Anders introduced that Maxim's ModelGauge m3/m5 algorithm integrates coulomb counter and open circuit voltage detection (OCV) to provide high-precision battery fuel gauge, helping users to make full use of the effective energy of the battery and extend the battery power supply time. Due to the large number of domestic battery manufacturers and the large differences in battery characteristics, modeling the batteries used by users can further improve the accuracy of battery measurement. However, the battery mailing procedures are very cumbersome and it is difficult to send from China to abroad. The battery modeling platform built by Maxim in the Beijing laboratory can effectively help local Chinese customers obtain low-cost, high-performance fuel gauge solutions.

At the same time, the diversified and fast-response service mechanism also poses a challenge to the quality of the chip manufacturer's customer service personnel. In building the entire service architecture, the chip manufacturer must have engineers who are good at different production lines, and provide a good internal learning environment while serving different users.

2. Engineers are eager to get more in-depth support such as reference design and reference circuit. Maxim's characteristic is that the reference design tends to choose the solutions of local Chinese suppliers in the selection of circuit peripheral components. In addition, because the processors selected by Maxim are popular processors on the market, and chip manufacturers are very familiar with the characteristics of their own chips and can realize special functions for customers based on their own products, many customers will directly use the demonstration samples of the chips.

So, why do customers choose reference circuits that are publicly available online? First, because customers are racing against time and want a fast time-to-market. In addition, these designs are often part of the customer's entire system framework and will not affect core competitiveness.

Of course, some customers in the medical and industrial industries will further optimize the circuits, for example, adding some protection functions to withstand high voltage, adapt to specific high and low temperature reliability, and some applications need to meet demanding EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) tests, etc. If customers have special requirements in the above aspects, Maxim can also provide customers with corresponding solutions, and even assist users in on-site testing when necessary.

So, will semiconductor manufacturers overuse their devices in order to promote chips? "Definitely not. Because after overuse, the cost of the solution will increase, and customers will not agree." Anders explained that integrity between the company and its customers is the most important thing. Only by establishing a win-win relationship and thinking for the users can we maintain good customer relationships.

3. Design and simulation tools. Before developing a prototype, customers want to simulate and verify it on a computer. For this reason, many simulation manufacturers have launched relevant simulation design tools.

4. Build a knowledge base. This will help customers find the answers they need from the chip manufacturer's website.

5. Training: Provide targeted localized training courses.

(The above content is excerpted from the August 2017 issue of Electronic Products World)

Unlike the offline design method that requires software installation in the past, Maxim's EE-Sim online design tool allows engineers to perform designs through a browser, which allows engineers to complete designs on any terminal at any time and anywhere. According to Anders, this design tool can also authorize other engineers to access the same design through "sharing designs". Shared designs can be set to "read-only" or "read-write" access, allowing multiple people to participate in the same design. Anders emphasized.

As a design tool developed by Maxim itself, the support for Maxim's own IC design is definitely a highlight of this tool. Anders said that the EE-Sim tool can help engineers easily complete the application circuit design of Maxim IC. Among them, the DC-DC converter design simulation tool builds a complete customized circuit based on the engineer's requirements for power supply specifications, provides schematics, BOM and simulation waveforms, and can intuitively understand the conversion efficiency, load transient response, loop stability and other working characteristics of the design circuit.

For beginners, EE-Sim provides a very convenient approach, and the friendly user interface makes it easy for engineers to obtain a complete design solution; for experienced engineers, the EE-Sim tool provides the flexibility of circuit adjustment to facilitate system optimization.

This tool is not a new product from Maxim. However, it has been upgraded to a better level. The new generation of DC-DC design tools provides many advantages as follows:

• Compare the BOM and simulation waveforms of two different versions of the design.

• Automatically tracks design changes, allowing return to earlier design versions.

• Capacitor derating function: The simulation is based on the actual capacitance value under the corresponding bias voltage, rather than the nominal capacitance value, making the simulation result closer to the measured result. Users can select a new model in the capacitor selection table to replace the capacitor.

• Define the power supply input voltage range, load variation range and other parameters through an intuitive user interface, as well as the focus of the target design (performance, cost, size). Perform calculations and simulations on AC characteristics and static parameters.

• After the design is completed, the loop compensation calculation can be triggered with one button, and corresponding adjustments can be made as needed to ensure the stability of the design.

• Users can customize simulated Bode plots: zoom, overlay, change waveforms, add markers, adjust axis ranges, etc.

It is worth mentioning that this tool not only supports Maxim component design, but also supports the import of third-party components. Anders told reporters that the online version of EE-Sim provides a third-party component library, from which users can select inductors, capacitors, MOSFETs, diodes and other components from different manufacturers; the offline version allows users to import third-party power device models and build a complete system power solution with Maxim products.

Online design tools can bring such great convenience to users that more manufacturers will inevitably enter this field. Anders also agrees with this view. He also pointed out that many competitors' online design tools on the market are based on SPICE simulation engines with differential operations. Maxim's EE-Sim uses the SIMPLIS simulation engine based on the state space algorithm. Since the device modeling uses piecewise linear fitting, it does not require a large number of nonlinear operations. The engine can increase the simulation speed by 10-50 times. In particular, when analyzing the characteristics of the AC loop, the Bode diagram can be quickly obtained. Design tools based on EE-Sim can also provide more accurate simulation results.

The figure below shows a 24V input, 5V@2A output power supply designed with the MAX17244 synchronous rectifier buck converter. In Figure 1, the load step response and Figure 2, the AC loop characteristics, the black curve is the measured result on the MAX17244 evaluation board. From the figure, we can see that the simulation results are very close to the measured results.

Figure 1. MAX17244 load-step response.

Figure 2. MAX17244 loop response.

In addition to providing good design tools, Maxim's leading position in the industry for power products cannot be ignored. Whether it is high-voltage buck for the industrial field, nano-power technology for wearable products, or power management solutions launched to meet the high reliability and severe EMI challenges of automobiles, they all provide great help in reducing the design pressure of engineers. The wide selection of power components lays a solid foundation for users to run the EE-Sim tool on the Maxim website and ultimately obtain excellent power solutions.

With the help of EE-Sim tools, engineers can select reasonable solutions from a variety of power management ICs, quickly obtain preliminary design solutions, and simulate and compare different design results, eliminating the previous tedious prototype development process.

In addition to iterating components and tools, Maxim has also invested more resources and manpower to simplify the development process for engineers. The Training and Technical Services (TTS) department has played an active role in promoting all of this.

Anders pointed out that their goal is to build a "low-resistance" channel between users and Maxim, to help them successfully complete the design of Maxim products in terminal applications, and to allow Maxim's innovative technology to add color to user designs.

Perhaps it is this kind of support that has allowed Maxim to remain a standout in the "chaotic" semiconductor market in recent years. It is also because of this that they have become the first choice for developers and students.

(The above content is excerpted from the WeChat public account of "Semiconductor Industry Observation")

Maxim Blog | Conversation with nanoMan: The story behind the EE-Sim revision

Maxim Engineer Zone | Video Series - The most comprehensive guide to power supply design and simulation

Maxim Engineers' Forum | Teach you EE-Sim system power design step by step

Maxim Engineer's Forum | EE-Sim DC-DC Design and Simulation Examples

Maxim Press Release | New version of EE-Sim® DC-DC design tool helps users quickly develop high-quality power supplies (with video demonstration)