
The first bandgaps
A Short History of References
5
1.3 The first bandgaps
Another milestone was reached in 1969 when Bob Widlar, then at National Semicon-
ductor, became the first analog IC designer to create an integrated voltage reference
(based on the bandgap principle he had conceived), as part of a regulator IC design,
the LM109, shown in Figure 1.4. This was the first high-power monolithic linear regula-
tor. It proved that it was possible to build such a device, which was temperature-com-
pensated by a precision reference, on
one
monolithic chip, despite significant changes
in chip temperature. Like all of Widlar’s (bipolar) designs, it included ...