It's not easy being Analog. Analog vendors are dismissed as dinosaurs by analysts who don't really understand analog's inherent roles, and analog circuit designers are threatened with "digital displacement" by engineers who should know better. But in fact the analog space offers an amazing diversity of functions, applications, vendors and users.

This is clear from the just-released "AAA [Awareness, Attitude, Association] Analog Study." The survey, conducted by EE Times in conjunction with Beacon Technology Partners LLC, polled respondents on 13 analog vendors: Analog Devices, Avago Technologies, Fairchild Semiconductor, Freescale Semiconductor, Intersil, Linear Technology, Maxim Integrated Products, Microchip Technology, National Semiconductor, NXP, ON Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

Analog doesn't fit into any neat, easily characterized template in terms of vendors, users and priorities. It's a fragmented market at both the vendor level and the application cut. Analog players thus score few home runs but many singles and doubles, as well as the occasional triple (and, of course, some outs as well).

Click here to read the entire article.