Bob Widlar - The Last Decade

The Last Decade

In 1981 Swanson, Dobkin and Widlar co-founded Linear Technology. Swanson steered the company into producing second-source parts for other companies. Three years later the relationships fell apart in a patent right dispute. Widlar claimed rights over Linear's LT1 to LT20 chips, and in May 1984 walked away, leaving the case to his lawyers. In October 1984 Swanson fired Widlar and invoked the mandatory share repurchase provision that was in Widlar's contract. According to Bo Lojek, Widlar's notebooks contain sufficient evidence to prove that many of the disputed patents were created by Widlar before Linear was formed. Widlar returned to National Semiconductor for the remainder of his life. He and Dobkin never talked to each other after the breakup. Dobkin said in 2006 that "Bob was one of the few people I considered to be a genius. He was also paranoid, very hard to get along with and drank incessantly."

On February 27, 1991, Widlar suddenly died of a heart attack in Puerto Vallarta. David Liddle said in 2009 that "the untimely early death of ... Robert Widlar is a whole story in itself." Early reports incorrectly said that Widlar died while jogging on a beach. Later sources corrected the mistake: he was running up a hill. Bob Pease wrote slightly differently: "Apparently he had been jogging on a sidewalk, in a steep hilly section of Puerta Vallarta. Bob was, in recent years, pretty much into fitness, and he worked hard at his running ... I'm no doctor. But he did not die drunk, which may have amazed a number of his colleagues." Jack Gifford concurred: "He didn't die as a derelict. He wasn't, I mean he was fine. He was coherent. Probably leading the most, he was down in Mexico, living in Mexico, but he was sober and leading a reasonable life for him at that point when he died."

In 2002 Electronic Design inducted Widlar in its Hall of Fame along with Alan Turing and Nikola Tesla. In 2009 Widlar was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame A sculpture dedicated to Widlar and Jean Hoerni stands in front of the Maxim Integrated Products building in Sunnyvale, California.