Carl Battjes

Carl Battjes

Carl Robert Battjes (b. 30 December 1929 in Grand Rapids, MI – d. 28 April 2007 in Portland, OR) was a Tektronix engineer. In 1950 he joined the U.S. Air Force and trained as a fighter pilot flying F-84s.

In 1958 he graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, then moved to Silicon Valley where he worked at Sylvania while completing his master's in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1960.

Battjes had designed a 300 MHz transistor amplifier at Sylvania before he joined Tektronix in 1961 to work on high-speed amplifiers.

He invented the "f_t doubler" amplifier topology that has a current gain of 2 even at the transition frequency of the transistors that are used in the circuit.

In 1971, Battjes left the portable oscilloscope group and joined the IC design group within Tektronix.

He founded and taught the Tek Amplifier Frequency and Transient Response (AFTR) course.

He took early retirement in 1983, then did consulting for the next 10 years as a registered professional engineer.

From Who Wakes the Bugler? (s.b.):

While on a camping trip in Oregon in 1961, I stopped at Tektronix and received an interview and a job offer the same day. Tektronix wanted me. They were at a stage where they needed to exploit transistors to build fast, high-performance 'scopes.

I had designed a 300 MHz transistor amplifier while working at Sylvania. In 1961, that type of experience was a rare commodity. Actually, I had designed a wideband 300 MHz IF amplifier that only achieved 200 MHz. What we (Sylvania) used was a design that my technician came up with that made 300 MHz.

So I arrived at this premier oscilloscope company feeling somewhat of a fraud. I was more than just a bit intimidated by the Tektronix reputation and the distributed amplifiers and artificial delay lines and all that stuff that really worked. The voltage dynamic range, the transient response cleanliness, and DC response requirements for a vertical output amplifier made my low-power, 50 Ohm, 300 MHz IF amplifier seem like child's play.

Naturally, I was thrown immediately into the job of designing high-bandwidth oscilloscope transistor vertical-output amplifiers. I felt like a private, fresh out of basic training, on the front lines in a war.

According to Bruce Hofer,

It was also around this time that I was asked to take over the instructor responsibilities of “AFTR”, Amplifier Frequency and Transient Response, an in-house course developed by Carl Battjes. I wasn’t sure I was up to the challenge, but soon became comfortable in this new role. AFTR was a virtual pre-requisite among analog designers. Carl’s focus had been solely on vertical amplifiers, so I added a lot of new material related to the design of other types of amplifiers. I ended up teaching the course for 7 years. Some years later when Carl became terminally ill, he begged me to “write the book” for him. Alas, I did not have the time, having moved on into a very different design realm.

Tek Products

• Amplifier hybrid for 11A72
• 155-0207-00 (M156)
• M116
• ...

Components by Carl Battjes

Model	Class	Description	Designers	Used in
155-0175-00	Monolithic integrated circuit	broadband amplifier	John Addis • Wink Gross • Carl Battjes	7904A • 7912HB • 7934 • 7104 • R7103 • 7A29 • 7A29P • 7F10 • 067-0587-02 • 067-0587-10 • 11A71 • SCD1000 • EG&G N-AM-173A
155-0207-00	Monolithic integrated circuit	low-power 50 MHz vertical output amplifier	Carl Battjes	5223
M116	Monolithic integrated circuit	vertical and horizontal output amplifier	Carl Battjes

Patents by Carl Battjes

Page	Office	Number	Title	Inventors	Company	Filing date	Grant date
Patent US 3258765A	US	3258765A	Digital to analog converter	Carl Battjes	Sylvania	1963-01-23	1966-06-28
Patent US 3633120A	US	3633120A	Amplifier circuit	Carl Battjes	Tektronix Inc	1970-09-16	1972-01-04
Patent US 3868580A	US	3868580A	Bootstrapped amplifier	Carl Battjes	Tektronix Inc	1973-02-12	1975-02-25
Patent US 4039899A	US	4039899A	Geometry and focus correction circuit	Carl Battjes • Harvey Leon Golladay • Michael Rieger • Binoy Rosario • Ken Schlotzhauer	Tektronix Inc	1976-05-03	1977-08-02
Patent US 4236119A	US	4236119A	Monolithic wideband amplifier	Carl Battjes	Tektronix Inc	1978-09-11	1980-11-25
Patent US 5140198A	US	5140198A	Image canceling mixer circuit on an integrated circuit chip	Don H. Atherly • Carl Battjes	Seiko Epson	1989-08-30	1992-08-18

Publications

• "Who Wakes the Bugler?", in The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design, Jim Williams (Ed.), July 1998. ISBN 978-0-7506-7062-3. → Google Books
• "Short Pulse Technique of Adjusting Wideband Amplifiers", in Tekscope Vol. 3 No. 1 January 1971

Documents Authored by Carl Battjes

Document	Page	Class	Title	Author(s)	Year	Refers to
Tekscope 1971 V3 N1 Jan 1971.pdf	10	Article	Short Pulse Technique of Adjusting Wideband Amplifiers	Carl Battjes	1971	7A16 • 109 • 568 • 230

Pictures

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