Lighting the Way

In this article we present our view of the impact that Prof. Willy Sansen had during his four-decade-long career of teaching and research. Striving for excellence in both of these areas was key in his work. First we describe the general thread running through Sansen´s research work. In one sentence: he developed a continuum extending from circuit-level models created by means of thorough analysis of elementary circuit elements to the fundamental analog building blocks, like operational amplifiers and transconductance amplifiers, that make up complex analog-to-digital converters, filters, and so on. The impact of his research has been huge because it established a way of doing analog design in a digital world. In the next section, which focuses on the didactic aspects of Sansen´s work that have been so dear to his heart, we will explain how Sansen managed to teach the fundamentals of analog electronic circuits using methods that were extremely innovative. The final section briefly describes what we see as Sansen´s legacy: the MICAS research team he founded, which will maintain the high standards he set for decades to come.