The founder and former CEO of Maxim Integrated Products, John F. Gifford, suffered an apparent heart attack and passed away at January 10th. Gifford founded Maxim in 1983 and served as the company’s CEO until his retirement in 2007. He worked at Fairchild, initially in sales in Los Angeles, and later in marketing in Silicon Valley. Arguably, he was the first real marketing executive of analog ICs anywhere. After Fairchild, Gifford co-founded Advanced Micro Devices. From there he joined Intersil, where he rose to become President. He left Intersil in early 1983. His absence from the industry was short-lived, and he returned after only a few weeks away, founding Maxim on the 14th of April in the same year. Gifford was 66 years old.