Thomas Marinus Frederiksen

1933 - 2015

Thomas Marinus Frederiksen
Resident of Sunnyvale
Thomas Frederiksen died peacefully in his home on August 24th, 2015. He was 83 years of age.
Thomas was born on April 29, 1933 in Los Angeles, CA to his parents, Frederic Christian Frederiken and Mary Riddle MeKeown. After receiving an AA degree at El Camino Jr College, Thomas served his country in the US Armed Forces in Okinawa as an Instructor of Mathematics and Radio Theory. Upon his Honorable Discharge he married, wife of 33 years Norma Wood in 1952 and had 5 children, Bruce, Fred Vicky, Jill and Tim. Meanwhile, he attended and graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1957 with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering.
During his career Thomas made major contributions to Integrated Circuit design at Motorola, Hughes Aircraft and National Semiconductor. He wrote 5 Books (published by McGraw Hill) on the subject of "Intuitive" Integrated Circuit Design, two of which were translated into Japanese. During semi-retirement he traveled domestically delivering seminars on his methodology of "Intuitive" IC Design and served as Expert Witness in related Industry Patent litigations. He was considered by his peers to be one of the more creative analog chip designers of his time. He was also known as a great mentor and teacher to young circuit designers.
He married his second wife, Emily Frederickson in 1987 and spent the majority of his retired life at their estate in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Thomas is survived by his wife Emily and an extended family of ten children, nine grandchildren and ten great grandchildren
As in life, Thomas unselfishly willed his remains to the Stanford Medical Whole Body Donation Program to further advance higher learning. A memorial will take place on September 12 at 5:00 p.m. at the United Church of Christ in Sunnyvale. All are welcome to attend and celebrate Thomas' life. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Stanford Medicine, Center for Memory Disorders.