EN-Genius Announces 2008's Product of the Year Winners

January 12, 2009....EN-Genius Network today announced the recipients of their annual "Product of the Year" awards. A total of 39 different products in the categories of data acquisition, audio/video technology, green technology, green-power engineering, dsp, wireless, connectivity, networking, passives, t&m, conectors, passives (rlc), tools, low power and high power were selected, from among the hundreds of products reviewed in 2008 by EN-Genius.

"We started this process nearly a decade ago, during our inception as analogZONE, and it is very undemocratic," remarked Editor-in-Chief Paul McGoldrick. "Later on in the year we will give our readers the chance to vote for what they think were the best TechNotes published in 2008, but for Product of the Year awards it is always our editors' expert personal opinion. We never involve the vendors or allow (or demand, as other publications do) some kind of essay with the technical and business information as to why their products should win. At EN-Genius we always call the winners (and the occasional losers) as we see them, as we do with every review we write." McGoldrick went on to note that he and editorial colleagues Lee Goldberg and Alex Mendelsohn believe the products selected "will make significant bottom line numbers for the companies involved" because of their strong technical merit, design innovation and marketability.

We continue to have another acknowledgment category this year, for the second time, with a number (sixteen) of Honorable Mentions to products that very nearly made it to a full Award category, but were ineligible because they were updated products or did not fit into our Award general criteria – such as Pi Mobility’s distinctive electric bike.

EN-Genius would like to congratulate all the winning companies and, in particular, the product/design teams involved.

Product of the Year Award recipients are as follows, in alphabetical order:

Best High-End FPGA Family

Altera Stratix IV 40-nm FPGAs and HardCopy IV ASICs
Altera’s ongoing slugfest with its arch-rival has just taken a left turn with the migration of their flagship Stratix FPGA series and its metal-programmable HardCopy ASIC platform to a 40-nm process. In addition to the substantial cost/density advantages that their devices enjoy, the improved migration tools and SerDes capability that Altera has added to its HardCopy line makes it easier than ever to use their FPGAs to get a product to market quickly and then shift the design to the lower-cost ASIC platform as production volume permits.

Best Storage Network Product

AMCC PowerPC-460SX Storage Processor
The 460SX storage processor’s potent hardware/software mix cuts the cost, development time and power involved with both networked and attached storage systems. The lightweight Linux OS and the on-chip hardware offload also frees a good chunk of the PPC processing power for adding whatever higher-layer management software or developing any other value-add functionality your application might need.

Best Development in Isolation Technology

Analog Devices ADuM5230 Isolated Gate Driver
The ability to get power across an isolated barrier at the same time as data is a monumental achievement and is one that took the designer over thirteen years to get commercial results. That power on the isolated, secondary supply can, of course, be used for any external buffering of the data channels or any other secondary powering needs. The first devices are just a precursor to what ADI is now going to be able to do in this arena. The technology itself will be worth an incredible amount of money.

Best RF Integration

Avago Technologies ALM-1612 High-Gain GPS LNA with Integrated FBAR Filter
We like FBAR technology here! The original product, the ACPF-7001, earned the then Agilent a 2002 Product of the Year Award and we said that there would certainly be a PA combined with an FBAR filter in the future. That didn’t happen yet on the transmit side but a superb LNA for GPS combined with an FBAR filter makes us more than content. This is going to be a huge volume product, a total no-brainer for the GPS front-ends of receivers in whatever format they are in.

Best Price Vs Performance Factor in Handheld Instrumentation

B&K Precision Model 2652 Handheld 3.3-GHz Spectrum Analyzer With Tracking Generator
Although it might be frowned on by techno-elitists, this 3-GHz instrument is moderately priced and practical. It lets you store up to 100 pre-established set-ups as well as 100 readings, so it can be useful in the hands of semi-skilled personnel as well as engineering types.

Best Video Amplifier Development

Cadeka Microcircuits CLC3800 Low-Power Triple Channel SD Video Amplifier
The Comlinear brand moves on at Cadeka… There is a lot of video business out there, it is growing apace, and Cadeka will get its share after buyers realize who the main players are in this new resurrection of the Comlinear brand. The performance is better than most (and certainly far better than consumer products need, or expect) while the power consumption points them at lightning speed straight at sockets in portable products.

Best Use of PWM Technology

Cirrus Logic SA306/SA57 High-Current PWM Drivers
The Cirrus Logic acquisition of Apex in 2007 was a total surprise with no glue logic seeming to link the two companies together. Company cultures were different; management styles were different; Apex was more industrial in its customer base while Cirrus was focused on consumer product OEMs; Apex was high-power Cirrus was audio. There will be considerable market success with these parts filling a slot for medium power dc motors that has been a real bitch to implement with discretes, with a large amount of PCB real estate and height. Cirrus pushes the point that you can get a motor spinning within minutes using their demo boards: that is probably the winning line.

Most Cost-Effective Energy Conservation Product

Cypress Envirosystems Energy-Saving Control and Monitoring Solutions
Cypress Envirosystems’ wireless modules provide a quick, easy way to retrofit older pneumatically-operated HVAC systems with intelligent controls that allow older buildings to enjoy a 30% - 50% reduction in energy while improving comfort levels at the same time. By addressing the demand side of the green energy equation, this new family of energy-saving technologies may have an even greater positive impact on the environment than the SunPower high-efficiency solar cells which were developed by another Cypress spin-off.

Best Embedded Connectivity Product

Cypress CYWB0224AB* West Bridge Controller
Embedded systems designers rejoice! Thanks to Cypress' new family of peripheral controllers you’ll soon be able to enjoy the same kind of the flexibility in memory and I/O choices that the folks who work with PCs and servers have had for years.

Most Universal Development Tool

Digi-Key USB-Powered Beagle Board
Digi-Key’s USB-powered board, accessibly priced at less than $150, comprises a big-time complex multimedia platform for unbelievable end-user experiences. It moves TI's scalable OMAP family away from humdrum cellphone designs, and into community, consumer and commercial applications where signal and image processing can differentiate products with things like 3D graphics. It appeals to codesmiths in labs, back rooms, and basement shops.

Best Network Switching Product

Dune P220/P230 Petra Fabric Access Processors
Based on Dune’s track record of delivering on its promises and the basic soundness of their switch architecture we think that they have a good chance at hitting their self-declared price/performance target of delivering 10GE silicon cost at around 3x the cost of 1GE silicon that they feel is necessary to drive 10GbE to mass adoption.

Best Green Display Product

Epson Electronics America S1D13521B Controller IC for Electronic Paper Displays
Epson’s Electronic Paper Display (EPD) controller and its slick little development kit make it easy to get lower-latency, higher-resolution text and better graphics from today’s early electronic paper systems. This will help accelerate EPD market acceptance as a practical alternative to cutting down, processing and transporting some of the millions of tons of trees that we turn into paper each year.

Best Innovation in Gate Drivers

Fairchild Semiconductor FAN7387 High-Voltage Gate Driver
The neat thing about the FAN7387 is the flexibility it delivers to a variety of circuit applications. You can literally use it as a tool box for that SMPS you need to put together in a hurry, or use a pair of them as a full-bridge converter, or use the dead-time control pin feature for a fluorescent lamp or HID ballast. In each case the power delivered can be scaled by your choice of the external MOSFETs. The dead-time control is, we believe, unique. We like parts where the applications can be scaled. The FAN7387 is one of those parts that when you have used it once you will come back to it time and time again for your succeeding jobs at differing power levels.

Best DSP for Wireless Infrastructure Applications

Freescale MSC8156 Six-Core DSP
If Freescale has correctly identified the need for a high-capacity DSP that’s been specially tweaked for 3G wireless applications, the raw processing power and low solution cost that this new multi-core monster brings to the game should win them a fair share of business in the next generation, or two, for wireless infrastructure equipment.

Best Development in Silicon RF Power Architecture

HVVi Semiconductor HVV1011-300 L-Band 300 W Power Amplifier
With a completely new vertical MOS architecture these people have got an amazing story going for them. This is going to be an extremely successful enterprise and the decision to initially target the profitable L-Band aviation market was very smart. We are going to see RF power out of silicon, with the voltages this architecture will allow, that most of us would never have dreamed of. This product was heading for a Product of the Year Award while the Review was still being written!

Most Practical Piece of Test Equipment

ICS Electronics Model 8055 Ethernet-to-Instrument Interface
GPIB has been around since 1975, and although it's been supplanted in many test racks by the likes of USB and LXI, there are still a lot of GPIB instruments kicking around. This clever product extends the life of legacy equipment, additionally opening doors for true Internet-enabled remote control.

Most Cost-Effective Cooling Technology

International Manufacturing Services B-Series Therma-Bridge
Therma-Bridge surface-mount heat pipes look like just the ticket for small-scale thermal management. Although heat pipes have been around since the beginning of engineering time, you’ve never seen heat pipe products this small.

Best Audio Multiplexer

Intersil ISL54405 Low Distortion/High Off-Isolation Stereo 2:1 Multiplexer For CD/MP3
It’s easy enough to switch audio signals; it’s not nearly so easy to do it with quality and professionalism. Here Intersil offers a bidirectional audio switch/multiplexer that has click and pop control on the switching of the dual single-pole double-throw (SPDT) action. The switches can also handle both positive and negative signals without a negative rail. The quality of this multiplexer/switch is high enough for the most demanding professional applications although, of course, the majority will see their way into home theater, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, MP3, cellphone, and computer sound card type applications

Best System Interconnect Element

Lattice SCM SP14.2 MACO Cores with Enhanced Buffer Management
The enhanced queuing and scheduling capabilities offered by the LatticeSCM family’s SPI 4.2 logic could go a long way to offloading a network processor from some lower-level traffic management tasks or providing some very intelligent buffering between system elements.

Best Battery Management Product

Linear LTC6802 High Voltage Battery Stack Monitor
The LTC6802 is the first of many innovative, highly-integrated power devices that the automotive industry will rely on to help drive down the cost and complexity of their next generation of EVs and HEVs.

Best Conversion Product For FGA World

Linear LTC2274 16-bit, 105 Msample/s Serial Output ADC
This part is clearly based on the LTC2217 with the biggest major difference being the serial (instead of parallel) output. The change reduces the pin count of the package from 64 to 40 and there would, naturally, be a similar pin count reduction on the receive side, which is the whole purpose of the part: to reduce the number of I/O pins on an FPGA, or ASIC, needed to be dedicated to the digital input. The use of serial to drive an FPGA or ASIC makes a lot of sense and will become increasingly more used.

Best RF Detector

Linear LT5581 10 MHz to 6 GHz Low Power Rms Detector
The over-temperature accuracy and the 40 dB dynamic range make this part ideal for modern basestations. Add the low power consumption and you have a part that is ideal for the handset as well. Dynamic range and accuracy over temperature are outstanding and, not surprisingly, the part has multiple design wins already. This is not the last rms detector to come from the Linear stable but it is going to be one huge money maker for the company.

Best Media Processor

LSI SP2603/SP2612 StarPro Media Processors
LSI’s new member in their DSP-based media processor family is complemented with the introduction of a platform architecture that will allow equipment manufacturers to meet challenges of any-to-any voice and video with extremely flexible and cost-effective products and can adapt to the market’s changing needs.

Most Innovative Instrumentation Amplifier

Maxim MAX4208 Spread-Spectrum, Autozero, Instrumentation Amplifier
The MAX4208 and MAX4209 are instrumentation amplifiers with a differential transconductance input stage producing a current. Instead of the conventional three-op amp architecture a portion of the output stage voltage (equal to the input) is also converted to a current. These two currents are subtracted and fed to a loop amplifier. A reference voltage (usually Vdd/2) level shifts the output so that bipolar signals can be handled. The architecture is masterful.

Best Advance In Video Security

Maxim MAX7474 Adaptive Equalizer For Video Over Twisted-Pair Cabling
If they had been keeping an eye on the ball this should have been a product from Intersil. The EL9110 won a 2003 Product of the Year Award from us for the innovative correction of a video signal at the end of 300 m of Cat-5 cable, making use of the repeatable characteristics of such cable. Making that an automatic process was not a difficult jump to believe in and we mentioned such a possibility in our review. There is no phase correction in the MAX7474 but that is not a deal breaker with composite video over 300 m.

Best Use of Silicon Carbide

Microsemi 0405SC-100M SiC RF Power Transistor For VHF and UHF Radar
We have been waiting for someone to run with Silicon Carbide for RF for the last ten years or so, but Cree – who should have been in the business first – were always too busy with illumination and insulators! This UHF device is the company’s SiC replacement for their LDMOS 0405-1000M. With a functional drain voltage of 125 V (compared to 40 V for LDMOS) Microsemi and HVVi Semiconductors may be in a competitive space.

Best Challenge To Existing Audio Technology

National Semiconductor LME49600 Audio Buffer
This part directly attacks the BUF634 market. The BUF634 is a neglected part: it should have been moved to a newer process maybe five years ago, and TI should have been listening to the grumblings out on the street about lack of support. Launching a new product fabricated in an up-to-date process, probably with a much higher yield, puts National in the catbird seat for quite a while. The blogging activity since the part preannouncement at AES 2007 indicates that a huge number of designs will move over to the LME49600. National has cheekily priced the part at ten cents less than the published TI part (you have to love the new pricing attitude on Kifer Road). And they’re actually declaring distortion numbers!

Best Example of Squeezing Power From a Small Package

National Semiconductor LM3691 1-A, 4-MHz Synchronous Buck Dc-Dc Converter in micro-SMD
Size is the most important thing about the LM3691. Squeezing a 1 A dc-dc converter into a 6 bump micro-SMD is quite an achievement, but performance is not compromised. This part hits a neat niche in the portable market.

Best Smart Lighting Product

NEC 78K0/I*2 8-Bit Microcontrollers for LED Lighting
NEC’s 78K0/I*2 series of Flash-based controllers with dedicated lighting control peripherals is an excellent example of the kinds of products that will help accelerate the maturity of the intelligent lighting market. By adding power factor control and multiple communication interfaces to the usual set of PWM control functions, they can turn an ordinary dimmable fluorescent or HBLED light into a smart lighting system component at little additional cost.

Best Storage Connectivity Product

PMC-Sierra PM8031/8002 Protocol Controllers with Data Encryption
By providing the raw materials required to turn an inexpensive server or host bus adapter (HBA) into a high-performance encrypted storage controller, PMC has bridged the gap between low-cost, low-performance software-based storage encryption solutions and the costly ($20 k - $40 k) dedicated secure storage appliances that have dominated the market.

Most Innovative Packaging for RF Circuitry

RF Micro Devices MicroShield Integrated RF Shielding Technology
This innovative plated shielding can save a third of the real estate of conventionally shielded RF assemblies. MicroShield can also radically reduce a package’s Z-height. It’s also conformal, sidestepping complex-shaped stampings and the costlier tooling for them. Re-work is simpler, as there are no metal shields to unsolder before getting to devices hiding under them.

Most Practical and Clever Interconnection Product

SchmartBoard Solder-Boards For Large QFPs
If you've ever soldered or de-soldered a high-density surface-mount package, you know it can be irritating, and possibly unsuccessful. If you're equipped with a stereoscopic microscope, the proper flux and solder, and a vacuum pipette and solder vac, it is achievable. These boards sidestep the problem, making it possible even for novices to successfully solder prototype QFP packages.

Best Value in Low-Power Converters

STMicroelectronics VIPer17 Off-line Switched-Mode Converter
Given all the efficiency, protection, and other features crammed into the VIPer17, we’re surprised at the bargain-basement price that STM has placed on it. STM says that they have to offer it at a price that allows it to compete with simpler devices with comparable power ratings because the market still does not recognize the value of its green features.

Best Precision Instrumentation Amplifier

TI INA333 Low Power, Zero Drift, Instrumentation Amplifier
The INA333 uses a classic three-op-amp architecture with the overall gain set with a single external resistor. It uses TI’s proprietary zero-drift technology. Where TI has taken the INA333 is to keep the part in the precision zone, but to attend very closely to the quiescent current. This is the first TI instrumentation amplifier to offer operation down to 1.8 V (or ±0.9 V) with a quiescent of a remarkably low typical 50 µA (75 µA max). At the same time TI has managed to better the input offset by a factor of five over its previous best. They have also thrown in RFI filtering in the input legs of the differential op amps.

Best Digital Signal Controller

TI TMS320F280xx Piccolo 32-bit Microcontroller
Piccolo’s rich mix of peripherals and cost-effective compute power makes it a great candidate for nearly any embedded signal processing job but it is especially well-suited for green power applications like high-efficiency power supplies, PWM motor drives, solar inverters, and solid-state lighting controllers. With prices beginning at around $2, it’s a sure bet you’ll see many of these DSCs at the heart of the next generation of hybrid/electric drive systems where their intelligence can be put to work running the algorithms for sophisticated regenerative braking, battery management and start/stop operations.

Best Improvement in Discrete Power Devices

Vishay Si7718DN 20-V and 30-V n-Channel TrenchFET Gen III Power MOSFETs
The reduction in gate charge in these third-generation parts is significant and will allow a lot of existing designs to migrate to higher switching frequencies, maintaining efficiency while reducing the real estate used by circuit passives – or by increasing efficiency at the presently-used switching frequencies of those designs.

Best High-Speed Interconnect

Vitesse VSC3441 6.375 Gbit/s SerDes Solution
Now that 3.125 Gbit/s SerDes technology has pretty much become commonplace in backplanes and motherboards, the VSC3441 will help designers prepare for the jump to the doubled line rates that are emerging in the next generation of PCIe Gen2, Serial RapidIO and other major connectivity standards.

Best Network Access Product

Wavesat Odyssey 8500 Multimode 4G Broadband Chipset
Packing a small 15 mm footprint and an even smaller power profile, WaveSat Odyssey 8500 multi-core, multi-standard OFDM processor stands a shot at being the Holy Grail of the mobile wireless data industry. This innovative transceiver’s ability to support both Wi-Fi (802.11b.g) and WiMAX as well as PHS and its advanced cousin XG-PHS, makes it an excellent choice for a wide range of mobile data applications.

Best Application-Specific FPGA

Xilinx Virtex-5 TXT Platform Single FPGA for 40G/100G Telecom Equipment
Xilinx TXT family is a smart remix of elements from their existing Virtex 5 family designed specifically to address the need for protocol bridging, MAC functions, and other elements required to support 40 – 100 Gbit/s IP streams. This family of specialized FPGAs is unique in its capabilities and well-positioned to address the relentless demand for system bandwidth that’s a generation or two ahead of most commercial silicon.

Honorable Mention

Low-Cost FPGA Family

Actel IGLOO and ProASIC3 Nano FPGAs


Delivering a Quantum Leap in FPGA Performance

Achronix SPD60 Speedster FPGA Family


Innovative FPGA Product

Cswitch CS90 Family of Configurable Logic Devices

Innovative Home Networking Product

DS2 DSS9101/7800 Aitana Integrated 200 Mbit/s Chipset


High Integration in Multiple Channel Backlighting

Fairchild Semiconductor FAN7316 CCFL Backlight Inverter Driver


FPGA Development Kit

Lattice Low-Cost LatticeECP2M Development Kit for PCI Express


Network Security Product

LSI Tarari T2000 10G Content Processor


Innovative Dual-Source Charger

Microchip MCP73781 Charge Management Controller


Solar Power Product

National Semi SolarMagic Technology


DSP Compute Array Architecture

picoChip PC202-10/203-10/205-10 Multi-Core DSPs


Green Transportation Product

Pi Mobility Electric Bicycle


Innovative Wireless Networking Product

Quantenna QHS 802.11n Chipsets with 4x4 MIMO


Important Technology Improvement in Power Management

Semtech SC417 10 A Synchronized Buck Regulator Platform


Working Towards Dc Power Distribution

STMicroelectronics STV250N55F3 250 A  Power MOSFET


Power-to-Package Ratio

Texas Instruments TS62601 6 MHz Buck Dc-Dc Converter


Bang for the Buck In Energy Conservation

Vitesse ActiPHY, PerfectReach Energy-Efficient Functionality

2007 Winners

Criteria for Product Of The Year Awards