» WITH 123 READER RATINGS, a start up company's technology blew away the competition in this fairly broad category. It's also noteworthy that this product got the highest average rating score for technical significance-a 4.2 on a scale of 5-of any product, of any category in this premier issue of Ultimate Products.

(1)
ANALOGIX
DSP noise cancellation extends backplane reach
eeProductCenter says: "Analogix Semiconductor, a startup based in Santa Clara, has introduced what it believes are the first high-speed physical-layer transceivers to include built-in digital signal processing (DSP). The DSP techniques eliminate the signal integrity problems (noise, crosstalk, ringing and false triggers) associated with 5- and 10-Gbits/s data transmissions over backplanes and copper media. The D-PHY family of SerDes ICs is based on a new architecture that combines an adaptive DSP-based noise-cancellation technique (which Analogix calls 'WideEye' technology) with advanced analog signal conditioning. Unlike analog-only solutions, which simply mask detrimental signal effects such as crosstalk and reflections, the D-PHY family actually removes these effects, ensuring maximum signal integrity."
Readers say: » "Very good." » "Adding the 'DSP' moniker seems to be a marketing, rather than a technical, description." » "Very nice idea, but there are some doubts about final overall costs of this technology. (Installation, support, integration with other data transfer methods, etc.)" » "One of the most compelling products in today's market." » "Transmission speed is often paramount, but in many applications high speed is not required, and simplicity and low cost are deciding factors. That said, this product is a nice alternative when high speed is required." » "Good job by a startup."
USABILITY RANK: 1

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NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR
Crosspoint switch allows designers to drive extended backplanes
eeProductCenter: "National's SCAN90CP02 is a twoinput, two-output LVDS non-blocking crosspoint switch that handles signals up to 1.5 Gbits/s. It supports many different configurations, including a conventional crosspoint switch, a buffer/repeater, a 1:2 splitter, and a 2:1 multiplexer. Crosspoint switches are commonly used as a splitter or mux function in networking and communications infrastructure equipment to provide redundancy for data and clock signals. This is one of the first and only LVDS (low voltage differential signaling) devices to handle a 1.5 Gbits/s on a 2x2 crosspoint."
Readers say: » "Very useful tool for telecom design." » "Too expensive and not enough pins nor enough possible connections.
USABILITY RANK: 2

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XILINX
Xilinx in Space
eeProductCenter's Jon Gabay says: "It is true that the Xilinx radiation-tolerant devices play an important role in JPL's success. A big reason Xilinx was chosen [for the Mars Rover] was the radiation tolerance. Xilinx currently supplies Virtex radiation tolerant products up to one million system gates and total ionizing dose guaranteed to 100 kRads (si). High gate density, on-board RAM, and large I/O count also should be noted. I think the key though is on board reprogrammability of the FPGAs."
Readers say: » "It sure would be nice if everybody in the FPGA world would agree on what a gate was." » "The successful application of rad tolerant FPGAs opens up a range of new possibilities for space use." » "I agree that the reprogramming after landing function is of great value." » "This opens up a new market in military/space which has been traditionally dominated by anti-fuse technology based FPGA from Actel."
USABILITY RANK: 5

(4)
ALTERA
Altera great low cost CPLDs
Jon Gabay: "The new MAX II family is touted to be the industry's lowest-cost CPLDs (MAX II is half the cost of competitor parts). That's a good claim if all comparisons were apples to apples. It's a little harder to qualify amidst such a variety of architectures, densities, I/O counts, packaging options, and quantities. But, the key point is that Altera is sensitive to and focused on keeping costs low while providing a good part for your consumption."
Readers say: » "These small packages are great, but make manufacturing difficult for the small companies who do not have fancy equipment. Right now, BGA is still out of our league." » "Impressive upgrade. Twice the performance, 4 times the density and only 1/10th the power? I'll definitely be considering Altera MAX II for my next PLD project." » "The mix of LUTs with flash should have been done a long time ago. It's a good idea, glad to see someone finally did it." » "Altera remains king of the CPLD market, but mostly due to designer familiarity with tools. Expect CPLDs to get more pressure from low-cost FPGAs."
USABILITY RANK: 3

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TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
Texas Instruments promotes 1284 printer interface
eeProductCenter's Stephan Ohr says: "Plugging and unplugging printer cables can subject printer ports to high electrostatic discharge conditions which may completely disable the printer. Previous IEEE 1284 interface solutions required external ESD protection to overcome these events. TI leveraged its logic technology capability to incorporate external protection diodes into the LVCE161284. The new solution provides ±15 kV human body model, ±8 kV contact, and ±15 kV air-gap discharge protection in accordance with IEC 61000-4-2 (level 4) on the connector interface pins. Integration of the protection diodes in the LVCE161284 allows designers to reduce parts count and cost while saving valuable board real estate."
Readers say: » "Pricing is excellent with this product." » "TI makes great products." » "IEEE 284 is history. USB, and now Bluetooth, is where the focus should be."
USABILITY RANK: 4

(6)
ALTERA
Altera Stratix
Jon Gabay: "It's not easy to muddle through hype and come up with real useful information. Many times both coexist. Take a case in point: The newly architected Stratix II family of parts from Altera. Right off the bat is the doubling of the logic density in a single device. Any 2X improvement is noteworthy. Next is the 50 percent faster performance compared to first-generation Stratix devices. OK, one and a half times increase is pretty good too. Next is the claim that the architecture is 25 percent more efficient than the Stratix I parts. I still think this is subjective and application dependent, but may offer better performance for some applications."
Readers say: » "Significant results. 90nm sounds very good." » "Innovative, new products such as the Stratix II family will enable new, higher-density designs. Well done."
USABILITY RANK: 6

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ATMEL
FPGA Configurator Memory IC Deals with Static
Jon Gabay: "Touted as the the world's only 16-Mbit, In- System Programmable (ISP) FPGA configuration IC in a small footprint (36 mm2) 8-pin Leadless Array Package (LAP), the new AT17F16 is the latest and largest FPGA configurator from Atmel's family."
Readers say: » "The ability to use the spare memory for other things is quite significant. It would help if they improve their programming solution to include the option to program using a flash card instead of a PC, like the system ACE solution from Xilinx. Makes it lot more convenient for in-field programming."
USABILITY RANK: 7

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TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
Clock generators support XDR memory systems
eeProductCenter: "The TI XDR Clock Generator (XCG) is a low-jitter clock generator chip for applications demanding high bandwidth memory, including consumer, networking and PC computing systems.The XDR memory interface uses differential lines and specialized parsing to achieve memory transfer rates up to eight times faster than today's best-in-class PC memory. XDR DRAMs, based on Rambus's XDR memory interface technology, are expected to achieve data rates of 3.2 to 6.4 GHz and beyond, offering system bandwidths up to 100GBytes/s over a 128-bit memory data bus."
USABILITY RANK: 8

(9)
ACTEL
High-density, extended temperature FPGAs claim slots in automotive apps
Jon Gabay: "Considering the greatly reduced NRE and risk (compared with ASICs), FPGAs make a good fit for automotive options and functions not yet requiring tens of millions of ICs.That's what Actel is counting on as the company continues its thrust into the automotive world with features and technology which is intended to entice auto manufacturers. Actel's automotive FPGA parts have densities up to 1-million system gates and are qualified to operate at temperatures from 40 degrees C up to 150 degrees C."
Readers say: "Expanded temperature range is a real plus." » "It's tough to compete with a 'spring and wire.' If these guys can really play in the ultra cost sensitive arena of auto, then more power to them."
USABILITY RANK: 10

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ALLIANCE SEMICONDUCTOR
HyperTransport-to-PCI-X bridge puts legacy peripherals in touch with data-hungry workstations and servers
eeProductCenter: "The AS90L10204 is optimized for computer applications with high throughput, including workstations, computer servers, server blades, and desktop PCs. The AS90L10204 is intended to work with AMD's Opteron and Athlon families of X86-microprocessors, as well as with Transmeta's Efficeon microprocessor. The AS90L10204, microprocessor and South Bridge, create a three-piece chipset that interfaces the HyperTransport interface from the Opteron, Athlon or Efficeon microprocessors to the PCI-X bus."
USABILITY RANK: 9