» Shrinking size and wireless technologies showed up well in this category. Top honors go to Analog Devices for its Othello-G radio chip, or "The Incredible Shrinking Radio," as eeProductCenter's Janine Love calls it.
(1) ANALOG DEVICES The Incredible Shrinking Radio: Analog Devices makes it possible to pack an entire GSM/GPRS radio into 1.5 sq.cm. eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "The Othello-G radio chip supports full quad-band operation and integrates virtually all the necessary components for a complete cellular handset radio design such as voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) and the associated tank circuits, PLL loop filters, and power management.
" Readers say: » "Very good integration!"
» "...It serves as a benchmark for what is achievable with leading-edge technology."
» "Fantastic level of integration!"
» "...Would like to buy this in a phone."
» "Very cool."
» "Just what is needed to make a cell phone into more than a personal assistant."
» "Nice."
USABILITY RANK: 2
(2) CALIFORNIA EASTERN LABS Tiny size distinguishes SPDT switch eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Good news for designers of miniature PCM cards and low-profile modules for Mobilecomm, Short Range Wireless, Bluetooth, and ZigBee: the new UPG2151T5K GaAs Switch IC is so small and thin, it can be used in place of chips in many of these size-constrained applications. The UPG2151T5K is housed in NEC's new lead-free 6-pin T5K package." Readers say:
» "Interesting."
» "The thought of having this option in such a small form factor is great!"
» "Price is rght."
» "Excellent power loss in this form factor and the fact that it's lead free will be very enticing for EPA packaging issues."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(3) TEXAS INSTRMENTS TI delivers first 65nm device to wireless market eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "The devices are optimized to extend battery life. For example, they employ the company's SmartReflex dynamic power management technology, which automatically scales power supply voltage based on user performance demands and helps control power consumption by processors. By closely monitoring circuit speed, this feature can dynamically adjust voltages to meet exact performance requirements.
" Readers say: » "Hot applications."
» "Power consumption is vital to mobile devices. This chip sounds optimal to power management."
» "This product serves as a benchmark for what is achievable with leading-edge technology."
» "This will help in reducing space and power consumed by wireless baseband circuits."
USABILITY RANK: 6
(4) SIGE SEMICONDUCTOR SE8901 from SiGe Semiconductor, it's a GPS receiver for use in cellular handsets eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Equipped with Silent Tracking and other advanced power management features, the SE8901 receiver IC and software ensure that users have immediate access to accurate positioning information without impacting the cellular phone battery life. Typical power consumption is below 50mW for continuous in-car navigation and below 1 mW when using Silent Tracking.
" Readers say: » "Pretty excited about the chip."
» "I need more detailed performance information to make a decesion. Based on this marketing brief, it has my interest."
» "Excellent!"
» "Nice option to those people who must stay in constant communication while they are on the move."
USABILITY RANK: 3
(5) FRONTIER SILICON TV goes mobile with integrated digital multimedia broadcasting chipset eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Consuming less than 100 mW of power, the Kino chip supports a full decoding rate of more than 1.8Mbps without the need for external memory. To reduce system cost, the IF analog-to-digital converter (ADC), voltage controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO), power-on reset, audio digital-to-analog converters, and Reed Solomon decoder (which is implemented in hardware) are all integrated on chip.
" Readers say: » "This chip may change the life style."
» "This is an interesting little device..."
USABILITY RANK: 5
(6) VIXS SYSTEMS Getting Wireless Video in Focus: A new WLAN chipset is designed specifically to handle the challenges of video eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Matrix II is the first WLAN processor to wirelessly distribute two HDTV (19-24 Mbps each) video streams from a single IC. Designed especially for consumer video and display products, Matrix II provides over 40 Mb/s useable bandwidth with a range of 100 feet through 3 walls, or a total raw throughput of 124Mb/s.
" Readers say: » "A chip which adapts video to 802.11 wireless is cool..."
» "A WLAN chip maker pioneer."
USABILITY RANK: 7
(7) ANALOG DEVICES A VGA for the transmitter chain in wireless infrastructure eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Unlike conventional discrete solutions that require many external components, the single-chip ADL5330 integrates broadband amplifiers and attenuators, offering considerable savings in board area, component count and solution cost as compared to discrete implementations. The precision linear-in-dB control interface further simplifies and eases circuit design.
" Readers say:
» "A very useful device!"
» "I will be looking at that for the next video project we have."
» "Innovative!"
USABILITY RANK: 4
(8) SINETT Thinking Big: These single-chip switch processors take on enterprise wired/wireless LANs eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Built from the ground up to unify wireless and wired enterprise network architectures, OneEdge's single-chip design provides wireless and wired packet processing, security, mobility and traffic management. OneEdge's purpose-built silicon was designed to provide significant performance and cost advantages over existing solutions, and enables network equipment manufacturers to quickly develop next generation Unified Access switches, WLAN switches, and WLAN appliances/controllers.
" Readers say: USABILITY RANK: 10
(9) ANALOG DEVICES XFP chipset makes it easier to design 10 Gbits/s transceiver modules eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "For the fast-growing XFP optical transceiver market, this chipset offers best-in-class jitter performance to ease interoperability challenges caused by using transceiver modules from different manufacturers in the same optical networking system, and the accompanying reference design enables reduced time-to-market.
" Readers say:
» "Wonderful achievement to match a wide range of designs."
USABILITY RANK: 9
(10) RF MICRO DEVICES PA modules boost GSM and EDGE signals eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Both PowerStar devices feature integrated battery voltage (VBATT) tracking circuitry, which automatically measures battery voltage and adjusts ramp voltage, thereby preventing the power control loop from reaching saturation during low voltage battery conditions. VBATT tracking circuitry also significantly reduces transients, which occur at low battery voltage conditions and can reduce efficiency.
" Readers say: » "The VBATT tracking technology is beneficial and should reduce additional design-time power issues. These should see good use in some future multi-mode handsets (including Sprint-Nextel and post-rebanding Nextel SUs)."
USABILITY RANK: 8
