SHOW OF HANDS

Once again, qualified readers of EE Times and eeProductCenter have selected the best of the bestıthe top products in each of seven categories in our quarterly Ultimate Products survey. The categories are analog ICs; RF and microwave; logic/programmable logic and interface; test and measurement; processors and memory; power; and interconnection/passives and electromechanical components.

The results of our most recent Ultimate Products report covers the best products introduced during the second quarter. Diverse products made the cut. A 125 Msample/second, 14-bit converter from Linear Technology Corp. offers strong ac performance and very low power. STMicroelectronics' 32-bit ARM-based STR710F MCU family aims at high-performance, cost-sensitive applications. An FPGA-based reference design from Altera Corp. allows video-over-Internet Protocol. And LeCroy's 100-GHz WaveExpert 9000 and SDA 100G mainframes combine the high bandwidth and accuracy of sampling oscilloscopes with the speedıand utilityıof real-time scopes.

Here's how Ultimate Products works: Our editors select up to 10 of the most significant products posted at www.eeProductCenter.com during the calendar quarter. Then, using an electronic balloting process, we submit these products with the accompanying editorial reviews to selected, qualified readers.

Those readers score the products by technical significance and usability on a scale of 1 through 5, with 5 being the highest score. The product ranked No. 1 in each category was judged as most technically significant for that category. Relative usability rankings and selected reader comments are also reported.

Over 1,000 of you helped to choose these products and, as always, we are grateful for your enthusiastic participation.

Marty Gold
Executive Editor, eeProductCenter
mgold@cmp.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Analog ICs

Processors & Memory

IP&E

Logic & Programmable Logic

Power

RF & Microwave

Test & Measurement

THE RANKINGS

Readers ranked products for technical significance and usability on a scale of 1 through 5 (with 5 as the highest score). However, the product rankings reported in this issue are relative to other products within the category-not absolute scores. The product ranked 1 in each category was judged as most technically significant for that category. Relative usability rankings and selected reader comments are also reported.