(1) ALLIANCE SEMICONDUCTOR CORP. PLL clock lowers EMI eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "The ASM3P2853A is a versatile spread spectrum frequency clock generator that reduces EMI at the clock source, according to Nelson Arata, product marketing manager for Alliance's Analog and Mixed Signal business unit. This allows for significant system cost savings by reducing the number of circuit board layers and shielding that is required to pass EMI regulations, he said. Spread spectrum clocking technology can virtually eliminate EMI filter networks and ferrite beads, with an added benefit that circuit board traces can be routed more effectively, enhancing design flexibility and layout." Readers say: » "The reduced EMI is an added bonus to the dual clock output. The clock speeds will need to be changable to get better industry acceptance."
» "Good product & low cost."
» "Used products not as good in the oast."
» "Not for my area of design."
» "A slower version would be nice for PWM applications 50-250kHz range."
» "EMI doesn't reduce, but gets spread out."
» "This would only be helpful to people that were not designing for EMI upfront."
» "I can see using this part if you're having difficulty achieving the dB margin needed. In most cases I think that $1.50 added to a $0.25 to $0.40 crystal is too much for a cost sensitive design which USB often is."
» "Spread-spectrum clocks often make the difference to be able to ship."
» "This is good idea and will save in amount of circuit board used."
» "Wish I had a newer product that could use it. Cost of recert does not allow me to upgrade."
» "Since this is said to reduce the EMI it will be very useful in the field of Automotive where the synchronization between the core and host controller is very important."
» "Very clever use of technology."
USABILITY RANK: 2
(2) NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR Process augments op amp performance eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "National believes its new VIP50 manufacturing process will raise the bar for bandwidth-to-power ratios found in op amps today--with this process resulting in a huge bandwidth boost and 90 percent savings in current consumption." Readers say: » "Nice power and packaging specs."
» "Excellent choices for audio recording equipment."
» "Great product & low cost."
» "Poweer consideration not critical in my area."
» "Not for my area of design."
» "National is pushing OpAmp performance higher."
» "Cool amps."
» "Nice to see improvements in this product group."
» "Good products with high potential for general purpose instrumentation design use."
» "Need a low power solution."
» "Older products I have to maintain would require re-design touse the product and there is no $ for that."
» "Until now the low noise voltage input has been the domain of bipolar input. This is a huge shift offering very wide source impedance matching."
» "Wide bandwidth and low bias current over temperature are very attractive features for my application."
» "Continous improvement in analog ICs is impressive."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(3) CIRRUS LOGIC Audio A/D converter touts eight-channels eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "This product is truly unique since there are currently no other eight-channel audio A/D converters out there, according to Carl Alberty, senior manager of Cirrus' Mixed Signal Audio Division." Readers say: » "Good choices for the audio recording industry."
» "Significant step in right direction, will help designers of surround-sound systems to reduce cost."
» "The only thing novel about this part is the automatic switching between inputs. In my apps, this is actually a negative, I don't want that."
» "I think I've seen similar products from other sources."
» "Nice mid-Fi solution. Decent latency specification with an integrated oscillator that will limit the implementation of a precision clocking scheme with dedicated oscillator power."
» "Of interest to digital audio, but not in computers"
» "Real time noice reduction and Acustical feedback supression in PA systems?"
» "It would be a solution on one of our products."
» "Great product, N/A to my area but who knows."
» "We plan to use them in our products."
» "Very good bang for the buck." USABILITY RANK: 4
(4) LINEAR TECHNOLOGY Smoking 16-bit A/D converter delivers high SFDR eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "A few months ago, LTC introduced the LTC2255 family, which included a low power (395 mW), 14-bit, 120 Msamples/s device. LTC focused on low power when it developed this family. Even though the company concentrated on performance this time around, it was still able to deliver very low power products. Typically, lower power translates to less performance, but that isn't the case with this family." Readers say: » "Good high speed instrumentation ADC."
» "Great for Digital Radio"
» "Impressive spec."
» "I won't need a converter this fast, but it looks pretty good in feature set."
» "Linear is not my first choice for A-D converters. Great power IC's though."
» "I might try this in a project we could be doing."
» "It appears from the description of the amplifier, it is a low noise, wide band (700 MHz) and spurious free A/D converter."
» "Looks like an excellent product."
USABILITY RANK: 6
(5) MAXIM INTEGRATED PRODUCTS Fast 16-bit A/D converter fits comm's bill eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Maxim's converter offers solid SNR and SFDR performance. Maxim's MAX19586 is the first device in a new family -- higher-speed versions will soon follow, Maxim's Matta said." Readers say: » "A good high speed ADC with low power requirements. Great for portable applications." )
» "Good product."
» "I think power consumption could limit the products sucess as basestation designs are increasingly size limited thus power consumption must be limited."
» "This seems to be a slightly better "Me too" product."
» "I try not to use Maxim parts due to poor experiences dealing with Maxim-Dallas direct."
» "Perfect sampling frequency."
» "Maxim is notorious for poor delivery of production quantities. Their parts have to be unique and superb before they are even considered for design."
» "Moore's law seems to hold for A/D performance." USABILITY RANK: 5
(6) ANALOG DEVICES JFET instrumentation-amplifier housed in MSOP eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Keeping in line with current industrial and medical instrumentation trends, ADI's AD8220 JFET input instrumentation amplifier touts a 50 percent reduction in package size and improved performance, while reducing cost and power consumption." Readers say: » "Good device in a small package."
» "Good product."
» "Looks impressive."
» "Very good set of features."
» "I've been using the AD8221 and it's great. I don't think they do enough to differentiate the AD8220 from the AD8221."
» "I don't use IN-Amps much. Smaller is better, though."
» "Amazing packaging feat!"
» "Would have much wider application if it had higher power supply voltage rating."
» "I would prefer this device rated for the automotive temp range."
» "Good price point" USABILITY RANK: 3
(7) ATMEL CORPORATION Worldıs fastest analog-to-digital converter integrates 1:4 demultiplexed outputs eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Atmel Corporation announced the second in a series of high-speed integrated analog-to-digital (A/D) converters and demultiplexer (DMUX) devices, with a new 10-bit A/D converter that features a clock frequency of 2 GSamples/s and an embedded 1:4 Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) demultiplexer for direct interface with standard field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)." Readers say: » "Excellent high speed ADC for instrumentation."
» "Great A/D Product."
» "Good for instrumentation."
» "It's form factor looks great."
USABILITY RANK: 8
(8) TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 16-bit converter targets precision apps eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "This 16-bit, 10 Msamples/second delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter from Texas Instruments Inc. features 86 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 95 dB spurious-free dynamic range over a 5-MHz bandwidth." Readers say: » "Great high speed ADC that will be useful for instrumentation."
» "Good product."
» "This might prove useful to me at some time."
» "Excellent choice for S(oftware)D(efined)R(adio)."
» "Headed in the right direction--better yet make it 18-bits and front end it with a PGA."
» "Better than the competition." USABILITY RANK: 7
(9) AKM SEMICONDUCTOR D/A converter integrates 3D audio enhancement eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "AKM Semiconductor's low-power, stereo digital-to-analog converter (D/A converter) with an integrated 3D-audio enhancement circuit was made for ultra-compact mobile phones, smart phones and portable media players (PMPs)." Readers say: » "Good integration of a DAC with signal processing for audio use."
» "Nice features but cannot see too many uses beyond cellphone market."
» "41 pin BGA? Overkill perhaps? And what exactly does 3D audio do for the consumer?"
» "Could be useful in hearing aid aplications."
» "It might be used in our alternative to Ipods out there." USABILITY RANK: 10
(10) EXAR CORP. Newcomer unveils zero delay buffers eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "What makes Exar think that they can go up against established giants in the ZDB market like Cypress Semiconductor Corp., Freescale Semiconductor Inc., and Integrated Circuit Systems Inc.?
"We use newer technology processes (.35 micron CMOS) and offer more advantages in terms of cost and performance," said John Demiray, Exar's senior director of product marketing, network and transmission products." Readers say: » "A good new product at a low price."
» "Lower clock skews are always welcome."
» "It could be a solution we are looking for."
» "Good product."
» "Virtually all of our applications would simply drop this functionality into an FPGA."
» "A buffer of zero delay is a fictious concept. What about the problems of energy consumption and the loading effects." USABILITY RANK: 9
