(1) LINEAR TECHNOLOGY Linear Technology Corp. 300 milliamp low dropout regulator operates down to 1.7 volts eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Linear Technology Corp.'s 300 mA very low dropout VLDO)linear regulator with input voltage capability down to 1.7 volts features a low internal reference voltage with corresponding adjustable output voltage operation from 0.4 V to 3.6 V." Readers say: » "Reliable and strong...easy to integrate"
» "Clever technology, as usual from Linear Tech."
» "I need a higher current version for my application."
» "I would consider this product for battery-operated and parasitically-powered devices, including wireless industrial sensors"
» "Looks like a nice part, would need a DataSheet or more info to be able to do a better analysis."
» "The low input to low output capability of LTC3035 regulator is just the match the maket needed. The performance will get broad applications."
» "Precision regulation at low voltages is growing in importance for mobile applications."
» "A remarkable device, but I believe that sub 1V regulators are still ahead of their time (not as frequently used); and that developement should go into more frequently used areas (say 3.3V regulators)."
» "Appears to be a well-thought-out product -- like most from LTC -- but all our designs run on 5V, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future."
» "I would like to have seen a noise spec in the product description."
» "Fantastic characteristics in such a small DFN package! Definitely will keep in mind for future apps."
» "No inductors."
» "More internal circuit operation should be given such that the user can avoid miss-use."
» "Highly needed for core powering of advanced asics. A larger current output would
be welcome"
» "The LTC3035 low voltage operation is a plus in future communication devices."
» "Its ability to boost or buck low voltages is good for handheld device applications."
» "Nice part - I need to find an application for it."
» "Could be used also in small solar powered systems that would be used for data collection."
» "Seems to be optimized for battery powered designs."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(2) ANALOG DEVICES Capacitance-to-digital converter targets touch controls eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "ADI's latest devices complement the CDCs and impedance-to-digital converters (IDCs) that the company rolled out in March. Those CDCs (AD7745, AD7746 and AD7747), and IDCs (AD5933 and AD5934) targeted high precision sensor designs in industrial, automotive, and medical applications.
ADI's CDC (AD7142), on the other hand, targets the consumer space. Even though all the CDCs are based on ADI's sigma-delta architecture, they are very different devices." Readers say: » "Combination of low power and cost."
» "Reasonable pricing and neat concept."
» "Finally we're getting good, reasonably priced support for capacitance sensing."
» "An interesting part. It seems to be slated for applications where there is some sort of processor. It is also curious that the maximum button count is only 30. I would think you could have a 7x7 matrix, allowing for 49 buttons."
USABILITY RANK: 6
(3) QUICKFILTER Programmable signal converter provides sensor interface eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Quickfilter is a new venture that was incorporated in 2003. The company's programmable signal converter, which combines A/D functionality and digital filtering, is their very first product. "The converter acts like an analog front end board with digital processing in it," said Chris Phipps, Quickfilter's vice president of sales and marketing. "It enables fast design time, high filter performance, conserves board space, is easily configurable and there is no code to write," he added." Readers say: » "Reliable..."
» "I guess this makes sense if you don't want to write any software. Being a DSP guy, it doesn't excite me much."
» "Very high power consumption!"
» "Appears to be another well-thought-out system, with a tight focus on one specific function and good development support. The news release would have been more helpful if it had mentioned minor details like supply voltage and packaging; but the lack was a good excuse to download the data sheet. Very impressive. The beastie is definite overkill for our applications, and also a bit pricey; but the data sheet will definitely stay in the techlit file."
» "Very neat idea, and it will save us time in prototyping a signal processing application. However, for full production, we would probably program a conventional DSP or FPGA-based filtering algorithm to accomplish our objectives."
» "Very interesting and easy to use technology. The chip price seems a little high."
» "Low bandwidth. Need something like this for SDR but must have input range upto 1GHz." USABILITY RANK: 4
(4) MICROCHIP 22-bit A/Ds reside in 8-pin MSOP eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "These single-channel A/D converters are Microchip's first high-resolution converters utilizing the delta-sigma architecture. Although Microchip is known mostly for their microcontrollers, the company has many linear, thermal management, power management, mixed-signal and interface products." Readers say: » "I've never needed 22 bit and don't expect to - but who knows?"
» "Very nice, low cost 22-bit A/D."
USABILITY RANK: 3
(5) XIGNAL A/D converters break power barrier eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "The A/D converter market has grown somewhat stale in terms of technology advancements, according to newcomer Xignal Technologies. The company hopes to stir things up a bit with its first A/D converters. In addition to being the lowest power 12- and 14-bit converters in the industry, Xignal also claims to have conquered the complicated signal path beast with a much simpler design." Readers say: » "interest in high conversion rates for multi-Mpixel CCD imagers at 12/14-bit resolution."
» "Specmanship is something that gives transitory advantage only. If TSMC is offering this technology to Xignal then can the others be far behind?"
» "Interesting enough to be worth downloading a data sheet -- but not interesting enough to justify registering with their sales department before doing so. No sale."
» "Article title clearly states the advantage - lowest power in a 14-bit converter."
» "Nice power specs. bit pricey for consumer apps." USABILITY RANK: 5
(6) TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 14-bit A/D reaches 190 Msamples/s eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "TI claims these next-generation 14-bit devices provide breakthrough performance in terms of sampling speed, power consumption, package size, SNR and SFDR performance.
A key attribute of the ADS5546 is that it allows the user to select one of two interface modes on the same output pins ý CMOS or DDR LVDS. "This is the first time an A/D converter offers both of these interfaces on the same output. The DDR LVDS option will reduce the wiring complexity of the customer's board on top of reducing the package size of the A/D converter," said Yiannis Papantonopoulos, TI's systems and applications manager for high speed A/D converters. Similar devices with standard LVDS outputs require 28 different signal lines (14 x 2) ý and now TI is achieving this with 14 pins, he said." Readers say: » "May use for high-rate sampling of multi-Mpixel imagers"
» "Good price performance. In the 14-bit arena, this looks slike the best-of-breed."
» "It would be interesting to find out if TI will soon be coming out with something with similar sampling rate, but with 16-bit resolution (something like what LTC has recently announced)."
» "Good." USABILITY RANK: 7
(7) NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR Shrinking Class D amplifier moves to 0.4-mm pitch eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "National's Boomer family of audio amplifiers for portable applications range from 10 mW to 3 W. "Although National has hundreds of Boomer amplifiers, we currently offer eight Class D Boomer amplifiers," said Gary Adrig, director of marketing, National's Audio Group. "It's a smaller subset of the family. The others are mostly Class AB amplifiers," he said." Readers say: » "High Speed."
» "Good description of the parts and how they compare to prior technology. Part is priced very reasonably, and I will consider designing it in in the future."
» "More internal circuits & principles should be given that can avoid user to miss-use. I find difficulties in measuring the performance because class D amplifier usually require LC filter at the output but this one does not need. Would this affect the result? So more details & principles about output filterless class D should be given."
» "I'd like to see higher supply voltage, so it could run off series Lion pack." USABILITY RANK: 9
(8) MAXIM Digital pot interface controls volume and balance eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Maxim Integrated Products Inc.'s dual, 32-tap, audio-taper digital potentiometers feature a debounced, push-button interface for volume and balance control.
Consequently, the MAX5456 and MAX5457 digital potentiometers don't require an external microcontroller, GPIO, or any debounce circuitry for the control interface, the company said. An integrated algorithm separately controls volume and balance. The pots can be used in audio applications for fading and balancing stereo signals, stereo blending and mixing and for stereo volume control." Readers say: » "High powered device."
» "Solid innovation."
» "Could be useful for applications in which analog circuitry still needs to be adjusted. However, our applications all convert the data to digital form very early, making analog potentiometers a thing of the past."
» "By combining feature such as muting, debounce and pugh-button control into one package, the designed have made this component 'complete'. It is now a system building block allowing a product designer to focus on his application."
» "Functionality is very specific..and very good for audio consumer apps." USABILITY RANK: 8
(9) EXAR Mapper supports all protocols eeProductCenter's Bettyann Liotta says: "Exar is expecting this mapper/framer, which is actually part Infineon Technologies AG (Munich, Germany), to jumpstart its entry into the Ethernet-over-Sonet (EoS) market.
In April, Exar purchased a significant chunk of Infineon's Optical Networking(ON) Business.
The acquisition gave Exar additional know-how and a system engineering team that launched the company into the EoS market, said Sid Yenamandra, Exar's senior manger, Ethernet and Sonet/SDH product line.
The first device in this upcoming family of mappers (EXtendAR 48) is aimed at the packet portion of the optical networking arena. There are no other EoS framer packets that permit any type of packet data to be mapped and transmitted over legacy systems, according to Yenamandra. "No one else is integrating 48 channels of DS3/E3 mapping on a single chip with virtual VCAT/LCAS and legacy framing functionality," he said. In the past, this function required two framers." Readers say: » "Nice Architecture."
» "Exar has always been a weak player in this space. Expertise and Support are key to wining designs. Buying their technology from Infineon doesn't fix their long term perception problem. Would rather deal with a company with lots of experience like PMC."
» "It's not cheap, but it sounds like it can provide a level of integration that could more than offset its cost. This could result in enhanced functionality and/or reduction in parts. The reduction in parts would most likely translate into an increase in reliability."
USABILITY RANK: 10
(10) INTERSIL Web-based operational amplifier simulator tool saves time eeProductCenter's BettyAnn Liotta says: "Based on input and output specs provided by the user, Intersil Corp. claims this free, interactive, iSim Web-based simulator tool will find the right Intersil operational amplifier for a given application.
In many cases, simulation is also available for immediate feedback on circuit performance, the company said.
The iSim simulator tool has an applications-based Intersil analog signal processing solution selector with dynamic input fields to match a designer's input and output requirements. Options include inverting and non-inverting gain, transimpedance, differential, and low and high pass filter configurations. All applicable Intersil devices are listed, with many of them available for simulation. When available for simulation, a reference schematic is generated for simulation, based on the designer's specifications." Readers say: » "Very effective and high performance."
» "Feasibility and strong..."
» "Probably only useful for inexperienced engineers."
» "Article is a bit brief. Is this somewhat similar to the Webench software that competitor National offers?"
» "Where's the beef? It's a sales tool." USABILITY RANK: 2
