(1) SILICON LABORATORIES Monolithic radio for GSM/GPRS integrates a complete phone on a single chip. eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "The GSM/GPRS market is growing, but so are all of the rest of the wireless markets. So, how do manufacturers keep up with the necessary R&D and inventory management to support all of the current and emerging 3G and now 4G technologies? The team at Silicon Laboratories has an answer: reduce component count by 75% without sacrificing performance." Readers say: » "I prefer the CDMA technology to GSM."
» "Interesting idea - I think will interest a limited audience."
» "Going to be a horse race between TI, SiLabs, & Infineon for these high-integration GSM/GPRS chips."
» "It would seem that Silicon labs have solved a long standing problem of the component count without sacrificing quality of the product."
» "Try to re-design the front end receiver to acquire 6dB lower in sensitivity."
» "Builiding RF components around a digital sybsystem, great achievement, Would surely help in rolling out still smaller phones with greater battery backups and more scope for feature addition"
» "The degree of integration is just amazing."
» "It is exciting that single chip cellular phone radio solutions are available. Qualcomm recently introduced a CDMA single chip solution."
» "Looks promising."
» "Pretty good in general."
» "The right product for the current market trend."
» "Dependable product."
» "The perfect solution to the current phone market. The best single chip solution with broad range of capabilities."
» "Strong commercial potential."
» "Reducing component count and maintaining the integrity of design, very commendable."
» "Great to see this happen."
» "The costs savings and power management potential makes this a great product."
» "Just what you need when an important business call comes in is to have the battery go dead because you have been listening to the radio all day."
» "Excellent concept - cost reduction and ease of manufacture!"
» "I'm impressed by the 75% reduction in components for a GSM/GPRS handset when using the Si4905 chip."
» "One step closer to having our personal communications device as part of our wrist watch. Dick Tracy, come in."
» "Looks like an interesting and better way to integrate the GSM phone."
» "I have been waiting for someone to come up with a satelite phone service . I think this is the wave of the future."
» "It's realy good for emergencys..."
USABILITY RANK: 1
(2) CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR Transceiver reduces power for wireless connectivity eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Designers of wireless mouse/keyboard combinations, remote controls, and wireless/VoIP headsets are highly concerned with power consumption. As with all portable equipment, consumers want exceptional functionality, long battery life, and low cost. Looking to lock in a lead in this market, Cypress Semiconductors has designed its second-generation WirelessUSB product which is also known as WirelessUSB LP or part number CYRF6936." Readers say: » "Whenever we endevour to create ease and wireless systems interference is always experienced."
» "It is not certified wireless USB."
USABILITY RANK: 2
(3) WIQUEST UWB designs get performance boost eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Many are predicting that 2006 will be the breakout year for Ultrawideband (UWB). In preparation, the designers at WiQuest Communications have had their noses to the proverbial grindstone for the past two years. The result, an impressive Gigabit UWB chipset, including the WQST110 WiMedia-compatible UWB chip and the WQST101 RF transceiver chip." Readers say: » "No Tx power and Rx sensitivity specifications"
» "Great for company intranet wireless!"
» "Wideband is the way to go."
» "The price will have to drop rapidly in order to win the highest volume portion of the marketplace."
USABILITY RANK: 5
(4) ATMEL RFID applications get performance boost with new IC eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Atmel Corporation announced the availability of its new low-frequency RFID IC ATA5558 with integrated anti-collision functionality. The ATA5558 is a contactless Read/Write (R/W) RFID device for multi- or single-tag applications in the low frequency (LF) range, such as animal identification, laundry management, industrial automation, item tagging, and ISO cards." Readers say: » "Very good design and detailed data sheet."
» "Excellent product."
USABILITY RANK: 3
(5) NAVSYNC GPS receiver offers -158 dBm sensitivity eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "NavSync Ltd. has released a functionally equivalent alternative to the Motorola M12+ GPS receiver previously available from Motorola. Based on NavSyncıs CW25 OEM GPS receiver, the CW12 offers 5m RMS positional accuracy and -158 dBm tracking sensitivity, which are both improvements as compared to the M12+." Readers say: » "Try to include display board for evaluation package to be used by automtive applications." » "Good cost, what is the power consumption?"
» "Good competitor to the incumbent manufacturer."
» "Excellent price performance ratio."
USABILITY RANK: 4
(6) SILICON LABORATORIES Single chip serves as satellite front-end eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Satellite receivers typically feature complicated board layouts with many components, including a tuner, demodulator, and a power supply chip, and all of the associated routing of signals between these chips. These designs are challenged by having to avoid noise and interference on the printed circuit board (PCB) traces. The team at Silicon Laboratories decided to streamline these functions, and integrated the tuner, demodulator, and power supply chip into a single IC, known as the SiRX family of satellite front-ends." Readers say: » "Try to re-design your input power to -91 dBm."
» "Nice piece of hardware to limit piracy."
USABILITY RANK: 8
(7) ANADIGICS WLAN RF front end realized on a single die for portable apps eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "WLANs have certainly become ubiquitous. In homes, businesses, and "hot spots," users open up their portable computers and have effectively taken the workplace to airports, coffee shops, and hotel lobbies. The next trend in the WLAN market may very well be accessing WLAN on smaller devices, such as PDAs, phones, adapters, and digital cameras. To enable this functionality, designers need compact devices that are also optimized for power consumption." Readers say: » "While tag line is interesting, there may still be challenges in terms of yield for a new integration technology." USABILITY RANK: 6
(8) AMI SEMICONDUCTOR Transceiver saves battery power in industrial/medical applications eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "The market for ultra low power transceivers is looking good, and the team at AMI Semiconductor has positioned its new AMIS-53000 to serve both the medical and industrial markets on both the handset/terminal and the remote sides of the link. Satisfying the requirements of the FCC and ETSI medical regulatory requirements, the AMIS-53000 has been designed with "clear channel assessment," a technique that allows the device to search through the 402 to 405 MHz medical implantable bands or any 9 channels of its entire 300 to 928 MHz frequency range and select the clearest available channel to wake up the remote unit." Readers say: » "Redesign the front end sensitivity down to -115dBm to be more competitve."
» "They are attacking the battery life issue from the requirement side which is good." USABILITY RANK: 9
(9) MISTRAL SOFTWARE GPS reference design supports advanced functionality eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "Mistral Software, Inc. has introduced its next-generation Navigation Reference Design (NRD) that incorporates SiRF Technology Holdings Inc.'s latest SiRFstarIII GPS chipset. It is designed to provide product developers with a quick start build for their next generation GPS devices with enhanced wireless capabilities." Readers say: » "I am interested to see the spec for tracking sensitivity."
» "Having the four major RF modules on a single board makes this a great tool for product developers." USABILITY RANK: 7
(10) MAXSTREAM MaxStream has announced a new version of the XBee development kit eeProductCenter's Janine Love says: "MaxStream has announced a new version of the XBee development kit that offers OEMs and systems integrators the ability to load their own code to the MaxStream's XBee and XBee-PRO RF moduleıs processor. The XBee Professional Developerıs Kit is designed specifically for ZigBee applications that require a customized software configuration." Readers say: » "Re-design for -115dBm sensitivity." USABILITY RANK: 10
