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Product Shopper New Product Info

(1)
ADTRON CORP
IDE, SATA 2.5-in. Flash disks pack up to 160-Gbytes

eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "Solid state flash disk manufacturer Adtron Corp. launched the most advanced generation of its Flashpak product family, including the IDE and Serial ATA (SATA) flash disk models, the I25FB and A25FB, respectively. According to Adtron, the Flashpak product family now includes the highest capacity 2.5-in. SLC NAND flash disk drives at 160 Gbytes. The company said it has been able to expand the capacity in its products due to new geometries and chip densities in SLC NAND."

Readers Say:

"Depends on cost. In my computer life, I have lost nearly 10 HD and am getting tired."
"Very significant development. Very useful for high altitude data storage"
"Adoption will be driven by price (duh!)"
"The price needs to come down quite significantly to be widely used. Not there yet."
"Solves a lot of reliability issues"
"Some of our products require the ruggedized environment and the "Solid State" Disks have been significant in achieving this goal."

USABILITY RANK: 1

(2)
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
TI's 350 MHz floating-point DSP targets audio processing

eeProductCenter's Emily Gleason says: "The TMS320C6727B is a 350-MHz floating-point DSP developed by Texas Instruments for applications including audio conferencing, multi-channel audio systems, audio broadcast biometric and industrial solutions."

Readers Say:

"This could be useful in future apps."
"Well known processor at a reasonable price."
"Need DSP for fast A/D processing"

USABILITY RANK: 3

(3)
AMD
Desktop processors target energy efficiency, high performance

eeProductCenter's Gina Roos says: "AMD has introduced three desktop processors that are designed for energy-efficient and high-performance computing applications. The energy-efficient 45-watt AMD Athlon 64 single-core processors 3500+ and 3800+ save energy and offer significant performance-per-watt benefits, while the AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor 6000+ provides high performance. The energy-efficient AMD Athlon 64 processors 3500+ and 3800+ are based on 65-nm technology. Using the reduced line widths enabled by 65-nm technology, AMD can produce more processors on a 300-mm wafer while manufacturing processors designed for low-power consumption."

Readers Say:

"Less power means less heat which is always good."

USABILITY RANK: 5

(4)
ATMEL
Microcontrollers integrate power-saving technology

eeProductCenter's Gina Roos says: "Atmel Corporation has released four AVR microcontrollers that incorporate a power-saving technology for multi-year battery life in LCD, lighting control, security, home automation, ZigBee and other battery applications. The AVR products are upgraded versions of the 64-pin ATmega325/329 and the 100-pin ATmega3250/3290 microcontrollers."

Readers Say:

"Nothing exciting here. Both the TI TMS430 and Renesas H8/SLP have been doing this for years. Atmel is late to the party."
"Sounds very attractive to Zigbee devices."
"Late to the game, another me-too product."

USABILITY RANK: 6

(5)
INTEL
Intel launches NAND Flash-based solid-state drive

eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "Intel Corp. entered the solid-state drive market with a NAND Flash-based device that is designed with industry-standard USB interfaces. The Intel Z-U130 Value Solid State Drive comes in 1-Gbyte, 2-Gbyte, 4-Gbyte and 8-Gbyte densities. It delivers fast reads of 28-Mbytes/s and write-speeds of 20-Mbytes/s."

Readers Say:

"The "65ma typical" idle current is a killer. What is the target price?"
"Seems to me, that SanDisk is way ahead of Intel in this space."
"USB is not always better, especially when there are IDE/SATA flash drives boasting more than twice the speed of these drives. Would have to see pricing to judge the VALUE aspect."
"Not highly significant to the market. The speeds are good, but not excellent for the price."

USABILITY RANK: 2

(6)
STREAM PROCESSORS
DSP removes programming barriers for parallel processors

eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "Stream Processors Inc. announced the first members of its Storm-1 family of data-parallel DSPs - the SP16-G160 and the SP8-G80. Based on the company's SPI Stream Processor Architecture, the Storm-1 family combines the ability to scale to 80 giga multiplications and accumulations per second (GMACs/s) performance with a C programming model. The chips are housed in a 31x31mm plastic ball grid array (PBGA) packaging and implemented in 130-nm, 1-V standard CMOS process."

Readers Say:

"Seems easier to use than FPGAs, much more performance than other DSPs."
"Depends on future program types on proposal wins."
"Programming barrier removal is a good thing."

USABILITY RANK: 8

(7)
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
TI beefs-up MSP430-based development tool offerings

eeProductCenter's Marty Gold says: "Targeting designers of portable, battery-powered applications, Texas Instruments has launched its new T2012 and the MSP-Mojo target boards for TI's eZ430 development tool. In a Universal Serial Bus (USB) stick form factor, the eZ430 evaluation and development tool allows users to evaluate the MSP430 MCU architecture in minutes and also gives experienced developers all the resources they need to complete an entire MSP430F20xx project from start to finish. "

Readers Say:

"This looks pretty cool. Affordable to evaluate"
"Easier methods of checking individual ICs is becoming paramount. USB type interfaces are perfect."
"The more low-cost development tools out there, the better!"
"Really would need to get one to tell for sure, but I will definitely try it. I am rating based on TI's name right now and the fact I will buy one."

USABILITY RANK: 4

(8)
LEGACY ELECTRONICS
4-Gbyte FB-DIMM eliminates dual die devices

eeProductCenter's Ismini Scouras says: "To meet the needs of PC design engineers and systems integrators, Legacy Electronics has developed a 4-Gbyte DDR2 fully buffered dual in-line memory module (FB-DIMM) in a JEDEC-standard pin-out. The 4-Gbyte DDR2 FB-DIMM is offered in a low-profile (1.18 inch or 30mm) PCB height in speeds ranging from PC2-3200 to PC2-5300."

Readers Say:

"I would need the price to come way down unless a specific application warranted the cost."
"The price for leading edge densities is hard to swallow in our consumer products. This is very useful in blade servers however."
"Wow, now even your memory needs heatsinks!"
"Outrageous price"
"Only problem I have with it is the cost - you can still buy up to 4 Gbytes cheaper than one of these bad boys. Bring the cost down a bit."

USABILITY RANK: 7

(9)
QUICKLOGIC
USB 2.0 high-speed host controllers provide multiple connectivity options

eeProductCenter's Emily Gleason says: "QuickLogic developed ArcticLink; a programmable connectivity solution platform targeting mobile devices. The platform reduces design time and risk by embedding high-performance controllers, a programmable fabric for implementing additional controllers and peripheral connectivity, as well as a selectable processor interface. ArcticLink supports emerging mobile applications including smartphones, media players, navigation systems, industrial products and ExpressCard peripherals."

Readers Say:

"Finally, it's about time that someone produces a reasonably priced peripheral expansion that includes IDE and doesn't require your core architecture to mimic a PC! Pricing looks good, I'll have to see the data sheet though, having to request it is kind of a pain."

USABILITY RANK: 9

(10)
ANALOG DEVICES
Power-managed chips to implement simultaneous DSP, control, and applications processing eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "When they become available, ADI's Blackfin ADSP-BF52x line-up of scalable DSPs will share some of the benefits accrued to the TI devices, but the company's thrust will squarely target nomadic systems designers, with the hooks to enable video and audio on a single platform that can serve as a system's controller, applications processor, and signal processor."

Readers Say:

"This is a useful product."

USABILITY RANK: 10

In case you were wondering, 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 the 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. More than 1,000 of you helped to choose these products. As always, we are grateful for your enthusiastic participation.

Patrick Mannion
Editor-in-Chief, Techonline Network and eeProductcenter.com
pmannion@cmp.com