Once again, qualified readers of EE Times and eeProductCenter have selected the best of the best--the top products in each of seven categories in our quarterly Ultimate Products survey. The categories are Analog, RF & Microwave, Logic/Programmable Logic and Interface, Test & Measurement, Processors and Memory, Power and Interconnection/Passives and Electromechanical. The results highlighted here are for products introduced during the second quarter of 2007. Read on to see which products you and your peers deem worthy.

From the always popular world of Analog ICs, Supertex's HV758 high-speed, four-channel ultrasound pulser IC takes top honors. As one voter put it: "I gave it a 5 for sig. because I've done some ultrasound designs before, and it looks like a part I would have used if it had been available." Hindsight provides a 20/20 kudo for Supertex. For Microwave & RF, Xceive Corp. takes the prize with its XC4000 series of integrated hybrid silicon tuners for terrestrial television and PC-TVs. "Remarkable," as one voter put it.

For Logic and Programmable logic, Xilinx wins out with its Virtex-4 FPGA-based deserializer for TI's ADS6000 ADC line, while Freescale wins in the Memory and Processors category with its Multicore Communications Platform based on its PowerQUICC family. However, as one voter puts it, "Multi-core products are only as good as the firmware that can leverage the multiple cores." That may yet have to be determined.

In the realm IP&E, Omron takes top billing with its EE-SX1 series of non-amplified, slotted phototransistors in a fixed "U-shaped" housing that integrates both the emitter and detector. Developed for motion and position detection, the EE-SX1 series of transmissive photomicrosensors detect the presence of an object without direct contact. For Power, TI's UCD9080, F28044 and UCD91xx power controllers are the clear winner. Finally, in Test & Measurement, Agilent Technologies N6705A DC power analyzer wins for being just plain useful.

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 10, with 10 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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Analog ICs

IP&E

Power

Logic & Programmable Logic

Processors & Memory

RF & Microwave

Test & Measurement

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