Newton, MA -- January 24, 2005 -- EDN Magazine has named the finalists in its 15th Annual Innovation Awards; these finalists will now await final judging by their engineering peers. In this phase of the awards program, EDN magazine, the premier design publication for electrical engineers, publishes the finalists and asks its readers to vote for the best innovation or innovator in each category of competition.
"As always, we have a super group of finalists in our Innovation program this year. I'd say the transition to digital media and communications - especially wireless communications -- is the most prominent application trend that the nominated products are targeting. Indeed, we have DSPs for everything from mobile handsets to digital-media players; analog products, such as power amplifiers for wireless communications; and even test equipment that's absolutely vital in developing converged networks," states Maury Wright, EDN's editor at large.
Engineers wanting a voice in selecting the year's most outstanding engineers and technology advances can vote by going to www.edn.com/innovation.
Innovation Award finalists and categories are as follows:
INNOVATORS
Jim Wilson and the Blackfin processor design team, Analog Devices Ashraf Lotfi, Jian Tan, Trifon Liakopoulos, Robert Filas, Enpirion Susanne Paul, Silicon Laboratories
ANALOG ICs
AD8318 1-MHz to 8-GHz logarithmic detector/controller, Analog Devices
XRT Class-D audio power amplifier, D2Audio
LTC5100 VCSEL driver, Linear Technology
Si4300 CMOS power amplifier for GSM/GPRS, Silicon Laboratories
ASSPs/SOCs
Blackfin Fusiv media gateway platform, Analog Devices
AR5006X WLAN mixed-signal SOC, Atheros Communications
c.LINK-270 media distribution chip, Entropic Communications
MSM6100 mobile-station modem, Qualcomm
COMMUNICATIONS/NETWORKING ICs
PRS 5G/20G switch fabric, AMCC
AccelArray GigaFrame structured ASIC, Fujitsu Microelectronics
88P8344 SPI packet-exchange chip, IDT
MSM6100 mobile-station modem, Qualcomm
DIGITAL ICs
Stratix II FPGA family, Altera
3DM (3-D Memory), Matrix
Virtex-4 FPGA family, Xilinx
EDA
Allegro PCB SI 630, Cadence
DeltaFX software, Catalytic
JasperGold validation and verification tools, Jasper Design Automation
Webench active-filter design system, National Semiconductor
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
SBC4495 EPIC single-board computer, Micro/sys
MVME6100 single-board computer, Motorola
CompactRIO embedded system, National Instruments
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
XPM nonvolatile memory, Kilopass
Mobilize power-management IP core, Virtual Silicon Technology
PASSIVE COMPONENTS/SENSORS
MX1000 laser optical mouse, Agilent Technologies
A132x family linear Hall-effect sensors, Allegro MicroSystems
SiSonic MEMS-based SMT microphone, Knowles Acoustics
POWER ICs
EN5330 switch-mode synchronous dc/dc-converter IC, Enpirion
IR2520D adaptive CFL ballast IC, International Rectifier
DS2711 loose-cell NiMH and NiCd charger, Maxim Integrated Products
POWER SUPPLIES
CAR1248 front-end/rectifier, Cherokee International
Z-One Digital Intermediate Bus Architecture, Power-One
PROCESSORS
Pentium M processors, Intel
S5610 software-configurable processor, Stretch
Xtensa LX configurable processor, Tensilica
TMS32064x DSP, Texas Instruments
SOFTWARE
Integrity PC RTOS, Green Hills Software
Automotive Grade Linux, Metrowerks
Low-Power Design tool suite, Texas Instruments
TEST & MEASUREMENT
B4655A FPGA probe, Agilent
BERTScope 12500A BER analyzer, SyntheSys Research
TDS5000B series DPO oscilloscopes with MyScope, Tektronix
BEST CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES OF 2004
"Design-planning guidelines prevent chip surprises," Steve Lloyd, Rick Mitchell, Ron Spillman, and Jonathan Young, Synopsys Professional Services, Feb 5, 2004.
"Choosing the perfect TFT display" (parts one and two), Rob Dautel, All American Semiconductor, Feb 5, 2004, and Feb 19, 2004.
"A universal approach to hot-swapping power in telecom systems," Bob Neidorff, Texas Instruments High Performance Analog Products, March 4, 2004.
"Simple circuitry for cellular-telephone/camera-flash illumination,"Jim Williams and Albert Wu, Linear Technology Corp, May 27, 2004.
"Analysis of board layout helps cure jitter problems," Eric Bogatin, PhD, Synergetix, and Gene Garat, Mentor Graphics, Aug 5, 2004.
"Safety isolation protects users and electronic instruments," David Lohbeck, National Instruments, Sept 30, 2004.
GREATEST INNOVATIONS OF THE PAST 15 YEARS
CoolRunner CPLDs, Philips Semiconductor/Xilinx - 1996
C55x fixed-point DSP, Texas Instruments - 2000
Pentium processor, Intel - 1992
HP54600A 100-MHz DSO, Hewlett-Packard/Agilent - 1990
ADXL50 acceleration sensor, Analog Devices - 1991
DSP Station Software, Mentor Graphics - 1991
EDN Innvoation Awards
Event Details
EDN will hold the Innovation Awards ceremony from 6:00pm to 10:00pm on Monday, March 7th, 2005, at The Palace Hotel, New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA. Attendees can register for the event at www.edn.com/innovation. Featured guest speakers will be Walt Mossberg, longtime Wall Street Journal tech guru, and Geoffrey Orsak, one of the nation's top authorities on engineering education and global competitiveness.
About the EDN Innovation Awards Program
Now in their 15th year, the EDN Innovation Awards honor the people, products, and technologies that have shaped the electronics industry over the past year. In addition to recognizing the innovators of today, the program also nurtures the award-winning designers of tomorrow through an annual contribution to engineering education. EDN donates a portion of the proceeds from the Innovation Awards ceremony to the engineering university of the Innovator of the Year's choice. Previous winners include Advanced Micro Devices, Altera, Agilent Technologies, Analog Devices, Apache Design Solutions, Broadcom, Cadence Design Systems, Cornice, Cypress Semiconductor, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Green Hills Software, International Rectifier, Linear Technology, Mentor Graphics, Motorola, National Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, The Mathworks, and Vicor Corporation.
About EDN
EDN, the premier design magazine of the electronics industry, is published by Reed Business Information. Headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts, EDN serves the vital information needs of design engineers and engineering managers worldwide. The EDN franchise includes EDN, EDN Europe, EDN Asia, EDN Australia, EDN China, EDN Japan, and EDN.com. EDN is a publication within Reed Electronics Group, part of Reed Elsevier plc group (NYSE: RUK and ENL) -- a world-leading publisher, trade show producer, and information provider operatin
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