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May 8, 1997
EDN's
1996 INNOVATOR / INNOVATION COMPETITION
AND THE WINNER IS...
Your votes have been tallied in EDN's annual
campaign to recognize innovative people and products.
From the group of finalists that appeared in our Feb 17,
1997 issue (pg 37), you have chosen the
year's best. We are proud to present the winners and
congratulate all the nominations in a strong field of
entries.
| INNOVATORS |
| David
Bingham and Charlie Allen |
| The team of David Bingham and
Charlie Allen of Maxim Integrated Products has
been working together for 13 years. Allen,
managing director of corporate applications,
defines products; Bingham, a senior scientist and
a Maxim founder, designs them. Allen has a BSEE
from Michigan State University; Bingham has a BSc
degree from Imperial College London. Bingham has
more than 20 US patents, six of them held jointly
with Allen, and has four more pending. The team's
most recent success is an RS-232C transceiver
that uses two of Allen's patents in a
sophisticated automatic-shutdown procedure. These
parts look for activity (not just valid RS-232C
levels) on receiver and transmitter inputs. If no
activity exists on either, the transmitter shuts
down, saving significant power. No software is
needed to achieve the power savings; the chips
are drop-in replacements for previously existing
transceivers. |
Maxim
Integrated Products
Sunnyvale, CA
1-408-737-7600 |
Charlie Allen |
David Bingham |
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| DIGITAL
ICs |
| CoolRunner
CPLDs |
| There
are two key technologies in CoolRunner that give
you fast, high-density complex PLD (CPLD) chips:
extended PLA (XPLA) architecture and Philips'
Fast Zero Power (FZP) design technique. XPLA
combines PLDs and PALs on one device, providing
the advantages of both types of logic. You use
the PAL to provide the highest speed when you can
implement a logic function within the PAL array's
five dedicated product terms (PTs). You employ
the PLA for logic functions needing more PTs,
using PT sharing instead of PT steering. PT
sharing lets multiple macrocells share a PT. The
maximum incremental delay with a CoolRunner chip
is 2.5 nsec, whether a design uses one or all of
the 32 available PTs in a PLA array. XPLA-based
CoolRunner devices thus give increased logic
capacity and higher speed compared with CPLDs
that use a traditional PLA architecture. Prices
start at $18.47 (100). |
Philips
Semiconductors
Albuquerque,
NM
1-505-858-2739 |
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| ANALOG
ICs and SEMICONDUCTORS |
| MAX3238
Autoshutdown/Autowakeup RS-232C Transceiver |
| This
EIA/TIA-232 and V.28/V.24 serial-port IC, for
data rates to 250 kbps, incorporates an automatic
power-saving mode, which reduces quiescent
current from 500 to 1 µA. It further reduces
current drain by isolating the transmitters from
their loads (typically 3 kilohms each) in
shutdown mode, saving several milliamps. Shutdown
and wakeup operations are automatic and
self-induced, requiring no initiation via a
hardware-control signal or changes to the BIOS or
operating system. The single-supply IC works by
monitoring transmit and receive lines. $3.29
(1000). |
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| MICROPROCESSORS/CONTROLLERS
|
| PIC16C9XX
mCs with LCD Drivers |
| The
PIC16C9XX family combines Microchip's PIC core
with an innovative implementation of an LCD
controller. Whereas other low-cost LCD
controllers rely on a resistor ladder to generate
their LCD voltages, Microchip's LCD design
concentrates on a high-current,
switched-capacitor charge pump. This charge pump
operates off a 3V supply voltage. The charge pump
uses four external capacitors as part of an
analog sampling circuit that measures system
losses and overcharges accordingly. Specifically,
the charge pump can generate as much as three
times the supply voltage, resulting in improved
display contrast independent of varying battery
voltages. The first two devices in the PIC16C9XX
family are the PIC16C923 ($7.09, 1000) and
PIC16C924 ($7.84, 1000). |
|
| COMPUTERS
and PERIPHERALS |
| DSC-F1
Digital Still Camera |
| Digital
still cameras may still be a few years away from
replacing traditional cameras, but new devices
such as the Sony DSC-F1 provide several
capabilities that simply aren't possible using
traditional film. For example, the camera
designers developed multiple recording modes that
maximize creativity. A continuous mode records a
sequence of frames during 1 sec. A time-machine
mode records frames before and after the user
presses the shutter button. Finally, a
multiscreen mode captures a sequence of nine
frames at 1/30-sec intervals and automatically
composes the tiled action sequence into one
picture. The camera designers also tried to
ensure that users had easy access to captured
images. The camera can directly display images on
the integrated 1.8-in. color LCD or on a TV that
connects to the NTSC output. $849.99. |
Sony
Electronics Inc
San
Jose, CA
1-408-432-1600 |
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| EMBEDDED
DEVELOPMENT |
| SuperTAP
Microprocessor Emulator |
| Custom
ASICs help SuperTAP provide all the functions of
a traditional high-end emulator in a module that
fits in your pocket. The module replaces the CPU
in the target system, then communicates to a host
controller over an RS-232C, high-speed serial, or
Ethernet link. The host, running the CAD-UL XDB
debugger, displays trace data and controls the
emulator's operation. SuperTAP provides real-time
emulation at clock speeds to 33 MHz, traces code
execution with a 64k-sample buffer offering time
stamps, and provides overlay memory in 4k blocks
for the target system. Because SuperTAP has its
own communications path to the host system, it
does not use any target-system resources. The
device also has a secondary processor to handle
emulation tasks, so a target-system crash doesn't
kill emulation or trace activity. Similarly,
trace triggering, capture, and upload to the host
don't stop target-system operation. Prices start
at $13,495 for an Intel 386EX emulator. |
Applied
Microsystems Corp
Redmond, WA
1-206-882-2000 |
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|
| TEST
and MEASUREMENT |
| TDS 210
and 220, Small, Low-Cost Benchtop DSOs |
| The
TDS 210 (60-MHz bandwidth) and TDS 220 (100 MHz)
from Tektronix give back 75% of the bench space
that your DSO has been occupying. To do this,
these products replace the CRT with a bright,
high-contrast, back-lit LCD diagonally measuring
approximately 6 in. The resulting package has a
front panel that, at 6×12 in., is slightly
smaller than the panels of conventional scopes.
The new scopes are only 41/3 in. deep, however.
They weigh just 4.25 lb, and they offer some of
the industry's lowest DSO prices: $995 for the
TDS 210 and $1695 for the TDS 220. Each is a
two-channel unit that simultaneously samples both
channels in real time at 1G samples/sec/channel. |
Tektronix
Inc
Beaverton, OR
1-800-479-4490 |
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| COMPONENTS,
HARDWARE, and INTERCONNECT |
| AlInGaP
LEDs |
| A
line of LEDs uses a combination of
high-brightness material and optical mechanisms
that make these lamps ideal for outdoor
applications. Aluminum indium gallium phosphide
(AlInGaP) material gives the LEDs high luminous
output and enhanced readability in sunlight.
According to the manufacturer, the uniformity of
three features--color, brightness, and radiation
pattern--is crucial for light sources in traffic
signs and signals, for example. LEDs in outdoor
signals use only about 20% of the power of
incandescent lamps, and last six to 10 times as
long. The LEDs use special optical-lens
structures that allow precise control of light
output, thereby ensuring that the letters and
symbols in message panels appear consistently
sharp and bright over the specified viewing
angle. In million-piece lots, the LEDs cost
approximately $0.30. |
Hewlett-Packard
Co
Santa Clara, CA
1-800-537-7715, ext 2124 |
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|
| POWER
SOURCES |
| LM2825N
DC/DC Converter |
| The
LM2825N is the industry's first step-down, or
buck, dc/dc converter that integrates all the
usual external components into one 24-pin,
industry-standard package, according to the
manufacturer. A member of the Simple Switcher
family, the 1A device converts poorly regulated
voltages as high as 40V to well-regulated 3.3 or
12V levels. The LM2825N attaches all power
devices--active and passive--directly to a lead
frame without using a ceramic substrate. The lead
frame is 15 mils thick, compared with the usual 9
mils for most 24-pin packages. The converter
offers a standby mode with quiescent current
typically 65 µA. Typical operating quiescent
current is 5 mA. Efficiency is typically 80%,
with ±4% output-voltage tolerance. The LM2825N
operates with a 150-kHz switching frequency and
costs $8.55 (1000). |
National
Semiconductor Corp
Santa Clara, CA
1-800-272-9959 |
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| EDA
|
| Circuit
Envelope RF Simulator |
| Circuit
Envelope lets you analyze complex modulated-RF
signals. By incorporating both time- and
frequency-domain techniques, the software
overcomes some of the limitations of simulators
operating in only one domain. The runtime and
memory efficiencies of Circuit Envelope's
simulation are much better than those of a
time-domain simulator, such as Spice, or a
frequency-domain analysis, such as harmonic
balance. Spice uses time steps based on the RF
carrier or its harmonics. Modulation bandwidth,
which is much narrower than that of the frequency
carrier, dictates the time steps required by
Circuit Envelope. The narrower bandwidth results
in fewer time steps and faster runtime. Harmonic
balance, a frequency-domain simulation technique,
works best for steady-state simulations. This
technique needs large amounts of memory and time
to simulate digitally modulated waveforms,
because it uses a sum of Fourier harmonics to
represent the modulated signal. Circuit Envelope
costs $18,000/unit. |
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