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May 7, 1998
The WINNERS of EDN's
Innovator/Innovation Competition
Your Web votes have been tallied in EDN's annual campaign to
recognize the most innovative people and products of the year. At a black-tie-optional
dinner on April 22, EDN's editors honored the winners and all the finalists from
this year's competition.
Innovator of the Year
Bozena Kaminska
 Bozena Kaminska, co-founder
and chief technology officer of Opmaxx Inc, is the
Innovator of the Year for R&D that led to commercially available analog design and
test automation (ADTA) tools. Opmaxx's ADTA tools
offer a comprehensive, structured approach for design analysis and automated testing of
analog and mixed-signal systems. Kaminska's accomplishments allow analog design to join
digital design as part of mainstream ASIC technology.
Known for her research in digital testing, Kaminska began analog and
mixed-signal investigations in 1991. She has made significant contributions in testability
of analog and mixed-signal ICs and systems; design for testability and BIST; reliability
sensors for online and offline monitoring; high-level synthesis and synthesis with
testability; gigahertz-range mixed-signal design; and optical interconnects. Kaminska
holds a PhD in microelectronics from Warsaw Technical University (Poland). In 1994, she
founded hfOPTEX Inc, a high-frequency-IC-design company, and two years later co-founded Opmaxx.
Opmaxx Inc,
Beaverton, OR. www.opmaxx.com
Digital IC
AM29DL800 Simultaneous Read/Write Flash Memory
 The AM29DL800 addresses one
shortcoming of all previous flash memories: the inability to access locations within the
array while you're writing or erasing other locations, even if they're in separate
sectors. This drawback forced you to copy update algorithms to a redundant second memory
and execute from that device while updating flash-memory contents. It also precluded
interrupt servicing during updates, forcing you to take equipment offline unless you used
awkward and nondeterministic suspend and resume routines.
AMD divides the 8-Mbit array into two
internal banks. Bank 1 includes two 16-kbyte, two 32-kbyte, and four 8-kbyte blocks, and
Bank 2 comprises 14 64-kbyte blocks. You can read from any block in one bank while
programming or erasing a block in the other bank. Possible operating scenarios include
reading an algorithm from the boot block while updating code segments or executing system
code while rewriting data. The 29DL800 is in production, and its price is $9.05 (10,000).
AMD Corp, Sunnyvale, CA.
www.amd.com
Analog IC
AD8116 16×16 Video Crosspoint Switch
 Traditionally, the size,
complexity, and cost of a crosspoint switch increases exponentially with the number of
channels it handles, and performance factors, such as bandwidth, suffer. The AD8116 uses
an array of 256 transconductance stages organized as 16 16-to-1 multiplexers, fed by a
common 16-line analog-input bus. You program the desired input-to-output path via an
80-bit serial word. The 3-dB bandwidth of the switch is 200 MHz, and the 0.1-dB bandwidth
is 60 dB; differential gain and phase errors are 0.01% and 0.01°, respectively. Because
the 128-lead TQFP device incorporates input and output buffers on all channels, you can
cascade it to create larger arrays without compromising bandwidth or fidelity. The IC's
outputs can drive loads as low as 150 ohms. It costs $105 (100).
Analog Devices Inc,
Norwood, MA. www.analog.com
Microprocessor/DSP
TMS320C6x VLIW DSP
 Texas
Instruments' TMS320C6x DSP is the first general-purpose, programmable,
very-long-instruction-word (VLIW) DSP. The C6x is also the first code-compatible fixed-
and floating-point DSP architecture. The fixed-point TMS32C62x core comprises eight
parallel functional units. To build the floating-point C6x, the C67x, TI added IEEE floating-point support to six of the C62x's
eight functional units. Therefore, the C67x instruction set is a superset of the C62x
fixed-point instruction set; thus, the C67x runs unmodified C62x instructions.
"VLIW" can mean large code, but TI overcame this
drawback by developing instruction packing techniques. Execution begins when the CPU
fetches an eight-instruction, 256-bit-wide fetch packet. The CPU need not simultaneously
execute all eight instructions in the fetch packet; instead, the CPU partitions fetch
packets into multiple execution packets that each comprise one to eight parallel
instructions. The C6x is also the first DSP to run at 200 MHz.
Texas Instruments,
Stafford, TX. www.ti.com
Computer/Peripheral
GF-1000 Rewritable DVD-RAM Drive
 Hitachi's
GF-1000 rewritable DVD drive can record 2.6 Gbytes of data on each side of a CD-sized
disc. The drive costs $750 (internal unit) and $850 (external unit), as the company hopes
customers will consider a rewritable drive rather than a DVD-ROM drive. The drive can read
a variety of media, including DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, CD-R (record-once CD media) and CD-RW
(rewritable) disks. To offer such support, Hitachi
developed a dual-lens/dual-laser optical head. The drive senses the type of media inserted
and rotates a lens into place to focus the laser for the media type. A second 780-nm laser
allows the drive to read CD-R and CD-RW disks. The GF-1000 features an access time of just
22 msec. A 1-Mbyte, on-drive buffer and spin rates comparable with 24x CD-ROM drives
result in a data-transfer rate of 1.38 Mbytes/sec when working with DVD-RAM media. The
drive complies with the DVD-RAM standard established by the DVD Forum.
Hitachi America Ltd,
Brisbane, CA. 1-415-589-8300
Embedded Development
Rhapsody Software-Development Tool
 The Rhapsody
software-development tool allows real-time designers to analyze, design, develop, and
verify the behavior of embedded-systems software using object-oriented techniques.
Rhapsody eliminates the coding phase of the project by automatically generating complete
C++ code from the designer's graphic model. The tool is based on the Unified Modeling
Language (UML). Users select from a palette of UML design elements. Message-sequence
charts describe interactions between objects and the environment, object-model diagrams
define the structure of the system, and state charts model the system's event-driven
behavior. While debugging the target code, Rhapsody can display execution behavior. You
select software instrumentation to cause executable code to animate the application's
operation. Prices start at $2495 per seat.
I-Logix Inc, Andover,
MA. 1-978-682-2100, www.ilogix.com
Test and Measurement
Infinium Digital Oscilloscopes
 HP's
$9995 to $29,995 Infinium DSOs feature changes to the operator interface. Because most
users are skeptical at first about controlling a DSO with a mouse, HP designed the Infinium series with an analog-scopelike
front panel from which you can perform all operations without using the mouse. The DSOs
let you turn inputs on and off with pushbuttons that glow green when the channel is on.
Each channel also has its own set of position and gain controls, and each channel's knob
color matches that of the corresponding trace. The design eliminates the need for soft
keys and the associated menus. The mouse lets you reposition a waveform simply by dragging
it around the screen. Behind the bright, sharp, 7.5-in.-diagonal, color LCD is Windows 95.
A Pentium-class µP speeds screen updates to around 700 updates/sec.
Hewlett-Packard Co,
Loveland, CO. 1-800-452-4844
Component, Hardware, Interconnect
Amorphous-Silicon X-ray Detector
 EG&G's amorphous-silicon
X-ray detector is a digital X-ray imaging system that comprises a scintillation screen for
converting X-rays to visible light, a large-scale photodiode imaging array, and associated
drive and readout electronics. The company produces amorphous-silicon ICs containing as
many as 4 million elements on substrates as large as 41×41 cm. The array captures and
stores X-ray images for medical and industrial uses. Each photodiode produces an output
signal proportional to the intensity of visible light emerging locally from the
scintillation screen. Collated and digitized by readout ASICs, the photodiode signals
become picture elements for a digital X-ray image. According to EG&G, the array
represents the first practical, commercial application of amorphous-silicon-based
technology. The MX1024 1024×1024-pixel imaging array costs $25,000; the RID 512-400
complete, real-time X-ray camera offers 512×512-pixel resolution and costs $35,000.
EG&G Amorphous Silicon, Santa Clara, CA.
1-408-565-0850
Power Source
LT1533 Low-Noise Switching Regulator
 The LT1533 switching-regulator
IC from Linear Technology allows you to configure
dc/dc converters that have essentially no output, radiated, or reflected noise. It
eliminates noise by restricting the harmonic content of the switched power. It controls
its output power switches in a closed-loop feedback configuration. The feedback controls
the transition (slew) rate at which the switches turn on and off. The closed-loop control
of the transition slew rate greatly reduces harmonic content, resulting in
near-theoretical noise levels. The LT1533 maintains the advantages of conventional
switching regulators while cutting the switching noise to essentially nothing. The slowed
switching transitions result in some efficiency loss, typically 2 to 5%, but
noise-sensitive applications can usually tolerate slightly compromised efficiency. The
LT1533 costs $4.95 (1000).
Linear Technology Corp,
Milpitas, CA. 1-408-432-1900
Eda
FormalCheck Model Checker for Complex Chips
 FormalCheck is a
formal-verification tool you use without test vectors to verify design functionality. You
use the tool at the RTL before synthesis on entire chips or on embedded cores. You first
enter your design in synthesizable Verilog or VHDL. You then fill in a query template
that, along with the design's RTL model, FormalCheck translates into a mathematical
property that proves to be either true under all possible conditions or false under at
least one condition. Because FormalCheck has a simple pass/fail response for each property
checked, if the property passes (is true), there are no design bugs relating to that
property. If the tool finds an error for a query, it shows you the error in a
simulationlike waveform with automatic traceback to the problem line of HDL code.
FormalCheck costs $150,000.
Lucent Technologies,
Bell Labs Design Automation, Murray Hill, NJ. 1-908-582-4083 |
