This past March in San Francisco, EDN magazine honored the innovative products and engineers of the electronics industry for the 15th time. Launched in 1990, the EDN Innovation Awards provide recognition for engineers and companies that bring compelling new ideas to fruition in products ranging from passive components and analog ICs to test instruments and EDA tools. Looking back at the finalists and winners over 15 years offers a microcosm of the electronics industry. Winning technologies are abundant in such a review, although the agony of defeat is evident as well.

I was lucky enough to be at the first Innovation banquet back in the fall of 1990 at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco—the same venue in which EDN held the 15th-annual banquet this year. I had actually forgotten that we started out with a fall awards program. But when we selected the venue this year, I remembered that some of us back in 1990 were treated to an impromptu performance by the wacky Stanford band as they marched on Nob Hill—it was the week before The Big Game (between Stanford and Cal). The Cal band didn't show, but then again they have had the good sense to stay out of the way over the years.

This year, one of the featured speakers, Dr. Geoffrey Orsak of SMU, provided the football connection. Orsak noted how an uncluttered mind led both Dallas Cowboy seldom-used quarterback Clint Longley and Philo Farnsworth, who conceived the basics of how TVs work as a teenager on a rural Utah farm, to success.

This was a different industry in 1990. Wescon was still a major show. Comdex was courting the IC vendors and starting to convince some to exhibit at the computer-centric event. But the vendors of catalog ICs, test and measurement equipment, passive components and even software development tools called Wescon home. Indeed, the first four Innovation banquets were fall affairs held in conjunction with Wescon.

As for the finalists and winners over the years, many have also proven to be winners in the market. The second year for instance, the Hewlett-Packard 54600A DSO (digital storage oscilloscope) was a winner. HP still makes that scope today.

To celebrate 15 years of innovation this spring, we took a look back at the best of best over the years. The list included the HP scope, along with the Intel Pentium processor, Analog Devices MEMS-based acceleration sensor, Mentor's DSP Station software, the Xilinx/Philips CoolRunner PLD family and Texas Instruments' C55x DSP. All of these products have demonstrated long-term success in the market and were incredibly innovative at launch. Who knew back in 1991 that MEMS-based sensors would make air bags in cars work?

The C55x was chosen the "Best of 15 years" via the Innovation voting process. It was a fitting choice as Texas Instruments transformed DSP technology from a specialty tool used in labs to the basis of mobile phones, digital cameras, broadband modems and other high-volume products.

There were also many finalists over the years of Innovation that didn't win an award, but have proven extremely successful in the market. For instance, CompactFlash memory was nominated back in 1994. CompactFlash was the format that drove volume production that in turn made even today's ubiquitous USB Flash sticks a reality.

We've also seen our share of finalists and winners that were derailed in the market—although not necessarily because the technology was lacking. For instance, Hitachi's DVD-RAM drive won in 1997 and is in fact still sold today. But DVD-RAM didn't become a mainstream product because Sony and Philips spent millions promoting DVD+R/RW drives. A 1GB Datasonix tape drive won in 1995, but tape drives have been relegated to niche use by huge hard drives, rewritable optical drives and Flash. A decade ago, who predicted 1GB Flash would be affordable? Finally, some products were just too ambitious. Mentor had the best of intentions when it announced Falcon Framework back in 1991, but bringing disparate EDA tools under a unified software platform proved impossible.

I'm sure the 2005 awards include future market winners as well. I like the Knowles MEMS-based microphone and the 3-D memory from Matrix Semiconductor. Stanford professor Dr. Tom Lee, the featured speaker at Innovation 2003, was one of the founders of Matrix. Back in 2003, Lee both entertained and informed—an unlikely combination given that the after-dinner topic was basically roadblocks to Moore's Law.

Maury Wright is editor-at-large for EDN.