Readers Honor Seven Products
As Best of 2005

When it comes to recognizing the best, we turn to our readers. EE—Evaluation Engineering’s 12th annual Readers’ Choice Awards is no exception. We appreciate all the readers who took time from their very busy schedule to vote for the best products from among the many published in EE during 2005.

The selection process began by compiling a group of products representing ATE, Communications Test, Data Acquisition, Environmental Test, Instrumentation, PC Test, and Software. These determinations were based on the number of responses that each product received during the year through EE’s RSLeads program.

Our voting process was simple. EE readers selected at random were e-mailed an invitation to vote. The invitation included a URL that linked the invitation to the ballot plus accompanying information on the selected products. The ballot also was available to visitors on the homepage of our website. The votes were tallied, and here are the results.

ATE
The ATE award goes to Advantest America for the T7722, a mixed-signal tester that accommodates digital and analog modules with a maximum of 128 channels for simultaneously testing up to eight 32-pin mixed-signal ICs. It also features a 62.5-MHz high-speed digital test module to handle high-throughput test of mixed-signal circuits such as the high-density AD/DA converters used in audio and video applications.
 

Software
This is the third consecutive year that National Instruments has swept the award for software. For 2005, it is LabVIEW 8, which introduces distributed intelligence with a simpli­fied, scalable interface for communicating with and synchronizing between remote intelligent devices and systems. Features include the LabVIEW Project, which provides a project-based environment for managing large applications and team development, and the LabVIEW Instrument Driver Finder that automatically recognizes connected instruments and searches, downloads, and installs the appro­priate driver.
 

Communications Test
Anritsu wins the Communications Test award for the MG3690B Synthesizer Series featuring six coaxial models that cover a variety of frequency ranges from 0.1 Hz to 65 GHz, operational to 67 GHz. It provides +17 dBm of available power at 20 GHz as standard and +23 dBm as an option. At 40 GHz, the synthesizer delivers +19 dBm and +13 dBm at 50 GHz.
 

Data Acquisition
The winner in the Data Acquisition category is Data Translation’s ECONseries family of eight mini-instruments for the USB 2.0 or 1.1 bus. It is supported by GO!, a new application software package that includes oscilloscope, chart-recorder, voltmeter, waveform-generator, file-viewer, digital input/output, counter/timer, and rate-generator functions. Signal connections are made directly to a module’s built-in screw terminals. The modules plug into any PC’s USB port.

Environmental Test
LDS-Dactron captures the honors in Environmental Test with the Focus™ II Portable Dynamic Signal Analyzer. It provides from four to 20 inputs, each sampled at up to a 96-kS/s rate. The 24-b data is streamed to disk via the USB 2.0 interface while onboard DSPs simultaneously perform online analysis. Inputs can be added in four-channel increments complete with their associated anti-alias filtering and a DSP for every two channels.
 

Instrumentation
For the second time in as many years, Tektronix sweeps the Instrumentation category. This year, readers selected as best the RSA3408A, a high-performance DC to 8-GHz real-time spectrum analyzer that delivers 36-MHz bandwidth, up to 20-ns frame-time resolution spectrograms, and a maximum 102.4-MHz A/D sampling rate. It features built-in analog and general-purpose digital modulation analysis and automated capabilities, accommodates 802.11a/b/g signals, and auto-matically detects 802.11 data and modulation formats.
 

PC Test
The victor in PC Test is Pico Technology with the PicoScope 3424, a four-channel oscilloscope with 12-b resolution, a 20-MS/s sampling rate, a 512k memory buffer, and a USB 2.0 interface that also powers the unit. The large memory buffer allows long-duration signals to be captured at the top sampling speed of 20 MS/s. It offers 1% voltage accuracy and 100-ppm time-base accuracy. Time bases range from 500 ns/div to 50 s/div and voltage selection from ±20 mV to ±20 V.

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