Electronics Technology Elite Compete for Industry's Highest Honors as EE Times Announces Finalists for 2007 EE Times ACE Awards

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- CMP Technology's EE Times today announced the finalists for its third Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards ( http://www.eetimes.com/ace ), recognizing the electronics industry's creators of technology who demonstrate cutting-edge breakthroughs, innovation and leadership. The honors will be presented at the EE Times ACE Awards Gala on April 3, 2007, as part of the largest electronic systems design event in North America, the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley.

"This year's ACE Awards finalists mark a shift in the industry, as the electronics industry becomes more focused on creating technologies attractive to consumers -- from educational toys, to microphones, cell phones and light sensors," said Brian Fuller, editor in chief, EE Times. "The 2007 finalists represent the execution of forward-thinking technologies and creativity that captures the imagination of consumers, illustrating the influence that electronics and embedded design professionals have on today's culture."

EE Times ACE Awards are presented in 18 categories and are judged by a blue-ribbon panel of industry experts, comprised of the leading voices of academia, industry and Wall Street executives. The judges will choose winners in seven categories. Winners in the additional 11 categories are either peer-to-peer or editorially selected.

The 2007 EE Times ACE Awards categories and finalists are:

Company of the Year (Large) -- for the company that exhibits the highest degree of professionalism in staff development and retention, customer focus, technical excellence and profitable growth -- a true leader in the electronics sector (over $750 million in sales). Finalists are:

*  Applied Materials
*  NVIDIA Corporation
*  QUALCOMM Incorporated
*  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
*  Texas Instruments

Company of the Year (Small/Medium) -- for company that exhibits the highest degree of professionalism in staff development and retention, customer focus, technical excellence and profitable growth -- a true leader in the electronics sector (under $750 million in sales). Finalists are:

*  Atheros Communications
*  CSR
*  National Instruments
*  Tropos Networks
*  Wind River Systems, Inc.

Design Team of the Year -- for the group of innovators whose system-or IC- level design made a significant contribution to the advancement of technology and whose project management abilities were creative, efficient and inspiring. Finalists are:

*  Altera Corp. for Stratix III
*  Clear Shape Technologies Inc. for OutPerform
*  Freescale Semiconductor for MR2A16A 4-Mbit MRAM
*  Motorola, Inc for RAZR phone
*  Sun Microsystems for Sun Fire T2000 server using the UltraSPARC T1
process featuring patented CoolThreads Technology

Startup of the Year -- for the venture capital (or pre-IPO financed) startup (under three years in business) electronics manufacturing (device or system) company that demonstrates excellence in business development and/or technology development processes with the potential to become a technical or market leader in the global electronics industry. Finalists are:

*  Luxtera
*  Quickfilter Technologies
*  Ruckus Wireless
*  SiTime Corporation
*  Telegent Systems, Inc.

Executive of the Year -- for the individual who brought leadership, technological and fiscal vision to a company, organization or company division during the 2006 calendar period. Finalists are:

*  Chia Song Hwee, CEO of Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing
*  TJ Rodgers, founder, president & CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corp.
*  Walden C. Rhines, chairman & CEO of Mentor Graphics Corp.
*  Sanjay Jha, president of QUALCOMM CDMA Technology
*  Selina Lo, president & CEO of Ruckus Wireless

Innovator of the Year -- for the individual who brought leadership, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to a technology, a product or a business. Finalists are:

*  Kenneth Parker, senior scientist of Agilent Technologies, Inc.
*  Kaigham J. Gabriel, co-founder, chairman & CTO of Akustica, Inc.
*  Wan-Thai Hsu, CTO of Discera
*  Terrance Boult, El Pomar chair of innovation of University of Colorado
at Colorado Springs

Most Promising New Technology -- for the compelling electronic component or enabling technology, such as software, that is outstanding in its technical design, potential for market impact and demonstrable leadership in its area. Finalists are:

*  Amimon Inc. for WHDI Technology
*  Analog Devices, Inc. for Sensor-Fusion Technology
*  EyeTech Digital Systems for Quick Glance Gaze Trackers
*  Intel / UCSB Silicon Photonics
*  QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies for Snapdragon Platform

The Ultimate Products of the Year -- awarded to the most significant product introduced in the last 12 months in each of seven categories, as determined by large-scale peer review. Finalists in each category were chosen by qualified readers of EE Times and eeProductCenter.com on a quarterly basis via electronic balloting, from a list of nominees submitted to readers by expert editors with accompanying editorial reviews. The top two ranking products from each category over the past four quarters automatically qualify as finalists. Electronic ballots will be sent to frequent responders to select the winner in each category from the field of finalists.

Analog
*  LTC3035EDDB (Linear Technology)
*  AD7142 (Analog Devices, Inc.)
*  WM8960 Class D Speaker Driver (Wolfson Microelectronics)
*  12-bit A/D delivers 500 Msamples/s (Atmel)
*  ADS8422 (Texas Instruments)
*  ADC14155 (National Semiconductor)
*  13650DE and 13651DE(Inphi)
*  MLX90614 (Melexis)
Processor/Memory
*  MSP430 MCU (Texas instruments)
*  iNAND (SanDisk)
*  Momentus 5400.3, 2.5-in hard disk drive (Seagate)
*  Stellaris family of 32-bit microcontrollers (Luminary Micro)
*  ADSP-BF539 and ADSP-BF539F Blackfin digital signal processors (Analog
Devices, Inc.)
*  MC9RS08KA  8-bit RS08 MCU (Freescale Semiconductor)
*  PIC18F97J60 (Microchip Technology)
*  ARM7 MCUs (STMicroelectronics)
IP&E
*  LQ035Q7DH06 3.5-inch QVGA thin-film transistor (Sharp Microelectronics
of the Americas)
*  Z-PACK MAX connector (Tyco)
*  ADCC-3000 image sensor (Avago Technologies)
*  EntrePad 1610 Fingerprint Sensor (AuthenTec)
*  SQUIGGLE motor (New Scale Technologies)
*  3.5-inch LCD (Samsung)
*  2-amp Zero Recovery rectifier (Cree)
*  CM3200HS (High Sensitivity), CM3200 and CM3000 ambient light sen
(Capella)
Logic Interface & Programmable Logic
*  SN65HVD33/34/35 and SN65HVD53/54/55 transceivers (Texas Instruments)
*  XIO2000 PCI Express-to-PCI bridging device (Texas Instruments)
*  TrueStore channel (Agere Systems)
*  iCoupler family of digital isolators  (Analog Devices, Inc.)
*  70K2000BR SerialRapidIO switch (IDT)
*  Virtex-5 LX FPGAs (Xilinx)
*  ISL317XE family (Intersil)
*  IGLOO FPGAs (Actel)
Power
*  BMOD2600-48 module (Maxwell Technologies)
*  PCMCIA Password Manager (American Power Conversion)
*  TinySwitch III (Power Integrations)
*  PeakSwitch family (Power Integrations)
*  FPMR12TR7508NA (FDK)
*  dsPIC family (Microchip)
*  iW1688 PWM (iWatt)
*  CM2030 and CM2031 ESD port protectors (California Micro Devices)
RF/Microwave
*  AeroFONE Si4905 (Silicon Laboratories)
*  CYRF6936 (Cypress Semiconductor)
*  Si5040 XFP Transceiver (Silicon Laboratories)
*  Copernicus GPS Receiver (Trimble)
*  SR5500 Wireless Channel Emulator (Spirent Communications)
*  Wi-Spy plug-in (MetaGeek)
*  u-blox 5 Family (u-blox AG)
*  QSC1100 chip (Qualcomm)
Test/Measurement
*  DPO7000 (Tektronix)
*  WaveRunner Xi (LeCroy)
*  DL7400 Series (Yokogawa Electric)
*  DPO4000 Digital Phosphor Oscilloscopes (Tektronix)
*  Vanguard Express PCI Express Protocol and Link Analyzer (Vmetro)
*  PicoScope 2104 and 2105 PC Oscilloscopes (Pico Technology)
*  40-581 Switch Matrix (Pickering Interfaces)
*  ASAM1 Waveform Viewer software (Amherst Systems Associates)
About EE Times ACE Awards and Opportunities

The EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards celebrate the creators of technology who demonstrate leadership and innovation in the global industry and shape the world we live in. These creators, and their innovations, will be recognized at the EE Times ACE Awards Gala on April 3, 2007, as part of CMP Technology's Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley ( http://www.embedded.com/esc/sv/ ), the largest electronic systems design event in North America.

To register and purchase tickets for the EE Times ACE Awards Gala, please visit http://www.eetimes.com/ace . Early registration discounted tickets and tables are now available online until March 1, 2007. Tickets include a networking cocktail reception, sit-down dinner, awards presentation and entertainment by comedian Larry Miller. Miller is known for his regular comedic and acting performances including "The Tonight Show," "Late Night with David Letterman," and feature films "Waiting for Guffman" and "Pretty Woman" will be headlining the EE Times ACE Awards Gala, held at the San Jose Fairmont Hotel.

A limited number of sponsorship opportunities are available on a first- come, first-served basis for companies interested in associating their brands with this major industry event. Please contact Sean Raman, event sales director of the CMP Technology Electronics Group at (415) 947-6622 or sraman@cmp.com .

The 2007 EE Times ACE Awards thanks exclusive platinum sponsor AVNET Electronics Marketing, gold sponsor Rambus, association media sponsor IEEE Spectrum and event sponsor Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley.

About the CMP Technology Electronics Group

The CMP Technology Electronics Group is the premier technology and business media brand serving the information needs of the creators of technology worldwide. Offering a full suite of products and services to reach electronics technology professionals throughout the world, the CMP Technology Electronics Group delivers the most targeted audience and actionable information to marketers in the electronics technology community. Each month, the CMP Technology Electronics Group delivers more than 1 million copies of its print publications, including EE Times, to subscribers in more than 23 countries and online visitors from 100 countries view more than 8 million pages on its Web sites in seven languages including EETimes.com and TechOnline. More than 40,000 decision makers attend its Embedded Systems Conferences each year in Boston, Silicon Valley, China and Taiwan.

About CMP Technology ( http://www.cmp.com/ )

CMP Technology is a marketing solutions company serving the technology industry. Through its market-leading portfolio of trusted information brands, CMP has earned the confidence of more technology professionals than any other media company. As a result, CMP is the premier provider of access, insight and actionable programs designed to connect sellers and buyers in ways that yield superior return on investment. CMP Technology is a subsidiary of United Business Media ( http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/ ), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion.

Contact:
Michelle Sabolich
Atomic Public Relations for CMP Technology
michelle.sabolich@atomicpr.com
(415) 402-0230

SOURCE: CMP Technology

CONTACT: Michelle Sabolich, of Atomic Public Relations, +1-415-402-0230,
or michelle.sabolich@atomicpr.com, for CMP Technology

Web site: http://www.cmp.com/