Technology advances even during difficult years, as evidenced by an impressive collection of new products making up the Top Products of 2002. Selected by the editors of Microwaves & RF, the top 13 products of 2002 (see table) represent the diversity of technologies employed by this magazine's readers, from software to hardware, and from RF and baseband through millimeter-wave frequencies and optical signals. The list is a true "boiling pot" of manufacturers, a mixture of the old and the new, and the large and the small.

Among the smallest of the Top Products comes from north of the border, in the form of the SE4100 Global Positioning System receiver (Rx) integrated circuit (IC) from SiGe Semiconductor (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). Based on silicon-germanium (SiGe) process technology, IC integrates an intermediate-frequency (IF) filter, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), oscillator tank circuitry, low-noise amplifier (LNA), phase-locked loop (PLL), and crystal oscillator within a package measuring just 4 × 4 mm. The first product in the company's line of PointCharger Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, the chip draws less than 10-mA current from a +2.7-VDC supply. When coupled with a commercial baseband IC from ST Microelectronics, the chip forms a GPS Rx solution that consumes less than 120 mW of power.

The "other" GPS Rx on the list is from Valence Semiconductor (Irvine, CA), but is based on complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process technology. The company's VS7001 Rx IC, which is designed for supply voltages from +2.3 to +3.6 VDC, consumes less than 30-mW power at +2.3 VDC.

Maxim Integrated Circuits (Sunnyvale, CA) contributed their MAX5886-MAX5888 line of low-power digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to the list. Designed for multicarrier signal generation in cellular base stations, the DACs offer 14-b typical resolution at sampling rates to 500 MSamples/s with noise levels to −160 dBc/Hz and outstanding dynamic-range performance.

Analog Devices, Inc. (Wilmington, MA) continued to advance the state of direct-digital-synthesis (DDS) technology with their 9954 DDS IC. It consumes only 180-mW power when operating at an update rate of 400 MSamples/s. The IC features on-chip 1024 × 32 b random-access memory (RAM), an integral 14-b DAC, a PLL clock multiplier, an on-chip crystal oscillator, and a high-speed comparator. In spite of the integration, it is designed to operate on only +1.8 VDC. The DDS has a 32-b phase accumulator for tuning resolution of 0.093 Hz with a 400-MHz clock. The 14-b DAC accounts for excellent spurious performance (narrowband performance as good as −85 dBc).

The FE-205A, FE-405A, and FE-505A line of digital oven-controlled crystal oscillators (DOCXOs) from FEI Communications (Mitchell Field, NY) made use of DDS technology to provide correction to the output frequencies in order to achieve output frequency accuracy rivaling that of more expensive rubidium clock oscillators. Available at standard frequencies of 10 and 15 MHz, and custom frequencies from 5 through 25 MHz, the sources feature a double-oven structure and stress-compensated (SC) cut crystals, the DDS circuitry allows the OCXOs to achieve temperature stability of better than 1 × 10⁻¹⁰ at temperatures from −40 to +75°C. and typical aging of 5 × 10⁻¹¹. The phase noise is −145 dBc/Hz offset 10 kHz from the carrier.

RF Micro Devices (Greensboro, NC) entered the fast-growing wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) market with a competitive chip set for the IEEE 802.11b standard at 2.4 GHz. The chip set includes an LNA/mixer, transceiver, transmit power amplifier (PA), and baseband processor. The processor, of course, represents a bold introduction for a company formerly associated with only RF technologies. Yet, coupled with the other three devices, it forms part of a complete WLAN solution that is supported with reference designs and software.