2001's been a busy year at ChipCenter's test-and-measurement desk. Now that we're well into December, it's time for us tech editors (so sayeth my boss) to muse about what's transpired on-site.
I hardly know where to start gathering my thoughts about the myriad wonderful data-acq and test products that I've had the pleasure to review. There were so many exciting goodies to analyze and write about over the past 12 months. Who can honestly say which ones were best?
Such judgment calls depend on applicability in real world settings, don't they? Consider this: If you were part of a product development team that spent six months designing a surface-mount resistor that was half the size of your competitor's, had better solderability, and had far better tempco specs to boot, wouldn't you be just as proud as the design team that crafted a whiz-bang realtime digital oscilloscope that could let you capture a picosecond glitch riding on a 10 GHz waveform? It all depends on perspective, doesn't it? Who's to say what's better, or best?
Among my favorite new products of the past year were the ones hosted on personal digital assistants. That's primarily because PDAs can still find a home on my very messy workbench!
The PDA-hosted product I liked the best (there were a surprising number to choose from in 2001) was the diagnostic monitor from Spirent Communications that analyzes IS-95 and IS-2000 CDMA cellphone signals. Powered by a couple of AA cells, this shipshape little system runs on a Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC. Although I'm a Palm Pilot user, I'm still captivated by Spirent's PDA.
I think I could push aside some tangled test leads and errant bits of solder and make room for one of those nifty 100-MHz dual-channel digital storage oscilloscope front-ends from Environmental and Life Support Technology too.
Now, if I didn't have such a messy workplace, and if money were no object, and if the need was truly there, and my boss wanted to have the most impressive lab, I sure wouldn't mind working with a shiny new DC-to-daylight signal generator such as the one from Anritsu that I exuberantly crowed about back in September.
Likewise, wouldn't it be nice to tweak the controls of one of Tektronix's new silicon-germanium Digital Phosphor Oscilloscopes, or perhaps Agilent Technologies' 93000 system-on-a-chip automatic test program generator? Man, with one of those, maybe even I could set up a soup-to-nuts design-for-test environment.
Truth be known, I'm thankful for little things. 2001 was the year I located a replacement d'Arsonval meter movement for my timeworn, but nonetheless cherished, 1950s Weston Industrial Analyzer. It's comforting to know that this venerable VOM--with its precision machined meter shunt and hardwood carrying case--still has a practical place in my personal test-and-measurement activities.
Well, it's time to demur, so I'd like to ask you, as a ChipCenter reader and user, what your thoughts and perceptions are about the products that seem to endlessly roll off vendor's production lines--regardless of the economy, or who's employed where or when, or what the sorry state of world affairs is (I won't mention whether there's a Santa Claus, because you and I already know the answer).
Won't you please tell me what you enjoyed reading about on the Test-and-Measurement Knowledge Center over the past year? To help you wade through the goodies, click on the Product Review Archive button, and go from there. Thanks, and have a great holiday season and a glorious New Year!
