New categories—VXI and hand-held and benchtop Instrumentation—highlight EE’s 1997 Readers’ Choices Awards. These additions reflect your growing interest in this equipment.
In keeping with the tradition, the fourth annual Readers’ Choice Awards are the culmination of your responses to advertisements that appeared last year in EE. Each of the 10 companies receiving an award represents a different discipline in the electronics industry.
For the second consecutive year, Ostby Barton captures the ATE category with its Cyclo-Soldered Probes. These probes, developed for use in harsh environments, feature a spring metallurgically bonded to the plunger and barrel. The maximum probe resistance is limited to the spring itself, which typically is under 1 W .
Top honors in Communications Test go to Noise Com for its wireless communications test instruments. The company’s line includes a mobile phone test set, a high-speed automated system for production testing of CDMA mobile phones to IS-95 and IS-98; the Multipath 2600 emulator with a 20-MHz RF bandwidth, a frequency range down to 30 MHz and a delay range to more than 400 µs, and the UFX-BER C/N Generators with TDMA applications software.
RFI Corp. emerges as the new winner in EMI/RFI. This advertisement talks about the company’s range of filtered connector solutions, including D-subminiature types, circular and custom types, and a new technology that offers EMI, ESD and RFI protection within an existing connector’s shell size.
3M’s Model 722 Continuous Workstation Monitoring System walks away with the award in ESD. As the name implies, this system checks wrist straps and worksurface connections right at the workstation. Also featured is the Model 721, a compact, battery-powered unit that monitors a single wrist strap.
This year, the ESS honors belong to Spectral Dynamics. This company, which joined forces with GenRad Structural Test Products, offers a range of vibration test and structural analysis solutions that claim to meet any budget and testing requirements. Service, support and flexible leasing options are available.
Technical Instrument holds the 1996 title for Inspection. The company manufactures inspection and metrology systems with less than 0.25 micron resolution. These imaging systems integrate imaging modes, viewing capabilities and measurement tools.
With so many excellent instrumentation products on the market today, the Instrumentation category now is divided into hand-held and benchtop. In Hand-Held Instrumentation, Amprobe Instrument wins with the AM-90 and AM-91 models in the Ultimate Series™. These DMMs offer a dual display, a 4,000/40,000-count LCD, and meet UL, CSA and IEC specifications.
Benchtop Instrumentation honors go to the DL1540L, a long-memory digital oscilloscope from Yokogawa Corp. of America. This instrument has a 200 MS/s rate with a 150-MHz bandwidth, real-time FFT, a history mode, zoom traces and real-time recording.
For software, National Instruments wins the award once again. Capturing your interest this year is LabVIEW® 4.0 instrumentation software, which integrates a graphical test-development environment, a test executive and analysis capabilities in one package. It is available on Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, HP-UX, Sun Solaris and Macintosh.
Rounding out the 1997 list of winners is Racal Instruments in the new VXI category. The 1261B Intelligent Mainframe provides more than 1,000 watts of usable power and cools 130 watts per slot.
Want Another Look?
Yes, all these products were advertised in EE in 1996. If you missed them, it’s not too late to get more information. Turn to the Reader Service card in this issue and circle the number that corresponds to the number printed below the reproduction of the ad in this article. Return the card to us and the product information will be on its way to you in no time.
Copyright 1997 Nelson Publishing Inc.
March 1997
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