Doug Grant, business development manager at Analog Devices, for example, was the spokesperson for trends in RF. The issue with direct-conversion radio architectures, he explained, isn't simply a matter of wideband A/D converters. It is often a matter of using superheterodyne techniques to extract a very clean, image-free intermediate-frequency representation of the modulated signal. That bit of background set the stage for understanding things ADI competitors like Conexant and Mitel were doing with precision RF synthesis.

Similarly, George Schuellein, an applications engineer at On Semiconductor, was spokesperson for power management techniques. He explained how multiphase buck converters could shorten the response transient-current requirements in a multi-voltage system (like a PC motherboard). With equal authority, he explained how Linear Technology's Jim Williams had built a test fixture to measure the noise generated by low-dropout regulator circuits-noise being a major issue for cell phones and other environments where LDOs are used.

Low-key John Wright, director of mixed-signal technology at American Microsystems, told how Cadence's Ken Kundert had mapped a fill-in-the-blanks paradigm for top-down mixed-signal design, how Gary Pratt of Mentor Graphics had promoted the use of high-level languages with the AMS extensions for modeling the behavior of mixed-signal circuits and how his own company had configured process-specific layout models for analog cells.

These guys were nonpartisan in their approach. Ron Mancin, an applications engineer at Texas Instruments, didn't hesitate a second in explaining how Analog Devices' newest autozero amplifiers work, for example.