Winners of the Jim Williams Contributor of the Year & ACE Lifetime Achievement Awards will also be honored during awards ceremony in conjunction with ESC Silicon Valley this December

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9, 2016 — (PRNewswire) —  UBM has announced the finalists for the 2016 Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards. The awards, presented in partnership with EE Times and EDN, showcase the best in today's electronics industry, including the hottest new products, start-up companies, design teams, executives and more. This year's winners will be announced during an awards ceremony held Wednesday, December 7, alongside the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Silicon Valley at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA.

To learn more about the ACE Awards and to purchase tickets for the awards ceremony, please visit: ubm.io/ACE16

This year's finalists by category are:

Company of the Year

• Advanced Micro Devices
• Aquantia
• ON Semiconductor

Executive of the Year

• Cees Links – Qorvo
• Steve Sanghi – Microchip Technology Inc.
• Ward Williams – Prolabs

Design Team of the Year

• CDNN2 Design Team – CEVA, Inc.
• MAX9286 Automotive Design Team – Maxim Integrated
• Palladium Z1 Enterprise Emulation Platform Design Team – Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Innovator of the Year

• David Hall – Velodyne LiDAR
• Bobby Littrell – Vesper
• Desmond Wong – TransSiP, Inc.

Marketing Team of the Year

• Big Ass Marketing Team – Big Ass Solutions
• Peregrine Semiconductor/ The Townsend Team – Peregrine Semiconductor
• Rambus Team – Rambus

Internet of Things Product of the Year

• Battery Powered Mobile IoT Nursing Workstation – Onyx Healthcare USA, Inc.
• Cassia Hub Bluetooth Router – Cassia Networks
• Valor IoT Manufacturing Solution – Mentor Graphics Corporation

Start Up of the Year

• Barefoot Networks Inc.
• Gowin Semiconductor Corp
• SiFive Inc.

Analog ICs

• AD9371 – Analog Devices, Inc.
• MAX9286 Quad GMSL Deserializer – Maxim Integrated
• Super-TCXO – SiTime

Development Kits

• Jetson TX1 Developer Kit – NVIDIA
• Microchip LoRa Technology Evaluation Kit – Microchip Technology Inc.
• TI DLP NIRscan Nano Evaluation Module (EVM) – Texas Instruments

LEDs and Lighting

• Arctic Sand ARC1C0608 IC – Arctic Sand Technologies
• Fairchild FL77944 Direct AC Drive (DACD) – Fairchild Semiconductor
• ICL8105 – Infineon Technologies

Logic / Interface / Memory

• IRMCK099 Motion Control IC – Infineon Technologies
• Marvell Alaska 88E2010/40 Ethernet Transceivers – Marvell Technology Group
• Samsung PM1633a Solid State Drive – Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.

Passives, Interconnects, and Electromechanical

• Precise 800 – Orbotech
• Series 84 Halo Compact – EAO Corporation
• T58 vPolyTan Solid Tantalum Surface Mount Chip Capacitors – Vishay Intertechnology

Power

• 48V Direct to POL Datacenter – Vicor 
• K2 3-vold (3V), 3,000-Farad Ultracapacitor Cell – Maxwell Technologies
• Solution LT3042 – Linear Technology

Processors (FPGAs, MCUs, Microprocessors)

• EFLX Embedded FPGA IP Cores – Flex Logix Technologies, Inc.
• Sitara AM57x Processors – Texas Instruments
• Stratix 10 MX SiP – Intel Corporation

Reference Designs

• CYALKIT-E02 Solar-Powered BLE Sensor Beacon Reference Design Kit – Cypress Semiconductor Corp.
• MAXREFDES82# Smart Force Sensor Reference Design – Maxim Integrated
• UDX10 for 4K60 Up/Down/Cross Conversion – Intel Corporation

Sensors

• PGA411-Q1 Resolver Sensor Interface - Texas Instruments
• ULTRA Puck VLP-32A - Velodyne LiDAR
• VM1000 – Vesper

Software

• Altium Designer 16 – Altium
• Ultrahaptics Software Development Kit Version 2 - Ultrahaptics North America Incorporated
• Xilinx SDSoC Development Environment – Xilinx

Test and Measurement Systems and Boards

• Keithley DMM7510 – Tektronix
• Mentor Graphics MicReD Power Tester 600A - Mentor Graphics Corporation
• PicoScope 2000B Series Ultra Compact Oscilloscopes - Pico Technology

Wireless / RF

• Ezairo 7150 SL – ON Semiconductor
• SimpleLink Sub-1 GHz CC1310 wireless MCU– Texas Instruments
• WiPry 5x – Oscium

"Year after year the ACE Awards pay tribute to new talent and innovation, as well as those who have offered their skills and expertise for the growth and development of the industry " said Nina Brown, VP Events, UBM Americas. "This year's finalists are true leaders – the combination of their hard work and dedication are undoubtedly advancing the electronics space, and we're thrilled to welcome them as finalists for these prestigious awards."

UBM is also pleased to announce joint winners of this year's ACE Lifetime Achievement Award: Dave Patterson and John Hennessey, who co-wrote the seminal text in RISC processor architectures. Through their exceptional careers, Patterson further invested RAID and helped launch the open-source hardware movement around RISC-V, and Hennessey went on to co-found MIPS Computer Systems. 

Additionally, Ransom Stephens, physicist, engineer, author and 2016 ESC Silicon Valley Keynote presenter, will receive the 2016 Jim Williams Contributor of the Year ACE Award, sponsored by Linear Technology, for his highly regarded contributions to EDN in the areas of test & measurement.

The 2016 ACE Awards are judged by the following industry thought leaders, and EE Times and EDN editors:

• Erach Desai, Financial Advisor, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
• Michael Dunn, Technical Editor, EDN
• Gene Frantz, Professor, Rice University
• Jessica MacNeil, Senior Editor, EDN
• John Mashey, Consultant, TechViser
• Lucio Lanza, Managing Director, Lanza Tech Ventures
• Max Maxfield, Content Chief, Embedded.com
• Hailey McKeefry, Editor-in-Chief, EBN
• Rick Merritt, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, EE Times
• Rich Quinnell, Senior Technical Editor, EDN, EE Times
• Susan Rambo, Executive Editor, EE Times
• Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor, EDN, EE Times
• William Tai, General Partner, Charles River Ventures
• Steve Taranovich, Senior Technical Editor, EDN, EE Times, Planet Analog
• Junko Yoshida, Chief International Correspondent, EE Times

Follow the ACE Awards on Twitter at #ACEawards
Follow @ESC_Conf on Twitter for the latest on the Embedded Systems Conference