It's traditional among both consumer and technical media sources (sometimes called "publications") to close out one year and begin another with various "top" lists, and we certainly want to be part of that tradition. Unlike subjective lists such as "best movies", "best ads", or "most newsworthy items", we can use an objective measure here at Power Management DesignLine: page views. And while consumer publications find that such lists should use prime numbers to catch your attention ("13 Ways to Lose Weight Now", "17 Tips for Success"), we're sticking with a basic Top 20.

Of course, as with any lists or data, you have to think about what they indicate and how they were compiled. While have absolute precision in measuring the page views, of course, we still faced some choices. For example, do we segregate items which were published prior to 2009, or include them in the list? What about multipart articles: do we add up their individual page views for a single aggregate score, or leave them as is? What about items which were published late in the year, and so have had much less time to garner attention?

In the end, we followed the time-honored engineering principle: keep it simple. Rather than try to be smarter than the raw data, we are presenting using the data "as is." The list below shows the twenty most-viewed features published at Power Management DesignLine, along with the author and year of publication (and see the links below the top-20 list for the corresponding items for our sibling sites, RF DesignLine and Planet Analog). Looking at the list, you'll also get a good sense of both the new and long-term topics which most interested power-centric electronic engineers in 2009:

1. "Power MOSFET tutorial, Part 1", Jonathan Dodge, Microsemi Corp., 2006
2. "NiCd battery-reconditioning circuit restores aged rechargeable cells", Jim Mahoney, Associate Applications Engineer, Linear Technology Corp, 2007
3. "Buck converter: Key is selecting the right capacitor", Josh Mandelcorn, Texas Instruments, 2009
4. "Understanding nonlinear slope-compensation: a graphical analysis - Part 1", Greg Smith, National Semiconductor Corp., 2007
5. "How to design a Li-Ion battery charger to get maximum power from a solar panel", Jinrong Qian and Nigel Smith, Texas Instruments, 2007
6. "Standby and uninterruptible power supply tutorial - Part 1", Michael A. Stout, Falcon Electric, Inc, 2007
7. "Simple circuit design tutorial for PoE applications", Robert Mayell, Power Integrations, 2006
8. "Power Tip #7: Efficiently Driving LED's Offline", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2009
9. "LED Driver implements power factor regulation and dimming function", Zhongming Ye, Intersil Corp., 2009
10. "Reliability of IEC 61000-4-2 ESD testing on components", Robert Ashton, ON Semiconductor, 2008
11. "Power Tip #4: Damping an Input Filter--Part 2 of 2", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2008
12. "Power Tip #6: Accurately Measuring Power Supply Ripple", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2008
13. "Power Tips #5: Buck-boost design uses a buck controller", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2008
14. "A matter of light, Part 1---The ABC's of LEDs", Sameh Sarhan and Chris Richardson, National Semiconductor Corp., 2008
15. "Power Tip #3: Damping the input filter --- Part 1", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2008
16. "Inductorless Switching Regulators eliminate costly external component", Mathieu Renaud and Yves Gagnon, Executive Director, Dolphin Inc., 2009
17. "Hitchhiker's ride to the world of current mode control", Sameh Sarhan, National Semiconductor Corp., 2007
18. "Two-switch topology boosts forward, flyback designs", Youhao Xi and Bob Bell, National Semiconductor Corp., 2007
19. "IGBT tutorial: Part 1 - Selection", Jonathan Dodge and John Hess, Microsemi Corp., 2007
20. "Reduce EMI by varying power supply frequency", Robert Kollman, Texas Instruments, 2009

At our sibling sites:

• You're the Top: Most viewed "RF DesignLine" articles of 2009
• You're the Top: Most viewed "Planet Analog" articles of 2009