Barclays Global Investors and Powershares are heating up the race to provide even more specialized exchange-traded funds.

The latest from BGI are the iShares MSCI EAFE Growth Index Fund and iShares MSCI EAFE Value Index, "style" funds that are designed to provide growth and value slants by matching a subset of the companies in the MSCI EAFE index. The funds are based on indexes created by Morgan Stanley and have approximately 50 percent of the market capitalization of the companies on the MSCI EAFE index, respectively.

The funds have a net operating expense of 40 basis points.

BGI already offers an ETF based on the entire EAFE index, called the iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund. That fund has approximately $16.66 billion in assets.

Meanwhile, ETF upstart Powershares is also doing its part to ensure that ETF investors have even more choice. The new ETF is designed to outperform "passive benchmark micro cap indices and other actively managed U.S. micro cap strategies," according to a press release.

The fund is based on the newly created Zacks Micro Cap Index, which is managed by Chicago-based Zacks Investment Research. The index consists of approximately 300 and 500 companies based on the company's evaluation of 2,300 micro cap stocks. Zacks monitor the companies listed on the index weekly and will remove or add companies, said PowerShares.

Powershares expects its new PowerShares Zacks Micro Cap Portfolio to open for trading on August 18.  

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