FOR A WEEK, THEY WILL SWARM THIS TOWN, INCREASING its population by more than 10,000. They will marvel at the local attractions, like Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz, and look out over the San Francisco Bay to the majestic Golden Gate Bridge. And they will come with stories of their research and their accomplishments, making over 1000 technical presentations during the week. For this is the week of June 11-16, 2006, and the 2006 edition of the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) is scheduled for the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

For one week, San Francisco may well become the largest gathering of microwave engineers to ever take place, as well over 10,000 visitors are expected to IMS 2006. As most microwave engineers know, it is an event that combines a diversified technical program with an exhibition area that showcases the latest in microwave industry products and services. What some microwave engineers may not know, the event is actually a combination of different technical programs including technical presentations, evening sessions, workshops, panel sessions, and "focused" sessions highlighting a single topic. The three main symposia at the event are the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), Radio Frequency IC (RF IC) Symposium, and Automatic RF Techniques Group (ARFTG) Conference. Listings of event schedules can be downloaded in the form of a large PDF file from the conference website at www.ims2006.org.

Credit is due to the volunteer technical paper reviewerswho combed through the 980 paper submissions, more than half of which were received on deadline day. Papers were collected and organized by 32 technical committees into the week-long program that serves as a refresher course in microwave technology for some, and a chance to summarize the current state of the art for others. Praise is also due to John Barr of Agilent Technologies, the IMS 2006 General Chairperson, and the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the Microwave Theory & Techniques Society (MTT-S) for helping to organize the many components of such a massive technical event.

The 2006 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RF IC) Symposium, for example, is one of the major events during IMS 2006. Scheduled from June 11-13, 2006, it boasts an opening day with a number of highquality workshops and three Sunday evening plenary sessions.

Sunday workshops include sessions on RF ICs for ultrawideband (UWB) systems, which covers low-noise receivers, pulse generators, frequency synthesizers, position-location functions with UWB, and UWB high-speed personal-area networks (PANs); advanced power-amplifier ICs for high-efficiency mobile transmitters, which includes presentations on devices for WiMAX, cellular, and wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) applications; a software-based session on multichip radio module design approaches, which details the use of electromagnetic (EM) analysis tools, simulation with SPICE, and design and verification techniques; noise measurements and modeling for CMOS; substrate effects in silicon RF IC interconnections; radio transceivers for 3G and WiMAX systems; and three-dimensional integration and packaging, which covers both analog and digital applications for these highlevel module packaging approaches.

Additional Sunday RF IC workshops cover memory effects in power amplifiers, advances in multimode, multiband cellular radios, determining the quality of automotive RF systems (which includes measurement approaches for GPS, automotive radars, and car antennas), millimeter-wave silicon-bipolar and CMOS circuits, and advances in gallium-nitride (GaN) technology.

The RF IC workshops continue on Monday with tutorial sessions on new developments in oscillators, evaluation of high-speed digital signal integrity, how to determine the accuracy of microwave measurements, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) resonators and filters, making active and passive differential (balanced) measurements, component design using space-mapping technology, active antennas, frequency-agile radios, highefficiency power amplifiers for space and terrestrial applications, electronic equalization for multigigabit communications systems, and microwave multiplexer design.

The RF IC plenary sessions include "RF Modems: The Real Application for RF CMOS" by Stefan Wolff, vice president of Infineon Technologies, whose company has focused on practical RF CMOS solutions for current multiband cellular radios and inevitably RF modems. For those seeking more information on mutimode, multiband cellular radios, Kent Heath, director of the Radio Products Division of Freescale Semiconductor, will provide a session entitied "Architectural Implications of Multimode, Multiband Cellular Radios," in which he compares and contrasts some of the approaches for nextgeneration cellular phones, including System-in-Package (SiP) and System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. Finally, Arogyaswami Paulraj, founder and CTO of Beceem Communications, explores the emerging significance of multiple antenna wireless technologies in his Plenary Session "Multiple Antenna Technology in Mobile Broadband—New Challenges for RF Designers," with a focus on multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) radio configurations using multiple antennas at both ends of a communications link in particular for mobile broadband applications.

For those who would prefer presentations on technologies other than RF ICs, the IMS technical sessions run from early morning through 5 p.m. each day with a varied assortment of topics. Tuesday (June 13th) afternoon sessions, for example, include coverage of antenna technology, applications in RF MEMS, and synthesis and design techniques for microwave filters. The following morning, sessions highlight planar filters, acoustic filters, signal generation, integrated coaxial and metamaterial transmission lines, ferrite devices, low-phase-noise oscillators and electromagnetic-bandgap structures. That afternoon, sessions focus on advances in integrated filters, the use of GaN for power amplifiers, innovations in those lower frequencies (HF through UHF), and physical nonlinear device modeling.

The IMS 2006 program includes numerous focused sessions that provide interesting looks at topics not normallycovered in the regular technical sessions. On Tuesday of Microwave Week, focused sessions include the use of microwave and millimeter-wave technology in support of societal security. Chaired by Ed Niehenke of Niehenke Consulting and K.D. Bruer of ITT Avionics, the session reviews different threats and how to assess them, communications systems for first responders, and detection technology that is under development to protect societies against threats from terrorism. Additional focused sessions that day cover magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) technologies and terahertz (THz) integrated circuits. The following day's focused sessions highlight vibrating MEMS devices used as resonators, the possibility of using 4-GHz bands for the fourth generation (4G) of cellular radios, and a review of the last 50 years of microwave technology in the San Francisco Bay Area by Ferdo Ivanek of Stanford University and Ed Crescenzi of Central Coast Microwave Design.