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December 2008 [Industry News] Finding New Homes For RF/Microwave Technology Emerging applications for microwave and RF technology promise to keep researchers and manufacturers busy for several years. Many of the long-time markets for high-frequency electronics, such as commercial communications, military radar, and electronic-warfare (EW) systems, appear strong for the future. Yet the use of RF and microwave signals should extend well beyond those traditional markets in the years to come. Investments in commercial communications... December 2008 [Crosstalk] Crosstalk With Joel Levine, President of RFMW FIVE YEARS AGO, the US was still trying to recover from the stock-market dip after September 11, 2001. Consumer confidence was down. In fact, the situation was somewhat similar to where the economy is today—except that the current economy is in even worse shape because of the housing-bubble burst. Tough economic times do not have to translate into a lack of opportunity, however. In 2003, a company called RFMW was just being spawned. The distributor, which... December 2008 [Products] Top Products Of 2008 Great minds think alike in the microwave industry as they do elsewhere. Take, for instance, the plethora of impressive synthesizers that debuted over the past 12 months. These instruments boast the outstanding switching speed, low noise, and broad bandwidths that are required to satisfy everything from automatic test equipment (ATE) to the most stringent military applications. Another theme in 2008 was integration, as many instruments... December 2008 [Products] 2008 Editorial Index COMMERCIAL • Mobile Television Prepares For Its Big Debut (March, p. 33) • Crosstalk With Christos Tsironis (October, p. 48) • Microwave Legends (October, p. 52) • Mobile WiMAX Is Vetted For Video (November, p. 34) Crosstalk With Joel Levine, President of RFMW (December, p. 42) • Finding New Homes for RF/Microwave Technology (December, p.... December 2008 [Editorial] Opportunities And Rough Times Lie Ahead Holidays are a perfect time to wind down and enjoy the small things that make life meaningful. Hopefully, most of us can take this time to enjoy the company of friends and family and be grateful for life’s blessings. In that vein, the editors of Microwaves & RF traditionally use the December issue to look back at the achievements of the past year with our list of “Top Products”. With the New Year approaching, it... December 2008 [Research & Development] Reflectarray Cells Operate Beyond 100 GHz RECENTLY, IT WAS PROVEN that the phase of signals in the microwave and millimeter-wave bands can be modulated by exploiting the physical response of liquid-crystal molecules to an applied electric field. Several prototype devices have emerged that are based on liquid-crystal substrates with tunable permittivity. For example, prototype reflectarray structures that operate at frequencies above 100 GHz have been designed by Wenfei Hu, Robert Cahill,... December 2008 [Materials] ICP Etching Reduces MM-Wave Substrate Loss FOR GALLIUM-ARSENIDE(GAAS) coplanar passive devices, the design methods used in centimeterwave frequencies have been proven to work for millimeter-wave frequencies up to W-band (75 to 110 GHz). Those same methods can be applied to CMOS coplanar devices at millimeter-wave frequencies. To demonstrate this point, two test third-order, quarter-wavelength, double-shortedstub wideband bandpass coplanar filters have been implemented at E-band by Pen-Li... December 2008 [Devices & ICs] CMOS LNA Operates In Subthreshold Region BECAUSE THE LNA IS THE FIRST STAGE of a receiver system, an LNA’s noise figure will dominate a receiver’s overall performance. The LNA should therefore add little noise to the next stages while providing 50-O impedance match for maximum power transfer. It also should deliver enough gain for signal processing in the following stages. These goals were recently met by a 5.8-GHz, ISM-band, CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) that operates in a subthreshold... December 2008 [Applications] Nonlinear Models Aid PIN-Limiter Design Process CIRCUIT AND ELECTROMAGNETIC (EM) simulators now offer many capabilities to make software prototyping successful, including accurate models. To provide an example of how such models can assist the design process, Modelithics, Inc. offers a nine-page application note, “Accurate Non-linear Models Enable Successful PIN Limiter Design,” which focuses on the design and validation of a 1.8-GHz PIN-diode limiter circuit. The design uses... December 2008 [Applications] RFID Tag Mounts Directly On PCB GENERALLY, ULTRA-HIGH-FREQUENCY (UHF) radio-frequency- identification (RFID) tags are applied to a piece of equipment once the assembly is complete. Yet a new approach allows the implementation of the RFID tag directly on the printed-circuit board (PCB) early in the production process. A small RFID-module package, dubbed the MAGICSTRAP, integrates both the RFID tag integrated- circuit (IC) and broadband RF-matching functions. Murata delves into the... December 2008 [Devices & ICs] Video Amplifiers Consume Less Than 12 mA AT 0.60 V/(H )0.5 input voltage noise performance, a new pair of high-speed video amplifiers claims to provide 30 percent less noise than the closest competitor in their class. Dubbed the CLC1001 and CLC1002, these amplifiers consume less than 13 mA of supply current. They also offer a disable feature that lowers the supply current to under 225 A. Both amplifiers exhibit 1 mV maximum input offset voltage and superior alternating- current (AC)... December 2008 [Devices & ICs] ULP 2.4-GHz Chip Fits 4-x-4-mm Package ON A SINGLE CHIP, a new solution for the ultra-low-power (ULP) wireless market runs both the RF protocol stack and application layer. The nRF24LE1 system-ona- chip (SoC) integrates the nRF24L01+ 2.4-GHz transceiver core along with a mixed-signal, 8-b microcontroller with 16 kB of on-chip Flash memory. The transceiver core includes an Enhanced ShockBurst hardware link layer. It delivers ULP operation with peak currents that are low enough to... December 2008 [Devices & ICs] Packaged MMICs Cover X-Band Systems THE 8-TO-12-GH X-BAND is home to many communications and radar technologies. To support those ever-evolving application areas, some packaged highpower- amplifier, monolithic-microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) provide moderate output power with high gain at X-band. These amplifiers cover the full X-band range in three separate bands. Model 560134, which targets 9-to-10.5-GHz applications, provides +37 dBm output power and 40-percent power added efficiency (PAE) for ... November 2008 [Computer-Aided Engineering] Software Simulators Speed Design Cycle Time-to-market pressures force designers to search for an edge. For many, that edge comes in the form of computer-aidedengineering (CAE) simulation tools. Such software is available to simulate devices as well as system components. It can perform both linear and nonlinear circuit and system simulations. In addition, a host of software companies offer platforms for time-domain and electromagnetic (EM) simulation. To keep up with design advances and... November 2008 [Communications] Mobile WiMAX Is Vetted For Video Like every new wireless standard, mobile WiMAX has experienced some controversy. People in the wirelesscommunications industry have alternately doubted its viability and exaggerated its merits. With last month’s launch of the XOHM mobile fourth-generation (4G) service in Baltimore, MD, however, mobile WiMAX has shown that it will likely have a spot alongside 4G telecommunication standards like Long Term Evolution or LTE (... November 2008 [Devices & ICs] 1-V Transceiver SoC Serves Biotelemetry Applications Wireless technology has enabled biotelemetry applications that monitor vital signs like temperature and heart rate. At the heart of these applications are wireless body sensor networks, which comprise human-body-worn sensor nodes. These networks rely on modules that gather, store, and process the patient’s vital data before sending it to a central base station. For miniaturization, increased functionality, and a reduction in power consumption, however, the industry... November 2008 [Components] UWB Antenna Minimizes Size And Return Loss Before the expected performance levels of Ultrawideband (UWB) communications can be reached, some challenges have to be overcome. It is therefore essential to study a suitable radiating structure— especially for pulsed devices that need minimum signal distortion. For example, the antenna should faithfully replicate the transmitted pulse on reception. In practice, however, the change of radiation characteristics with frequency alters the antenna response. Aside from... November 2008 [Applications] Adaptive Beamforming Raises WiMAX Capacity Compared to third-generation (3G) networks, mobile WiMAX has garnered attention for being a more affordable technology for transferring large amounts of data with high throughput. This advantage can be further magnified by adaptive beamforming. This technology vows to improve both the range and capacity of a WiMAX network. At the same time, it reduces capital and operating expenses by minimizing the number of base stations that are needed in a network. The... November 2008 [Applications] ADC Mysteries Are Finally Explained Analog-to-digital Converters (ADCs) have both analog and digital functions. Most simply, an ADC can be considered a device that provides an output that digitally represents the input voltage or current level. The analog input is compared to the ADC’s analog reference voltage or current. The digital output word denotes what fraction of the reference voltage or current is the input voltage or current. In essence, the ADC is a divider. These definitions hail from the... November 2008 [Systems & Subsystems] RF Subsystem Supports Variety Of Cellular Femtocells A FULLY INTEGRATED RF SUBSYSTEM has been created for GSM, GPRS, and EDGE femtocell base stations and cellular repeaters. By combining analog and mixed-signal semiconductors on a compact assembly, the subsystem can be used in femtocell base station and cellular repeaters in the GSM850, EGSM900, DCS1800, and PCS1900 frequency bands. The dual-chip RF subsystem solution consists of the SKY74219-21 RF transceiver with analog in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) interface for...  prev. page
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