ISSUE DATE: DECEMBER 2008  OPTIONS
New RF/Microwave Market Opportunities

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December 2008 - In This Issue

[Cover Story]
Miniature VCOs Shrink Wideband Synthesizers
Compact frequency synthesizers fill many needs in modern communications systems. To achieve fullsized performance in miniature packages, Synergy Microwave has developed a line of compact frequency synthesizers that leverage novel, patented voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO) technology1- 8 for the stability and low noise needed for emerging wideband, high-datarate wireless communications systems. ...  — Ulrich L. Rohde , et al.

[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...  — Jack Browne , et al.

[News]
Vectron’s Vision Of Frequency Control
Southern New Hampshire is home to beautiful summers and snow-kissed winters. It is also home to the corporate headquarters for one of the world’s leading crystal oscillator suppliers, Vectron International (www.vectron.com). Part of the diversified Dover Electronic Technologies group of engineering and electronics companies, Vectron International also boasts expertise and manufacturing ...  — Jack Browne

[News]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Design Features]
UWB Antenna Assists Ground-Penetrating Radar
Landmines are buried and forgotten, so often that an estimated total of 110 million landmines are buried in over 60 countries around the world. Statistics show that hidden and forgotten landmines kill or injure approximately 70 people each day, resulting in over 25,000 deaths or injuries per year. Unfortunately, there is little international effort to detect and clear the landmines due to shortage of funding. Before they can be removed, they must be located...  — Boon-Kuan Chung , et al.

[Design Features]
Test Radio Receivers With Recorded Signals
Channel impairments can be disruptive on RF-based communications devices. Impairments such as fading and multipath, which are often unpredictable, can hinder wireless communications. Because channel impairments are often unpredictable and not repeatable, many engineers face the challenge of supplying a prototype receiver with a reliable model of the real-world signal environment. Fortunately, by understanding the causes of these impairments through...  — Dominique Fortin , et al.

[Design Features]
Equalize RF Amplifiers With Bandpass Filters
Filters and amplifiers can make a powerful combination, especially when the filter is used to equalize the amplifier. What follows is an approach to apply the complementary response characteristics of a bandpass filter to flatten the amplitude response of a transmit amplifier. The filter consists of a pair of asymmetric slow-wave open-loop resonators. It reduced ripple in a transmitter’s passband from 3.3 dB before equalization to 0.5 dB after...  — Wei Hong , et al.

[Product Technology]
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...  — Jack Browne , et al.

[Product Technology]
Spread-Spectrum Clocks Cut EMI
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) can emanate from the smallest of sources, even from a system clock source. For that reason, oscillator designers at SiTime Corp. turned to spread-spectrum technology as a way to literally spread the EMI generated by their oscillators over a wider segment of frequency spectrum than normal. The end result is that interference at any specific frequency becomes less, with less...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
Software/Scope Combination Scrutinizes Complex Waveforms
Oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers are sometimes found on the same test bench. Each brings its strengths and limitations, with a scope’s triggering capabilities ideal for time-domain analysis and a spectrum analyzer’s sweep functions well suited for spectral displays. But what if those capabilities were combined? The answer would be the SignalVu vector signal analysis software from Tektronix, which is...  — Jack Browne

[Product Technology]
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....  — Jack Browne , et al.

[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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Feedback]
Feedback
Unknown Legends With interest, I read the Microwave Legends article in the October issue of Microwaves & RF. I was interested in the history of radar development and I found the book by Louis Brown: History of Radar, the best source of historic information. From other books on radar development, I have found—to my surprise—that Boot and Randall were NOT the first who developed the cavity magnetron with high output...  — Various Readers

[The Front End]
Third-Quarter Mobile-Handset Shipments Maintain Forward Momentum
NEW YORK, NY—According to ABI Research Asia-Pacific Vice President Jake Saunders, “Given the traumatic news ricocheting around the financial markets, one would almost expect mobile handset markets to have nosedived. However, the third quarter of 2008 still delivered 8.2 percent year-on-year growth.” Although mobile phones can be viewed as fashion accessories, they do have other value propositions. Substantial improvements in memory, battery life, data speed, and...  — Dawn Hightower

[The Front End]
Not Enough Students Are Pursuing Engineering Careers
PISCATAWAY, NJ The trend is alarming and it is global. In Western Europe, Australia, Japan, and even in India, the numbers of students focusing on engineering and computer science are declining. A 2003 Harris poll conducted in the US shows that only 2 percent of first-year university students (and less than 1 percent of young women) want to major in computer science. The IEEE is a driving force behind changing the perception of math and science-based...  — Dawn Hightower

[The Front End]
EI Receives Illinois Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award
CHICAGO, IL—Electronic Interconnect Technology (EI) is the recipient of the Illinois Governor’s Pollution Prevention Awards (P2) for 2007. The annual P2 awards are presented to Illinois businesses and organizations that have successfully reduced the generation of gaseous, liquid, and solid waste. To win the award, EI had to satisfy stringent evaluation criteria applied to its implementation of P2 projects/ technologies. These multiple criteria included waste...  — Dawn Hightower

[Financial News]
Financial News
UWB Firms Staccato And Artimi Merge STACCATO COMMUNICATIONS, an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless technology company, announced that it has completed a merger with Artimi, Inc., a developer of UWB and wireless- Universal-Serial-Bus (WUSB) software and hardware solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, the combined entity will maintain the Staccato Communications name. Marty Colombatto will keep the role of Chief Executive...  — Dawn Hightower

[Company News]
Company News
CONTRACTS Giga-tronics, Inc.—Has partnered with Equipment Management Technology (EMT) to offer lease and rental of Giga-tronics’ RF and microwave test and measurement equipment. Equipment Management has placed a $1M purchase order with Giga-tronics for RF and microwave test solutions including fast-switching microwave signal generators, high-accuracy power meters, and the 2-to-20-GHz high-power amplifier. The order...  — Dawn Hightower

[People]
People
Nieland Heads KSW Microtec AG R&D CARSTEN NIELAND will head the company’s R&D division for high-security products. He is responsible for KSW’s inlay and Thinlam products used in the fast-growing access and e-government market segments for access cards, driver licenses, and electronic GORDON ID cards. Before joining KSW Microtec, Nieland held a number of key executive...  — Dawn Hightower

[Educational Meetings]
Educational Meetings
SHORT COURSES BESSER ASSOCIATES SHORT COURSES Applied RF Techniques 1, Course 001 Feb. 23-27, 2009 (San Diego, CA) Register by Jan. 19 and pay $1995, otherwise pay $2195 For more information, contact Besser Associates, 480 San Antonio Rd., Suite 215, Mountain View, CA 94040; (650) 949-3300; FAX: (650) 949-4400 or e-mail: ...  — Dawn Hightower

[R&D Roundup]
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,...  — Nancy Friedrich

[R&D Roundup]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[R&D Roundup]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Application Notes]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Application Notes]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Editor's Choice]
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)...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Editor's Choice]
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...  — Nancy Friedrich

[Editor's Choice]
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 ...  — Nancy Friedrich