February 2010 Smart-Card Market Players Join Forces To Advance Applications LONDON, UK—Together with chip suppliers Infineon Technologies AG and INSIDE Contactless S.A., smart-card manufacturers Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (G&D) and Oberthur Technologies S.A. have launched an industry initiative to provide a security solution for next-generation, smart-card-based public-transport applications. The solution will build on an open standard that is being implemented by the four partner companies. Eventually, that standard will be... — Dawn Hightower October 2009 Multimode Transceiver Eliminates SAW Filters Wireless device designers seek increased functionality but without added size, especially when supporting handset designs with multimode, multiple-band capabilities. Fujitsu Microelectronics America has responded to the needs of these designers with the functionpacked model MB86L01A multimode third-generation (3G) cellular radio transceiver, which is fabricated without 3G transmit and receive interstage surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) filters and ... — Jack Browne November 2008 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... — Nancy Friedrich October 2008 PMC Format Holds Agile ADCs And SDRs Modular signal-processing solutions provide a great deal of exibility in both military and industrial applications. By swapping modules or cards in a mainframe, the character of a system can be quickly changed, and performance capabilities rapidly modified to suit an application. A number of standards have been established to improve the compatibility of signal-processing modules, including the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) standard and the PCI... — Jack Browne September 2008 Setting Strategies for Transmission Lines Transmission lines are often taken for granted in the design of high-frequency circuits and integrated circuits (ICs), since the focus is often on getting signals into and from an active device. But by understanding the capabilities of different microwave/RF transmission lines and how to optimize them, design iterations, time, and unnecessary cost can be saved from a project. Part 1 of this two-part article will show how a careful design process should... — Leo G. Maloratsky May 2008 Modular Approach Provides Fast And Easy Prototyping Prototype development of RF and microwave designs can be tedious, requiring weeks or even months of engineering and construction time. For those who seek a faster, easier approach to the prototyping of new RF and microwave designs, however, MicroWaveCells (www.microwavecells.com) offers a new and innovative approach to building high-frequency circuit functions, subsystems, and complete systems in hours and days,... — Jenny Jiayan Shen May 2008 7/16 Panel Receptacle Exhibits –175 dBc IMD Performance LOW INTERMODULATION distortion (IMD) is key to newer wireless systems like WiMAX. Such systems rely on outstanding linearity in both amplifiers and passive components to process the complex modulation schemes needed data rates. By consistently delivering passive-intermodulation (PIM) levels of –175 dBc, a 7/16 panel receptacle is promising to meet this need for connectors. This receptacle exhibits a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of less... — Nancy Friedrich March Broadband Instrumentation Amplifier Delivers 40 To 535 W At the heart of most applications is a high-performing amplifier. The MT4100 broadband continuous-wave (CW) amplifier, for example, targets radar, EMC, EW testing, and other wideband applications. Its typical output power ranges from 40 to 535 W. The amplifier is available in models covering 2 to 8 GHz, 6 to 18 GHz, 18 to 27 GHz, and 26.5 to 40 GHz. By leveraging a modular design, this compact TWTA promises to provide extensive diagnostic capability, advanced... — Nancy Friedrich October 2007 Checking Communications Systems Interoperability Communications systems provide reliable performance only after they have been tested under a wide range of operating conditions. Wirelesscommunications systems, for example, must be evaluated for the effects of such factors as path loss, immunity to interference, multipath reflections, and atmospheric losses. Real-world testing at the site of a communications system will yield the best overall information about the system, but this is not practical in most... — Warren K. Gruber October 2007 Supplier Transforms Switches Into Higher-Level Assemblies Maximizing engineering resources is of utmost importance to most military-electronics contractors, to the point where many of the largest suppliers have turned to traditional RF/microwave component houses in search of subassembly integration. One of the long-running RF/microwave component suppliers that has learned how to blend its component business with its expanding subsystem integration skills is Daico Industries (... — Jack Browne September 28, 2007 September 27, 2007 Newsletter Technology Searching For A Fit, National Adds To Amplifier Line, BitWave Semiconductor Names CEO, Modelithics Enhances Nonlinear Device Library, Symmetricom Shrinks Atomic Clocks, AR Modular RF Adds T/R Switching To Amplifier, Johanson Manufacturing Launches 300-W Termination — Jack Browne September 27, 2007 AR Modular RF Adds T/R Switching To Amplifier — Jack Browne September 2007 Block Upconverter Drops Phase Noise At Ka-Band Commercial and military satellites deploying Ka-band transponders are driving the need for high-performance L-band-to-Ka-band block upconverters (BUCs). These frequency translators will find use in portable and fixed terminals and must be compatible with both solid-state and tube-based amplifiers. To meet the needs of this growing market, Herley-CTI (www.herley-cti.com) has developed a low-phase-noise, dual-loop frequency synthesized BUC using dielectric resonator oscillators... — John Odell , et al. August 23, 2007 RapidIO Runs Educational Webcasts — Jack Browne August 23, 2007 August 23, 2007 Newsletter August 23, 2007 Newsletter — Jack Browne August 2007 Downconverters Deliver Flexible IF Choices Frequency downconversion is the basis for virtually all RF/microwave systems, whether they are involved in commercial communications or military surveillance. Ideally, a frequency downconverter covers a full input frequency range of interest, translating these signals down to a range that can be examined by analysis equipment for test purposes or digitized by a high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for communications and demodulation purposes. A line of wideband... — Jack Browne August 2007 Cells Gain Boost From Antenna Diversity Cellular networks must overcome many obstacles, including buildings, trees, signal fading, and multipath effects. One solution would involve simply increasing transmit power in the face of these obstacles, but the carefully crafted communications standards that govern cellular communications networks do not allow for such frivolous increases in transmit power. And approaches such as multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) methods can improve cellular network performance but require... — Jack Browne August 13, 2007 August 13, 2007 Measurement Solutions Series Newsletter — Jack Browne August 10, 2007 FreeWave Adds Tiny Spread-Spectrum Radio — Jack Browne July 27, 2007 July 26, 2007 Newsletter — Jack Browne |
Resources

RSS
Electronic Design