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ISSUE DATE: APRIL 2010 | |
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April 2010 - In This Issue [News] An Interview With Joseph G. Thomas, Jr. NF: After being part of larger corporations for a long time, M/A-COM Technology Solutions is now privately held, correct? JT: That’s correct. We are now a private standalone company with our sole focus on the RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave space. Our owner, John Ocampo, is a private investor. But more importantly for us, John has been a very successful entrepreneur in this industry for his... — Nancy Friedrich [News] Digital Techniques Hold Key To 4G Infrastructure Right now, many families rely on wirelesslocal- area-networking (WLAN) access points to provide Internet capabilities for multiple computers inside their homes. In the near future, however, such devices will be replaced by cellular femtocells. These smaller base stations are expected to be widely used in homes and small businesses to provide access to fourth-generation (4G) communications services. To enable these higherdata- rate capabilities,... — Nancy Friedrich [Design Features] PIN Switch Protects LNA From Overloads Receiver front ends for mobile television must provide the sensitivity needed to operate at far distances from a transmitter, but must provide overload tolerance when in the presence of large signals. Mobile television receive capability, which will be integrated into a large number of portable electronic devices, including cellular handsets, portable digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, and in-car-entertainment (ICE)... — Chin-Leong Lim [Design Features] Design MMICs On A Budget Designing a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) implies million-dollar mask sets and expensive computer-aided-engineering (CAE) software. But for those on a budget, is it possible to be fiscally responsible and still create a MMIC? To explore the possibilities, a GaAs low-noise amplifier (LNA) was chosen as an example target design, since it can be created by means of a linear circuit simulator and an S-parameter file, including noise data, as supplied... — John E. Penn [Design Features] Forecast Rain Effects On Microwave Links, Part 2 Scatterers such as rainfall can impose hard-to-predict effects on the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves, often making analysis of the near-field and far-field antenna patterns and performance difficult. In order to provide a more meaningful approach to understanding the effects of scatterers on EM propagation, last month Part 1 of this study explored the influence of distributed scatterers on nearfield antenna EM propagation. Part 2 will now... — Dr. John Howard [Design Features] Wilkinson Divider Powers TV Transmitters As digital technology infiltrates an increasing number of applications, RF/ microwave components are handling more bandwidth to keep pace. For broadcast UHF television, for example, a power divider must handle the entire frequency range from 470 to 806 MHz with relative low loss and good amplitude and phase characteristics to ensure the integrity of the transmitted digital signals. For this purpose, a three-way Wilkinson power divider was ... — Antonio T. De Carvalho , et al. [Design Features] Patch Array Antenna Serves Satcom Needs Satellite communication (satcom) systems employ one or more fixed earth stations and a constellation of earth-orbiting satellites to provide transmission/reception of voice, video, and data as well as position information.1 A satcom system is typically configured with a directive antenna, which will follow the motion of an object relative to a given satellite. When the position of the object changes, the azimuth angle from the object relative... — [Design Features] Active Inductors Tune Low-Noise VCOs Inductors are a necessary building block in many circuits, including oscillators. Because passive spiral inductors can occupy a large amount of real estate in integrated-circuit (IC) designs, the search has been on for smaller, tunable active inductors (TAIs) suitable for monolithic fabrication. While smaller than passive inductors, TAIs have often meant a sacrifice in linearity and phase noise. To overcome this hurdle for creating smaller, lower-noise tunable... — Ulrich L. Rohde , et al. [Product Technology] Cables And Connectors Link Microwave Systems Cables and connectors are usually only noticed when they fail. At their best, they can add nothing electrically to a system or a circuit but, at their worst, they can degrade amplitude and phase performance. Recent developments in these interconnection components have been aimed at making them as electrically “invisible” as possible, with low loss and the best possible impedance match to a 50-Ohm system. For example, coaxial cable assembly ... — Jack Browne [Product Technology] Math/EM Software Solves Circuit Problems Software simulation has largely taken the place of “trial-and-error” prototypes in fine-tuning high-frequency designs. Two of the types of software tools often used by RF and microwave engineers are mathematical and electromagnetic (EM) field simulators. Although math tools can be applied for analysis in almost all scientific fields, they can also be run with electrical engineering modules. And EM simulators have leveraged the increased computing power... — Jack Browne [Product Technology] Tunable MMIC Filters Span 1.0 To 7.6 GHz Tunable microwave filters offer a great deal of versatility. And when they are based on monolithicmicrowave- integratedcircuit (MMIC) technology and housed within a 5 x 5 mm surface-mount package, they can fit almost any application. New families of varactor-tuned MMIC lowpass and bandpass filters from Hittite Microwave Corp. () provide this flexibility with high stability and fast tuning speeds over ... — Jack Browne [Editorial] Of Technology And Social Need Communications technology has come a long way in a lifetime. Once telephone calls were on wires, and television signals over the air. Now television is over metal wire, glass wire, and even from space (satellite), and telephone calls are broadcast over the air. Cellular phone companies are also sending television signals over their networks. These changing capabilities are a tribute to advances in wireless, optical, and satellite communications, but they have side... — Jack Browne [Feedback] Feedback To The Editor: The article in the January 2010 issue of Microwaves & RF entitled “Match Loop Antennas Via Mutual Inductance” is a rehash of the old loop-coupled loop. This was invented by Dunlavy and patented in 1971. Both loops have small radiation resistances and individually low efficiencies. The overall efficiency is essentially the product of the two loop efficiencies, and this number will be very small.... — Various Readers [The Front End] Handset Shipments Will Recover This Year AUSTIN, TX—The mobile-handset market has not escaped the recession unscathed. Despite the resulting financial pressure, however, the global cellular installed base grew 14.1 percent year over year in 2009. The cellular installed base comprises all active devices on cellular networks. The installed base for third-generation (3G) networks in particular showed a considerable increase, growing 32.9 percent year over year. This growth highlights the strength of the ... — Dawn Hightower [The Front End] Raytheon Leads Development Of GPS Control Segment AURORA, CO—The US Air Force has selected Raytheon Co. for an initial contract of $886 million to develop a new element for the Global Positioning System (GPS). That element is tasked with improving the accuracy of information provided by GPS satellites. The contract represents the first two development blocks of the advanced control segment (OCX), which will have a significant impact on GPS capabilities. The OCX system will include anti-jam capabilities and improved... — Dawn Hightower [The Front End] University Center Will Feature MM-Wave Characterization SANTA CLARA, CA—Agilent Technologies, Inc. and the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas in Richardson, TX) will establish a millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave electronics characterization facility at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE). The facility will be available to industrial and government institutions using an open, collaborative framework. It will initially support research to make 77-to- 81-GHz short-range radar integrated... — Dawn Hightower [Financial News] LPKF’s Record Earnings Exceed Forecasts THE LPKF GROUP, which is headquartered in Garbsen, Germany, closed the 2009 financial year with earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of €7 million (approximately $9,437,396 US dollars) compared to €3.1 million for the previous year. Consolidated sales rose by 12 percent to €50.7 million (approximately $67,409,973) versus €45.4 million for the previous year. Incoming orders at €56 million (approximately $75,499,170) were well up on the previous year’s... — Dawn Hightower [Company News] Company News CONTRACTS Northrop Grumman Corp.—Has been awarded a contract by the Ministry of Defence of Brunei Darussalam to provide Joint Operations Centre (JOC) command and control capability for the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF). The contract, which will be undertaken by Northrop Grumman UK, will include the supply of an integrated Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance... — Dawn Hightower [People] People Sabritec Appoints Pianalto President SCOTT PIANALTO has been appointed President of Sabritec, a Smiths Interconnect business that provides interconnect solutions for military, aerospace, telecom, space, test and measurement, and commercial applications. He has over 20 years of experience in the connector industry and most recently served as the Director of Marketing and Operations for a major connector manufacturer within the military aerospace... — Dawn Hightower [Educational Meetings] Educational Meetings MEETINGS IEEE Wireless Communications & Networking Conference (WCNC) April 18-21, 2010 (Sydney, Australia) The conference will hold hundreds of sessions dedicated to the advance of the latest wireless and wireless technologies. For more information, contact: Heather Ann Sweeney, IEEE Communications Society Phone: (212) 705-8938 E-mail: ... — Dawn Hightower [R&D Roundup] Lens Features 77-GHz Sectorial RadiationPattern For wireless-communications applications like base stations, sectorial radiation patterns are frequently used. Yet such antennas also have proven themselves adept at handling measurement system applications like in a lens-based compact antenna test range (CATR). Some recent work covers the design, fabrication, and measurements of an axisymmetric dielectric lens that features a sectorial radiation pattern at 77 GHz. This antenna was developed by M. Multari, J.... — Nancy Friedrich [R&D Roundup] 150-GHz Amplifier Is Formed By 65-nm Digital CMOS A number oF radio applications are starting to reach beyond 100 GHz. These systems are looking to leverage silicon technologies for their high yield, high levels of integration, and co-integration with analog and digital signal-processing blocks. Because they can take advantage of continued device scaling, millimeter-wave systems in complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technologies are particularly garnering interest. Recently, a 150-GHz amplifier in... — Nancy Friedrich [R&D Roundup] Diversity Measurements Aid Body-Worn Systems At 868 MHz Mobile body-worn communications systems suffer from problems like near-field coupling, radiation-pattern fragmentation, and shifts in antenna impedance. Aside from degrading system efficiency, these issues can reduce signal reliability. To mitigate these effects, Simon L. Cotton and William G. Scanlon from the Queen’s University of Belfast have presented a systematic measurement campaign of diversity-measurement techniques for use in wearable multiple-antenna ... — Nancy Friedrich [Application Notes] Achieve LXI Certification In Just Five Steps By standardizing and extending local-area networks (LANs), the LXI standard vows to put the power of the Ethernet and the Web inside test systems. For test systems, the resulting possibilities include local, remote, distributed, and time-aware design. To provide best practices for integrating LXI instruments into a system, the LXI Consortium has released a three-page white paper titled, “How to Get a Product LXI Certified in Five Steps.” To manufacture... — Nancy Friedrich [Application Notes] Better Signal Quality Begins At Baseband rF Or BaseBand engineers often need fast, accurate, and cost-effective signal-analysis measurements in the spectral and time domains. They also need to perform digital-modulation analysis. Such measurements may be made with an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer. Using two instruments can introduce errors while raising the cost of test, however. Although single-instrument, higher-end solutions are available, they come at a higher cost. These issues are compounded... — Nancy Friedrich [Editor's Choice] 3-GHz EMI Receiver Provides Testing For Labs A NEW DIGITAL ELECTROMAGNETIC-INTERFERENCE (EMI) receiver/analyzer features a measurement range of 10 Hz to 3 GHz for labs with smaller test chambers, gigahertz-transverse-electromagnetic (GTEM) cells, or those doing on-site work. The PMM 9010/30P fully complies with CISPR 16-1-1 requirements in the 9-kHz-to-30-MHz measurement range. When paired with a PMM extension receiver module, it becomes fully CISPR-compliant and measures to 6 GHz. The PMM 9010/30P’s Smart Measure... — Nancy Friedrich [Editor's Choice] 40-W Amplifier Covers 6 To 18 GHz A HIGH-POWER AMPLIFIER (PA) dubbed model L0618-46 operates from 6 to 18 GHz. It delivers an average of 50 to 60 W and at least 40 W of output power. Small signal gain is greater than 47 dB. The PA offers SMA input and Type N output RF connectors. It operates from a DC supply of +12 V at 52 A. The L0618-46 allows many options to be specified via TTL command, such as fast on/off switching that is typically 35 ns with a maximum of 50 ns. Although the PA... — Nancy Friedrich [Editor's Choice] Synthesizer Spans 375 MHz To 5.6 GHz BY COVERING A BROAD FREQUENCY RANGE, a new synthesizer promises to allow base-station providers to implement a onechip solution for all frequencies instead of using more than 10 different discrete solutions. The SKY73134 is designed to cover all GSM, WCDMA, and LTE frequency bands with one device. This wideband, integer-N frequency synthesizer boasts a locking range of approximately 6 GHz. The 5-x-5- mm device includes four differential voltage-controlled oscillators... — Nancy Friedrich [Editor's Choice] Power Platforms Simplify Multimode, Multi-Band Architectures TO ENABLE GLOBAL SMARTPHONES and mobile-Internet devices that handle three or more bands of third- or fourthgeneration (3G or 4G) cellular communications, the PowerSmart platforms leverage an RF Configurable Power Core. That core provides functional efficiency while processing all known cellular-communications modulation schemes including those used in GSM/ GPRS, EDGE, EDGE Evolution, CDMA, 3G (TD-SCDMA or WCDMA/HSPA+), and 4G (LTE or WiMAX) systems. The RF... — Nancy Friedrich [RF Primer] Narrowing Choices For RF/MW Filters Microwave filters can be simple to build, but complex to unders tand. They perform a basic function in a system: stop some signals and pass others. But they can achieve this function in many different ways, and with many different side effects, such as distortion to the amplitude and phase responses of the system. Before making filter choices, it helps to know how the choices differ. Filters come in a variety of configurations: ... — Jack Browne [Microwaves in Europe] Breakthrough Builds MEMS On Standard CMOS Wafer A Spanish company, Baolab Systems, has pioneered a new technology that is expected to cut the cost of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) while strongly impacting mobile communication design. Key to this breakthrough is the company’s ability to construct nanoscale MEMS within the structure of a silicon complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) wafer using standard, high-volume CMOS processing technology (... — Paul Whytock [Microwaves in Europe] MEMS Expands Its CMOS Presence According to Germany-based MEMS foundry X-Fab, one of its prime assets is the in-house co-existence of MEMS and CMOS mixed-signal processes. Because MEMS devices are manufactured using techniques that are similar to those employed for ICs, X-FAB plans to exploit the synergies offered by the alliance of both technologies. It has a dedicated 400 m2 of MEMS backend cleanroom and 1200 m2 of CMOS front-end cleanroom. In total, the X-FAB MEMS foundry boasts a... — Paul Whytock |
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