Microwaves & RF articles from April 2006

Microwaves & RF archives from April 2006

Test equipment.(feedback)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2006... I ENJOYED READING your article "Tracking Trends In Test Equipment" (January, p. 33). In the article, it is stated that the PicoScope 3000 has 20 GS/s sampling. This is a bit misleading, as most oscilloscope manufacturers quote real time...

Equation correction.(feedback)(Correction notice)
April 1, 2006... DUE TO an author error, Eq.7 on p. 84 of the article titled "Estimating RKE System Performance" in the February 2006 issue appeared incorrectly. The exponent of the last term should be 2 and not 3. The equation should appear as follows: ...

Live each day like it's your last.(William B. Sullivan )(Obituary)
April 1, 2006... LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT. Many far wiser than this writer have tried to hand down this practical advice. But most of us ignore it, probably because there is always tomorrow, or at least our belief that there will be a tomorrow and yet...

Explosive growth continues for India's mobile-phone market.(the front end)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... EL SEGUNDO, CA -- India's mobile phone market has shown signs of incredible growth recently. Proof of the growth includes: * Indian wireless carriers have added approximately 4.7 million new subscribers in January alone, a new high...

Consistel granted patent for in-building wireless coverage.(Consistel (Singapore) Pte Ltd)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... SINGAPORE -- Consistel (Singapore) Pte Ltd., a global wireless solutions provider and system integrator specializing in in-building wireless, revenue assurance, and wireless network services, has announced that it has been awarded a patent by...

RFID talent pool is still shallow, CompTIA survey shows.(Radio Frequency Identification Device )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... DALLAS, TX -- Deployment of RF-identification (RFID) technology continues to be hampered by a shortage of individuals skilled in the technology, according to a new survey by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). ...

Focus enhancements tapes out digital chip for UWB chip set.(Ultra Wideband chips)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... CAMPBELL, CA -- Focus Enhancements, Inc., a firm involved in video production and conversion technology, has taped out the second chip of its two-part Talaria[TM] Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology chip-set solution. The company expects silicon of...

Everett, WA--Fluke Corp., a supplier of hand-held test and measurement equipment, announced that its Safety and Environmental Laboratory is now certified by VDE's Test Data Acceptance Program (TDAP).(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... EVERETT, WA -- Fluke Corp., a supplier of hand-held test and measurement equipment, announced that its Safety and Environmental Laboratory is now certified by VDE's Test Data Acceptance Program (TDAP), becoming one of approximately 50 companies...

Etters, PA--FCI, a supplier of connectors and interconnect systems, has been awarded the Fleck Research 2005 Excellence in Technology Award.(Framatome Connectors International)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... ETTERS, PA -- FCI, a supplier of connectors and interconnect systems, has been awarded the Fleck Research 2005 Excellence in Technology Award. Fleck Research recognized FCI for its technology advances demonstrated with the recent launching of...

Malvern, PA--Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. recently won a Readers' Choice Award in the Passive Components category from Electronics For You magazine, an electronics-industry publication in India.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... MALVERN, PA -- Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. recently won a Readers' Choice Award in the Passive Components category from Electronics For You magazine, an electronics-industry publication in India. This marks the third successive year that...

Cables and connectors link a wireless world: transmission-line components have evolved in composition, performance, and form to support wireless-communications systems and other modern-day technologies.
April 1, 2006... Transmission-line components are certainly not the flashiest part in a wireless system. Yet they are an essential part of this market's backbone. These components serve a variety of segments ranging from commercial and consumer to military and...

Partnership starts new firm.(QUALCOMM Inc. partnership with TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology Ltd)
April 1, 2006... QUALCOMM, INC. and China TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology Ltd. have announced plans to found a new company to focus on the development of application software for wireless devices. The new company, TechFaith Software China Ltd.,...

M/A-COM.(M/A-COM received award from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dept to deploy an OpenSky network solution )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... M/A-COM--Announced that it has received an $8.9 million award from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dept. (LVMPD) to deploy an OpenSky network solution to provide critical voice and data communications for the department's law-enforcement...

SR Telecom, Inc.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... SR Telecom, Inc.--Has signed an agreement with AXTEL S.A. de C.V. for a purchase commitment of $10 million. Shipments are scheduled to begin immediately with deployment and services scheduled through Q2 2006. AXTEL is Mexico's largest and...

Raytheon Co.(Submarine High Data Rate)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Raytheon Co.--Has been awarded a $35.9 million US Navy contract to deliver 15 Submarine High Data Rate (Sub HDR) multi-band satellite-communication systems (SATCOM). Sub HDR gives submarines high-data-rate, multiband SATCOM capability....

QualComm, Inc.(Investor relations of QualComm Inc)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... QUALCOMM, Inc.--Announced that its board of directors has approved a 33-percent increase in QUALCOMM's quarterly cash dividend. The dividend will increase from $0.09 to $0.12 per share of common stock and will be effective for quarterly...

Aries Electronics.(CanaRep)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Aries Electronics--Announced that CanaRep of Vancouver, BC, Canada has joined Aries' representative network, covering the entire nation of Canada. CanaRep represents a number of OEM electronics components manufacturers throughout the region.

Conexant Systems, Inc.(Securities of Conexant Systems Inc)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Conexant Systems, Inc.--Announced the pricing of its offering of $200 million aggregate principal amount of convertible subordinate notes due 2026. The offering is being made to qualified institutional buyers in a private placement. The notes...

Teseda Corp.(distribution agreements)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Teseda Corp.--Announced new distributors and representatives for the US, Europe, and Asia. New distributors include Davan Tech Co. of Korea and Spirox Corp. of Japan, who will join ATE Service Corp. of Japan to support the Asian market....

GigaBeam Corp.(contracts between GigaBeam Corp and CircleTel Consultancies Co. W.L.L.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... GigaBeam Corp.--Has received a purchase order in the amount of $546,000 for its WiFiber[TM] wireless fiber links from CircleTel Consultancies Co. W.L.L. This order follows a previously announced sale of $314,000 to CircleTel. CircleTel is a...

M/A-COM.(M/A-COM acquired an RF automotive antenna testing facility )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... M/A-COM--Announced that the company has acquired an RF automotive antenna testing facility located in Belleville, MI. The facility includes three outdoor ranges, a screen room, and an anechoic chamber. The use of the facility is not solely...

Furuno Electric Co. Ltd. and SiGe Semiconductor, Inc.(GPS radios )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Furuno Electric Co. Ltd. and SiGe Semiconductor, Inc.--Announced that Furuno has selected SiGe Semiconductor to supply GPS radios for its navigation products. To date, SiGe Semiconductor has shipped one million units of its...

C-MAC MicroTechnology taps Mukerjee as CEO.(appointment of Indro Mukerjee)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... C-MAC MicroTechnology has named INDRO MUKERJEE as CEO. Mukerjee joined C-MAC from Phillips Semiconductors, where he was executive vice president and general manager of the Automotive & Identification Business Unit.

Qualcomm, Inc.(appointment of Andrew Gilbert and Pertti Johansson)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... QUALCOMM, Inc.--ANDREW GILBERT to president of QUALCOMM Europe; formerly vice president and general manager of Flarion Europe. Also, PERTTI JOHANSSON to president of QUALCOMM Middle East and Africa (MEA); formerly president of QUALCOMM Europe.

Motorola, Inc.(appointment of Hamid Ahmadi)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Motorola, Inc.--DR. HAMID AHMADI to chief architect and corporate vice president for technology; formerly vice president and CTO for the Global Communications Sector at IBM.

Micron Technology, Inc.(appointment of Mark Duncan and Brian Shirley)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Micron Technology, Inc.--MARK DUNCAN to COO; formerly CTO and vice president of research and development. Also, BRIAN SHIRLEY to vice president of memory responsible for the combined groups; formerly DRAM design manager.

Keithley Instruments, Inc.(appointment of Thomas A. Saponas)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Keithley Instruments, Inc.--THOMAS A. SAPONAS to the board of directors; formerly senior vice president and CTO at Agilent Technologies.

Raytheon, Co.(appointment of David C. Wajsgras)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Raytheon Co.--DAVID C. WAJSGRAS to senior vice president and CFO; formerly executive vice president and CFO at Lear Corp.

EPCOS AG.(appointment of Helmut Konig)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... EPCOS AG--HELMUT KONIG to the management board; remains managing director at Panasonic AVC Networks Germany GmbH, with overall responsibility for both the Panasonic production facility in Peine, Germany and the company's wholly owned subsidiary...

Endwave Corp.(appointment of Brett W. Wallace)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Endwave Corp.--BRETT W. WALLACE to executive vice president and CFO; formerly managing director and head of the Hardware Practice at Raymond James & Associates.

RF Code, Inc.(appointment of Joseph Dugan)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... RF Code, Inc.--JOSEPH (JOE) DUGAN to president and CEO; formerly president and director of NexgenIX, Inc.

Lucent Technologies.(appointment of John A. Kritzmacher)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Lucent Technologies--JOHN A. KRITZMACHER to CFO; formerly corporate controller.

ABI Research.(appointment of Clint Wheelock)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... ABI Research--CLINT WHEELOCK to vice president of research; formerly vice president for wireless at the NPD Group.

Park Electrochemical Corp.(appointment of Carl W. Smith)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Park Electrochemical Corp.--CARL W. SMITH to vice president of Advanced Composite Operations; formerly held senior management positions at Reinhold Industries, Inc.

Trompeter.(appointment of Larry Fagan)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Trompeter--LARRY FAGAN to direct field salesperson for the Los Angeles territory; formerly commercial accounts manager at Newark Electronics.

TREK, Inc.(appointment of Tom Larson)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... TREK, Inc.--TOM LARSON to ESD Certified Professional--Program Manager by the Electrostatic Discharge Association (ESDA); continues as sales engineer at Trek.

Tahoe RF Semiconductor, Inc.(appointment of Tom Riordan)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Tahoe RF Semiconductor, Inc.--TOM RIORDAN to the board of directors; continues as entrepreneur in residence (EIR) at Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP).

Anritsu Co.(appointment of Donn Mulder)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Anritsu Co.--DONN MULDER to vice president/general manager of Anritsu's Microwave Measurement Division (MMD); formerly business unit manager for Anritsu's field solutions.

StratEdge.(appointment of Bob Solomon)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... StratEdge--BOB SOLOMON to senior account manager; formerly regional sales manager for Corning Gilbert's Microwave Division.

Short courses.(education)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Antenna Parameter Measurements by Near-Field Techniques April 25-27 (Boulder, CO) National Institute of Standards and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder Registration contact: Wendy McBride (303) 497-4500, FAX: (303)...

Meetings.(Calendar)
April 1, 2006... ARMMS RF & Microwave Society Conference April 24-25 (Oxfordshire, UK) Milton Hill House, Steventon Internet: www.armms.org Broadband Wireless World April 26-28 (Las Vegas, NV) Caesar's Palace Event Center ...

Novel oscillator achieves outstanding harmonic suppression.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... STABLE FREQUENCY SOURCES are essential to reliable communications systems. While the majority of research projects in recent years focus on phase noise or tuning linearity, Cheol Gyu Hwang, Jeong Hyeung Ha, and Noh Hoon Myung of the Department...

Optical techniques used for frequency upconversion of WLAN signals.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... FINDING AVAILABLE BANDWIDTH for the growing number of wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) poses a long-term challenge for service providers in countries around the world. Some equipment suppliers, such as Cisco Systems, have explored the use of...

Coplanar waveguide helps forge new multilayer directional coupler.(University of Quebec)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... DIRECTIONAL COUPLERS ARE INVALUABLE components for signal processing, signal routing, and measurement applications. Mourad Nedil, Larbi Talbi, and Tayeb Denidni of the University of Quebec (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) have made a contribution to...

Seeking higher-power solid-state devices: the need for higher-power devices in terrestrial and space-based communications systems has promoted the development of GaN power transistors.
April 1, 2006... Increasing communications volume has increased the demand for higher-power solid-state devices in both terrestrial base stations and satellite-communications (satcom) systems. The required output power for GaAs field-effect transistors (FETs)...

Digitizer provides direct sampling of RF signals; employing a simple RF signal chain, many potential limiting factors can be eliminated when directly sampling RF signals with high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs).
April 1, 2006... High-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) have changed most approaches to receiver front ends. An ADC allows a good portion of the analog signal chain leading from the antenna to be eliminated. Similarly, in an instrumentation system, a...

Microstrip filters provide high harmonic suppression; two different bandpass filter structures were evaluated for achieving good harmonic suppression at microwave frequencies.(DESIGN: HARMONIC SUPPRESION FILTERS)
April 1, 2006... Harmonic filters are invaluable for removing unwanted higher-order harmonic signals from microwave multipliers and mixers in receiver designs, among other applications. Although a variety of filter configurations have been developed to reduce...

Using Class A amplifiers to achieve load tolerance.
April 1, 2006... RF POWER AMPLIFIERS are commonly characterized by specifications like gain, frequency response, and output power. Lesser understood amplifier characteristics also come into play, however. One often-overlooked example is load tolerance. This...

Making USB work for data-acquisition applications.(universal serial bus)
April 1, 2006... THE UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS (USB) is a favored mode of connecting PC peripherals. Now, it is gaining popularity as an alternative interface for data acquisition and measurement. To examine this trend, Keithley Instruments (Cleveland, OH) has...

Cost-effective VCOs replace power-hungry YIGs; these innovative voltage-controlled oscillators make the most of multi-coupled slow-wave planar resonators to achieve low phase-noise performance at a fraction of the size and power of YGGs.(Cover story)
April 1, 2006... Phase noise is the curse of many a communications system, and one of the key performance parameters that most oscillators strive to minimize. System designers have long recognized the yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) oscillator for its broadband,...

Finding a filter from an array of choices: the trend in filter design has followed the pattern for most of electronics: shrink the package while maintaining performance and high-power-handling capabilities.
April 1, 2006... Microwave filters come in a confusingly large range of shapes, sizes, and technologies. From the chip-like devices used in cellular telephones to the metal-housed cavities built to handle kilowatts of power, RF/microwave filters serve many...

LDMOS FETs power WiMAX base stations: these silicon LDMOS devices are the first power FETs to achieve the performance required for 3.5-GHz WiMAX base-station power amplifiers.
April 1, 2006... Powering a WiMAX base station is not a trivial matter. The wireless application occupies the 3.5-GHz band among others, which is too high in frequency for traditional RF transistors and too high in power for most microwave devices. In the 2.5...

Miniature OCXO spans 30 to 120 MHz.(editor's choice)
April 1, 2006... SPACE MISSIONS like the European Space Agency's Mars Express demand frequency references that pass the test of time. A new oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) is built to satisfy such applications. This OCXO offers a frequency range of 30...

MESFET bias controllers satisfy base stations.(editor's choice)
April 1, 2006... TWO ICS are setting and controlling bias conditions for the dual-MESFET power devices found in microwave base stations. The MAX11014 integrates closed-loop drain-current control for Class A MESFET-amplifier operation while the MAX11015 sets the...

EDA software speeds RF IC design.(editor's choice)
April 1, 2006... DESIGNERS ARE increasingly turning to electronic-design-automation (EDA) tools to shorten development cycles and reach tapeout more quickly. The Analog Office 2006 software specifically targets the design of RF ICs for next-generation...

System analyzes UWB compliance.(editor's choice)
April 1, 2006... AS WORK BEGINS on Wireless USB (WUSB) physical layers (PHYs) and media-access controllers (MACs), both device and component companies face problems with design and implementation. The UWBTracer analyzes WiMedia Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radio...