Microwaves & RF articles from March 2009

Microwaves & RF archives from March 2009

Measuring phase noise.(feedback)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... Dear Editor, I read with great interest your report on phase noise in the February issue of Microwaves & RF. For the most part, the article made valid points about the vagaries of phase-noise specifications in product data sheets. The...

Be proactive about passive components.(from the editor)
March 1, 2009... Passive components are largely ignored in high-frequency circuits, until they become a problem. They are the fundamental building blocks of electronic circuits and, like bricks and lumber in the building industry, are assumed to perform as...

Mobile data infrastructure market prepares for sharp decline in 2009.(the front end)
March 1, 2009... AUSTIN, TX -- The mobile data infrastructure market is expected to experience a double-digit decline in revenues this year, according to a recent study by IMS Research. In the report, titled "Mobile Broadband: 4G Network Evolution," IMS...

Labtech Microwave celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.(the front end)(Company overview)
March 1, 2009... United Kingdom -- Labtech Microwave is pleased to be celebrating its 25th anniversary. The firm was established in 1984 at Presteigne in Wales with the aim of specializing in non-standard printed-circuit-board (PCB) production. It soon became...

Alcatel-Lucent's Alternative Energy Program is solution for wireless-base-station deployment.(the front end)
March 1, 2009... BARCELONA, SPAIN -- Alcatel-Lucent has launched an "Alternative Energy Program" to enable the high-volume deployment of wireless base stations powered by alternative energy sources. The program will help to ensure that service providers can...

Kudos.(the front end)
March 1, 2009... AYLESBURY, UK -- Axis Network Technology (AxisNT) has announced that the number of WiMAX Remote Radio Heads (RRH) that it has delivered to OEMs worldwide had exceeded 5000 units by the end of 2008. As recently as September last year, AxisNT...

The latest news, in e-mail form.(Product Data Directory PDD)
March 1, 2009... Some of the most important high-frequency news won't be found in Microwaves & RF magazine, but in the e-mail newsletter Microwaves & RF UPDATE. Sent directly to your computer desktop each week, this concisely written newsletter features...

Defence electronics.(CHECK OUT THE NEW)
March 1, 2009... Penton has launched a monthly digital publication, Defense Electronics. Edited by our own Jack Browne, this publication covers a wide swath of engineering technologies and details their impact on defense developments. The sections covered range...

Tradeshow video coverage.(Product Data Directory PDD)
March 1, 2009... Whether you attended a conference or not, you can always learn more by watching our on-site videos from various trade shows. Go to www.mwrf.com and click on European Microwave Week 2008 to see our latest video interviews, which were conducted...

Link to the industry's most trusted directory.(Product Data Directory PDD)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The Microwaves & RF web site offers several instant links to the industry's only complete directory of products and suppliers: The Microwaves & RF Product Data Directory. With products from more than 2000 companies, thoughtfully classified into...

News and products.(WEB-EXCLUSIVE)
March 1, 2009... Please join us in welcoming Lisa Maliniak, Online Managing Editor, to the staff of Microwaves & RF. Lisa, who received a BSEE from Rutgers University, has been working as an editor for 20 years. Aside from stints as both a Technology Editor and...

Share your thoughts with quick polls.(Product Data Directory PDD)
March 1, 2009... Quick polls allow you to regularly share your opinion on a wide range of topics. LATEST POLL RESULTS: Do you think the incentives for broadband wireless deployment contained in the US government's economic stimulus package will impact...

Materials move beyond thermal management: to serve higher-frequency designs, emerging materials are maintaining low loss and stability while enabling engineers to coax more performance out of smaller products.(News Report)
March 1, 2009... Materials are not just tasked with bonding and separating circuit traces and ground lines on circuit boards. They must also channel life-shortening heat away from components. In addition, materials must provide stable foundations for circuits...

An interview with Alexander Chenakin.(cross talk)(Interview)
March 1, 2009... Frequency synthesizers are among the most challenging of high-frequency designs. Many approaches have been developed to generate clean output signals, although techniques that achieve low noise often suffer from limited tuning speed. Dr....

Learn the meaning of Amplifier linearity: linearity is an important performance parameter when evaluating a power amplifier for use in certain communications applications, especially systems with advanced modulation formats.(RF Primer)
March 1, 2009... Linearity in an RF/microwave amplifier is a term synonymous with "fidelity" in an audio amplifier. In both cases, the term refers to the essential job of an amplifier, to increase the power level of an input signal without otherwise altering...

Joint venture ST-Ericsson is born.(financial news)
March 1, 2009... ST-ERICSSON HAS BEEN born out of the 50/50 joint venture that united the wireless semiconductor division of STMicroelectronics and the mobile platform division of Ericsson. This announcement follows the closing of the agreement announced from...

Alcatel-Lucent.(CONTRACTS)
March 1, 2009... Alcatel-Lucent -- Has been chosen by Chuan Wei (Cambodia) Co. Ltd, to deploy a nationwide WiMAX Rev-e (IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard) wireless broadband network--Cambodia's first. Commercial services are set for launch in mid-2009. Chuan Wei, part...

Harris Corp.(CONTRACTS)
March 1, 2009... Harris Corp. -- Has received an $18-million order from the US Air Force Special Operations Command's Battlefield Air Operations office for the Harris Falcon III AN/PRC-117G wideband tactical radio system. The Air Force is acquiring the...

Elcom Technologies, Inc.(CONTRACTS)
March 1, 2009... Elcom Technologies, Inc. -- Has announced receipt of orders totaling $2.4 million for Elcom's UFS and IBS lines of frequency synthesizers. The orders reflect Elcom's growing market share in threat simulation and antenna test, respectively.

Azimuth Systems, Inc.(CONTRACTS)
March 1, 2009... Azimuth Systems, Inc. -- Has announced that Alvarion Ltd. has selected the ACE 400WB channel emulator for developing and testing its next generation of WiMAX broadband-wireless-access solutions. The ACE 400WB allows validation of the...

Alvarion Ltd.(CONTRACTS)
March 1, 2009... Alvarion Ltd. -- Has been chosen by Cielux Telecom for a full turnkey WiMAX project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Using Alvarion's IEEE 802.16e BreezeMAX platform for the 3.5-GHz frequency band, Cielux will offer voice and...

dB Control.(FRESH STARTS)(partnership between dB Control and Aidin Technologies Pvt. Ltd)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... dB Control -- has expanded its international manufacturing and service capabilities with a strategic partnership with Aidin Technologies Pvt. Ltd. in Banglagore, India. A memorandum of understanding between the two companies allows Aidin...

Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services.(FRESH STARTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services -- Has relocated into a newly built facility in the new Littleton Distribution Center, Littleton, MA. The 60,000-sq.-ft. test center is three times the size of its existing building and the largest...

The Vitec Group.(FRESH STARTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The Vitec Group -- Has announced the establishment of RF Extreme LLC, a new business unit that comprises leading digital and analog video microwave brands, Nucomm, RF Central, and Microwave Service Company (MSC). By going through the one unit,...

Anite.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Anite -- Along with Azimuth Systems, has launched the WiMAX Performance Tester. This tester combines a channel emulator with a base station emulator, allowing users to run conformance and bespoke test cases on subscriber stations under varying...

Atmel Corp.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Atmel Corp. -- Has acquired all MeshNetics ZigBee intellectual-property rights from LuxLabs BVI for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition of the MeshNetics ZigBee IP includes the BitCloud ZigBee PRO software and ZigBit wireless modules.

Panasonic Industrial Company's Electronic Components Group.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Panasonic Industrial Company's Electronic Components Group -- Has launched an interactive RF Module web site focused on giving design engineers a multi-faceted online resource guide to Panasonic's RF Module products and services. The site...

Plextek.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Plextek -- Recently invested in a new clean room, which has been fully equipped to undertake RF-on-wafer (RFOW) test to 50 GHz. The construction of the test facility includes a Cascade wafer probe station and a 50-GHz Agilent PNA vector network...

Elcoteq SE.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Elcoteq SE -- Marks the 10-year anniversaries of its Dongguan high-volume manufacturing plant and its Hong Kong management support office in China. The Elcoteq factories in China manufacture communications technology products, such as...

Omni-ID.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Omni-ID -- Has added Mitsubishi as a key reseller and strategic partner in Asia. Under this agreement, Mitsubishi will resell Omni-ID's line of RFID tags and services to customers in the Japanese market. This agreement comes on the heels of a...

VXI Technology, Inc.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... VXI Technology, Inc. -- Has changed its name to VTI Instruments Corp. to more completely represent the applications and markets that it serves. VTI Instruments develops precision instrumentation for electronic signal distribution, data...

RFS (Radio Frequency Systems).(FRESH STARTS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... RFS (Radio Frequency Systems) -- Has unveiled ClearFill Star, a digital RF-over-Ethernet wireless indoor cellular-coverage solution. ClearFill Star vows to improve indoor wireless service by converting radio coverage into an IP-based Ethernet...

Wavesat, Inc.(FRESH STARTS)
March 1, 2009... Wavesat, Inc. -- Has secured its latest round of funding, raising $11.7 million CAD. Existing investors led by BDR Capital, BDC Capital, and Multiple Capital participated in the round. Proceeds will be used to further strengthen the company's...

Fawson is founder of RF Connections.(people)
March 1, 2009... RUTH FAWSON has founded RF Connections (www.RF-Connections.com) in Tampa, FL. Fawson, the President and Founder of RF Connections, worked alongside some of the pioneers of the RF connector industry for more than 40 years and has extensive...

Endicott Interconnect Technologies, Inc. (EI).(people)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Endicott Interconnect Technologies, Inc. (EI) -- DR. MARK POLIKS was honored by the FlexTech Alliance with a FLEXI award. The FLEXI awards recognize significant accomplishments in research and development, product development, and leadership in...

Wavecom.(people)
March 1, 2009... Wavecom -- JASON COHENHOUR appointed to the board of directors as well as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors; DAVID MCLENNAN appointed to board of directors as well as Deputy Chief Executive Officer; JASON KRAUSE...

NXP Semiconductors.(people)
March 1, 2009... NXP Semiconductors -- MARC DE JONG, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Automotive and Identification Business Unit, has decided to leave NXP effective April 1, 2009. He has decided to rejoin Philips, where he spent over 20...

Sabritec.(people)
March 1, 2009... Sabritec -- ROBERT FAKE appointed Western Regional Sales Manager; formerly Business Development Manager with a cable provider.

Electronic Interconnect Technology, Inc.(people)
March 1, 2009... Electronic Interconnect Technology, Inc. -- PRATISH PATEL, President and CEO of Electronic Interconnect Technology, Inc., appointed Technical Director of the Great Lakes Chapter of the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA).

IEEE.(people)
March 1, 2009... IEEE -- E. JAMES (JIM) PRENDERGAST appointed new Executive Director; also will serve as Chief Operating Officer; formerly served as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for DuPont Electronic and Communication Technologies.

ON Semiconductor Corp.(people)
March 1, 2009... ON Semiconductor Corp. -- DARYL OSTRANDER elected to Board of Directors. Ostrander formerly served as Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Technology, Microprocessor Solutions Sector for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Meetings.(education)(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Communications Society)(Brief article)(Calendar)
March 1, 2009... WCNC 2009 IEEE Wireless Communications & Networking Conference April 5-8, 2009 (Budapest, Hungary) For registration, conference, and hotel information, visit: www.ieee-wcnc.org/2009 28th IEEE INFOCOM: Conference On Computer...

Short courses.(education)(Calendar)
March 1, 2009... R. A. Wood Associates Courses For your convenience, R.A. Wood can hold courses at your facility. For more details and registration information, visit www.rawood.com or call (315) 735-4217 Introductory RF and Microwaves May 13-15,...

Antennas are printed on foam-dielectric material.(R & D roundup)
March 1, 2009... METALLIZED FOAM MAY BE a way to reduce antenna manufacturing complexity and cost. For example, a microstrip-patch antenna embedded in a rectangular cavity, inspired by the Koch island geometry, has all metallic parts (patch, cavity, and feeding...

MEMS transceiver satisfies low-and medium-data-rate uses.(R & D roundup)
March 1, 2009... WIRELESS AND NETWORKING capability have not been seamlessly integrated into tiny devices for short-distance wireless applications. Such low-data-rate (LDR) applications, which typically operate at 10 kb/s, include wireless sensor networks...

Mast antenna enhances satellite radio reception.(R & Droundup)
March 1, 2009... TO IMPROVE DIGITAL satellite-radio reception, a novel topology has been proposed for a vehicular circular-polarization mast antenna. This antenna does not require a groundplane. In addition, left- and right-hand circular polarization are...

Analyze bearing accuracy of a monopulse system: the performance characteristics of cables and other RF/microwave components can have an impact on determining the bearing accuracy of an amplitude monopulse system.(Design Feature)
March 1, 2009... Amplitude monopulse direction-finding (DF) systems depend on tight component tolerances to achieve a high degree of bearing accuracy. By using an amplitude monopulse system with four-monopulse antenna and switched beam-forming network as an...

Recalling early GaAs MMIC developments: modern low-cost multifunction GaAs MMICs have roots in early devices fabricated from considerably smaller wafers and targeted largely at the needs of military applications.(Design Feature)
March 1, 2009... Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a well-established device technology now at the heart of many commercial and military systems. The technology is now more than 40 years old, with early diffused-gate transistors with lower-Megahertz gains reported...

Analyze requirements for WEDGE receivers: designing a multimode WEDGE receiver calls for a full understanding of the minimum performance requirements of individual GSM and WCDMA cellular receivers.(Design Feature)
March 1, 2009... Third-generation (3G) cellular networks offer unprecedented functionality and services for consumers, but also a host of challenges for handset designers. To provide the many services available, a mobile handset must work seamlessly across...

SIR approach yields UWB microstrip filter: stepped-impedance resonators can be used to design planar microstrip filters with the large fractional bandwidths, small size, and electrical performance needed for UWB systems.(Design Feature)(Ultra wideband technology)(stepped-impedance resonators )
March 1, 2009... Ultrawideband (UWB) communications technology provides a practical means of low-power, high-data-rate transmissions over short distances, such as in personal-area networks (PANs). The technology is also suitable for longer-range applications,...

Use RF CMOS for single-chip wireless solutions.(application notes)
March 1, 2009... DEPENDING ON THE APPLICATION, an RF system's baseband processor or controller is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) device that contains one or more central processing units (CPUs), memories, complex logic, and analog circuits. Normally, the digital...

Subharmonic mixers best serve millimeter-wave radios.(application notes)
March 1, 2009... WITH THE INCREASING DEMANDS in the microwave and very-small-aperture-terminal (VSAT) radio market, the frequency band of operation has risen while modulation schemes have grown more complex. To design a millimeter-wave radio that can provide...

Rack-mount amplifiers power 0.5 To 31.0 GHz: this series of rugged, instrument-grade amplifiers serves narrowband and broadband applications with high gain, generous output power, and surprisingly low noise figures.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2009... Rack-mount amplifiers serve a variety of purposes in commercial, industrial, and military systems, where power, gain, efficiency, and linearity are important. In line with these requirements, noted amplifier supplier CTT, Inc. (www.cttinc.com)...

Propagation simulator models airborne coms: when equipped with the ASO capability, this propagation simulation system can emulate the effects of fading, noise, velocity, and acceleration on fast-moving communications signals.(Product Technology)(Elektrobit Corp.)
March 1, 2009... Communications links operating in airborne and aerospace environments must overcome the stress of high velocity and acceleration in addition to the usual challenges of interference and fading. Fortunately, the EB Propsim C8 propagation...

Sizing up advances in frequency synthesizers: synthesizer specifiers are expecting more performance in smaller packages, with lower power consumption and improved phase noise in support of digitally modulated communications systems.(Product Technology)
March 1, 2009... Microwave frequency synthesizers are shrinking. To summarize the major trend in the technology, modern frequency synthesizers offer better performance than units many times their size from a decade earlier. Most are designed upon modular...

Palm-sized generators pack high performance: these USB-compatible sources provide clean signals from 50 MHz to 6 GHz at +10 dBm with the small size and low cost that makes them ideal for portable applications.(Product Technology)
March 1, 2009... Signal generators are found in almost every RF/microwave test lab but, more and more, they are also needed in the field. Unfortunately, most RF/microwave signal generators are designed for fixed, rack-mount installations. That is, except for...

Digital scopes capture 30 GHz: this series of high-speed digital oscilloscopes is based on a common platform, allowing owners to upgrade analog bandwidth capabilities from 4 GHz to 30 GHz at any time.(Product Technology)
March 1, 2009... Broadband signal capture with a high-speed oscilloscope can reveal a great deal about the electronic "health" of a component or system. And in terms of measurement power, few oscilloscopes can compare with the new WaveMaster 8 Zi series of...

Tiny transistors route wireless signals: packaged transistors can provide a variety of different functions in wireless communications systems, from providing gain in oscillators to switching signals.(Product Technology)
March 1, 2009... Packaged transistors serve a multitude of analog-signal-processing purposes in wireless systems, from amplification to switching. The latest additions to a line of packaged devices from California Eastern Laboratories (www.cel.com) cram a great...

SiGe mixers suit base stations from 700 To 4000 MHz.(editor's choice)
March 1, 2009... DESIGNED USING A PROPRIETARY silicon-germanium (SiGe) process, a new line of mixers provides input third-order intercept point performance to +24.8 dBm. With 2RF-2LO spurious rejection to -79 dBc, these monolithic devices can ease the filtering...

LDMOS transistors target sub-1-GHz cellular applications.(editor's choice)
March 1, 2009... BY LEVERAGING A LATERALLY diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) process technology, a line of power transistors has been designed to lower power consumption in cellular transmitters. The eighth-generation high-voltage (HV8) RF power LDMOS...