This month we wrap up 2010 and begin looking forward to the New Year. While the great recession continues to impact the general economy and keeps our industry operating in a cautious mode, there are definitely signs of increasing activity in new product announcements, articles about innovative technology and resurgence in marketing activity compared to 2009.
Interesting times create challenges and opportunities. For instance, on the defense front, the recent focus on security against terrorism is creating the need for new types of ad-hoc communication networks and RF-enabled surveillance systems. In the consumer electronics world, the demand for smartphones and mobile internet access has created vast opportunities for an entire eco-system of handset chip manufacturers, microwave backhaul, test equipment providers and more. While a new year is almost upon us, think of the months ahead as the continuation of technology’s steady march forward, where devices are smaller, lighter, cheaper and better performing than last year’s models. You make it, we’ll cover it. And to help you align your advertising with what’s happening out there; here is brief guide to some of our upcoming editorial.
December: Industrial, Scientific and Medical Applications
Green Waves and Smart Homes
Our December “ISM Applications” editorial content focuses on the emerging markets for microwave technology in the areas of industrial applications (i.e. RFID in supply chain management or RF driven plasma lighting), scientific (microwave measurement instrument for research) and medical (microwave emblation or SAR studies). This year we look at the microwave market opportunity behind smart energy.
In our cover story from September on the economics of handset front-ends, the executives at RFMD, Skyworks and TriQuint were all extremely bullish on the market potential for wireless devices in the machine-to-machine (M2M) sector. Each of them predicted that the sheer number of m2m connections would exceed the number of personal mobile devices in the near future. Apart from homeland security and supply chain management, one of the major applications driving this demand will be the smart energy grid. In our December cover story, we feature a story from Analog Devices on the role of microwaves and RF devices in tomorrow’s smart energy systems. Marketers for RFIC and MMIC manufacturers targeting the green economy, low power RF and Zigbee applications will want to consider advertising in our last issue of 2010.
About 2011
Believe it or not, we are well into planning the first four issues of the next year and I am very excited about the line up of content for the first half of 2011. Several market sectors seem poised for respectable growth next year and many of our advertisers have approached us with ideas for editorial based on new products and technology they have in the pipeline. If you have some significant technology to share with our readers it is better to contact the MWJ editors early for us to coordinate our print schedule. We will also continue the Techbrief feature introduced in 2010 as well as hybrid print/online (abstract/white papers) features.
January: Radar and Antennas
This issue is well-suited to companies targeting mil/aerospace markets. Our lead story focuses on cognitive radar developments. Software-defined radios enable a range of powerful capabilities, security and spectrum coverage for communications and radar systems alike. This cover feature will be of interest to system integrators as well as RF component manufacturers will review the technology, capabilities, and applications made possible through developments in cognitive radar. January will also feature technical articles on a Ka-band Tx FEM with 8x8 antenna from IMST, modulators/demodulators for Radar from MITEQ, a 1 kW PA module for radars from RFHIC and X-band chip set from M/A-COM as well as a look at design and verification for radar components with new RF front-end metrics by RFMD, the new hybrid FE-BI (finite element – integral equation) simulation technology from Ansoft and phase noise measurement system from Holzworth. This issue is sure to kick the year off with a bang.
February: High Frequency Components, Boards and Systems
This issue is dedicated to RF/microwave sub-assemblies, hybrids and modules and related components and materials. Our lead story will look at the state of the art in microwave integrated sub-assemblies and various technologies designed to improve interconnect performance, reduce the size and weight of high frequency boards. Guest editorial looks at SMT packages for use over 20 GHz from Florida RF Labs, a 6 GHz dual RMS detector from Linear Technologies and a 2 to 20 MHz micro-synthesizer from Phase Matrix. Many defense related microwave systems utilize MIC technology and so this issue is a good follow-up to the January issue, further exploring the technology available to implement such systems.
March and March Supplement
The March issue is dedicated to RF/microwave measurement techniques and equipment. This past year saw the introduction of many new test instruments, so in March we will look at the capabilities of one specific class of instrument, the new breed of microwave frequency oscilloscopes. We will also have a special report on the state of PXI instruments and their vendors target microwave production testing.