The Book End

Introduction to RF Design Using EM Simulators

Hiroaki Kogure, Yoshie Kogure and James Rautio

James Rautio is well known as the founder of Sonnet and his collaboration with the Kogures goes back to 1985. At the time, he had written an antenna analysis program for amateur radio operators that Aki and Yoshie promoted and sold in Japan. They have been working together ever since. As described in this book, a typical moderately high-end desktop computer has increased in speed by about 300 million times as applied to matrix inversion since then. With the huge increases in speed, the industry has also seen huge increases in the numbers of engineers who need to solve microwave problems.

The Kogures have been addressing this need for the last quarter-century in Japan by giving innumerable courses to help bring engineers new to our field up to speed quickly. While these students were eager and motivated, and very skilled in other areas, their knowledge of microwaves was often nearly nonexistent. This book, along with the companion antenna book, is the culmination of all those years of training Japan's new-found microwave engineers. It is intended for anyone who finds themselves in the same situation as the Kogures' Japanese students – lots of motivation, but little knowledge in this highly specialized field. It is for those who will go on to immerse themselves in equation-filled college text books but would like a quick, easy read to get the big picture, to get a fundamental understanding of what is happening before dealing with massive amounts of technical detail. It is also for those who deal with microwave designers, who would like to have a deeper understanding of exactly what is going on, rather than just trying to memorize a few impressive-sounding technical terms.