As the new technical editor of Microwave Journal, I welcome you to our November issue. What a privilege it is for me to be here and contribute to such a quality and long-lasting publication.
Life is neither predictable nor linear, often bringing unexpected turns that forever change us. Such is my story. Long, long ago, as a senior in high school, I faced the difficult choice of which career to pursue: engineering or journalism / mass communication. Both were of keen interest, fostered by my part-time job at a radio station. I chose electrical engineering.
By the time I was a senior in college, I had decided to apply my EE degree to audio engineering, designing loudspeakers or power amplifiers. However, the economy was in a recession and although I had quite a few interviews, no real job offers followed. I did land an engineering position, ironically working at the other end of the frequency spectrum.
That job experience and another degree led me to Texas Instruments (TI), where I was introduced to microstrip, an early version of COMPACT, and GaAs. TI gave me the opportunity to be a “midwife” at the birth of the GaAs MMIC industry. When Raytheon acquired TI’s defense business in 1997, I left to join MACOM, where I played several marketing, product management and business development roles, serving both commercial and defense markets.
Cobham’s acquisition of MACOM six years ago prompted me to join TriQuint, where I was reunited with many former TI colleagues. TriQuint had purchased TI’s MMIC segment after the U.S. Department of Justice forced Raytheon to divest it, as a condition of purchasing TI’s defense business. At TriQuint, I held product and strategic marketing and business development roles focused on the infrastructure markets: base station, point-to-point radio, VSAT, optical networking and CATV.
David Vye’s departure from Microwave Journal last summer created an opening for a technical editor. When Pat Hindle, who took on David’s role, posted the opening on LinkedIn, I was surprised at how much it resonated with me. After all these years, I saw the chance to pursue my long-standing interest in journalism and media, while using my industry experience and technical background.
And so, somewhat unexpectedly, I find myself writing this column, honored to join the talented and dedicated team that publishes the most prestigious of the RF and microwave media, a publication that has informed me throughout my career. I see my role as helping to make you more effective, productive and informed in your respective roles, while maintaining our high standards for the quality of content.
Ours is a small industry. I look forward to renewing acquaintance with those of you I have met over the years and meeting many of you I do not yet know. I want to hear and help tell the stories of the work you are doing and the impact you are having on society. But enough about me.
Our November issue includes two interesting articles on the challenges facing today’s filter designers. With data consumption growing exponentially, every bit of frequency spectrum is in demand, and filters allow the myriad services, commercial and military, to coexist without interfering with each other.
Last year’s article on Möbius strips, used as printed resonators for oscillators, was one of the most popular Microwave Journal has published. As a follow up, Ulrich Rohde and Ajay Poddar are back with the first of a three-part series that provides a broader treatment of the topic.
Two technical articles address aspects of power amplifier design: second harmonic tuning of a broadband GaN PA to maximize efficiency, and PCB thermal management, which is critical to ensure reliability. Rounding out the issue is an article on a low phase noise oscillator.
Our November supplement focuses on mobile communications and infrastructure. You have probably noticed that industry interest in 5G is accelerating, including R&D investigating the feasibility of using the millimeter wave spectrum. Addressing a major question, NYU WIRELESS has contributed an encouraging article reporting on propagation at 28 and 73 GHz.
For circuits and systems, we have technical features on a Q-Band transceiver and an 8 x 8 MIMO subsystem for 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Sky Light Research provides a market perspective on the long-haul, point-to-point radio market.
As interesting and complex as the communications technology and products are, we often take for granted the test systems needed to design and manufacture them. Two articles provide insight into this: Keysight Technologies writes about the role of the test system in optimizing the design of envelope tracking (ET) power amplifiers, and National Instruments contributes a tutorial on six key measurements necessary to characterize LTE receivers.
This range of topics reminds me once again that we live in an amazing age. We should be proud to be part of an industry that provides the RF and microwave technologies that help make it so.