Microwave Journal
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Focus on European Microwave Week 2006

by Christopher Snowden, General Chairman, European Microwave Week 2006

September 1, 2006

With just a week to go there is so much to look forward to as Manchester hosts European Microwave Week for the first time. The Week continues to attract international interest and participation and to grow in popularity, making it Europe’s premier RF & microwaves event. This year host city Manchester has the opportunity to show off its outstanding conference and exhibition facilities, which are at the heart of an exuberant city with excellent accommodation and a vibrant social scene.

Christopher Snowden
General Chairman
European Microwave Week 2006


The Week comprises four conferences — the European Microwave Conference (EuMC), the European Conference on Wireless Technology (ECWT), the European Radar Conference (EuRAD) and the European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC), which has evolved from the popular and successful GAAS® symposia.

Another change is that the Week now starts on the Sunday (10 September) with a range of workshops and short courses and is rounded off with further workshops on the Friday (10 September). This new structure means that the plenary sessions and opening ceremonies now take place on the Monday morning.

Collectively the conferences have attracted a record number of technical paper submissions reaching over 1150, with 790 being accepted for presentation. This has enabled the programme to be tailored to cover a wide range of topics in the RF, microwave, millimetre and submillimetre-wave engineering fields including microwave and photonic devices, component technologies, circuits and systems. Design, analysis and characterization techniques, including computer aided design, simulation and modelling, electromagnetic field and numerical techniques, measurement techniques and system characterisation, will all be addressed.

The programme also embraces theoretical, experimental and applications-oriented approaches to wireless, radar, device and circuit technologies and industrial applications, while topical areas such as ultra wideband technologies, power amplifiers and linearization, terahertz technologies, and MEMS are also popular. The increasing interest in industrial and applications-oriented research is highlighted, along with emerging technologies.

A wide variety of workshops, short courses and focused sessions have been included to complement the regular sessions. Running from Tuesday to Thursday the European Microwave Exhibition has become established as the premier European RF and microwaves exhibition, which leading international companies target as a shop window for their latest introductions and innovations. In recent years the exhibition has grown and grown and in 2006 is larger than ever.

Complementing both the conferences and the exhibition, the established Agilent sponsored Welcome Reception is open to all conference delegates and exhibitors on the Wednesday evening and offers the rare opportunity for industry and academia to mix and interact. Other social events include dinners at Manchester Town Hall and a Gala Dinner and Reception at Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United on the Tuesday evening.

With so much on offer we are confident that European Microwave Week in Manchester will be of a very high standard and that the conferences and exhibition will proffer opportunities for stimulating discussion, networking and the exchange of ideas. We welcome visitors to Manchester and visitors to this Online News Service, which will keep you up to date with all of the activity as the week unfolds.

AN INDUSTRY-WIDE PERSPECTIVE

Christopher Snowden’s microwave industry overview

If participation in European Microwave Week is a good barometer, then the RF and microwaves industry looks particularly healthy. It is significant that the 790 papers accepted for presentation across the four conferences come from 52 countries, confirming the globalisation trends in our industry.

Just taking a snapshot of the four conferences, RF, microwave and millimetre-wave techniques are well covered by the European Microwave Conference, with both active and passive devices and circuits being prominent. The new European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference addresses active devices and circuits based on compound semiconductors and other RF and microwave semiconductor materials. The European Conference on Wireless Technologies focuses on circuit, sub-system and system level aspects of wireless communications, together with signal-processing techniques, while the European Radar Conference concentrates on radar techniques, systems and signal processing. Importantly, common to all is an increased emphasis on applications.

Future development

The conferences are a reflection of the industry in which we work and an indication of the direction that technological development is taking. Let me highlight some of the more significant developments. Topical areas where there is particular activity include power amplifiers and linearization, ultra wideband, terahertz technologies, metamaterials and MEMS. There is also a very high degree of interest in antennas, sensing, phased arrays and propagation as well as filters, passive components and circuits.

Emerging technologies include techniques such as MIMO and imaging processes, where the emphasis is very much on industrial and applications-oriented research. From a geographical perspective pan-European projects such as power devices (Si, GaAs, GaN) and power amplifiers have a significant role to play while defence and space initiatives, including satellite technologies are key areas of activity.