Articles by Patrick Hindle

There have been several market research reports out over the last month that show what I think is a permanent shift in cell phone leaders. Samsung took over as leading mobile phone shipments in the US market (Apple moved up to #6). RIM seems to be holding strong and introducing some nice products. It seems like the global market leaders of Nokia and Motorola are loosing some of their grip on some of the market. The iPhone also took over as the best selling phone which had been held for a couple of years by the outdated Razor. The smart...

I attended the AMTA Conference this week in Boston at the Park Plaza hotel including the keynote speech by Dr. Eric D. Evans (Director of MIT Lincoln Labs) about radar measurement activities within their organization. I was surprised at the wide array of RF/microwave projects they are working on. He said they are concentrating on key technology enablers such as digital sensors, portable software, open system architectures, sensor/network sidecars and online processors. He said they are still innovating in hardware but spend more effort these days on software. They use rapid proto-typing (3 months from inception to hardware) and...

Microwave technology currently has relatively limited uses in medical applications such as MRI and Telemetry systems with RFID starting to find some uses, but I can think of many others. However, there seems to be a resurgence in some new medical research activities that could change that. Our Dec. issue feature story will describe research being done by Duke University to use microwaves to mildly heat tumors so they respond better to other treatments. New modeling software has enabled better results to eliminate hot spots so that this technique shows promise now. And now UMass has just released news that...

Speaking of mobile-TV (see David's entry below), Peregrine Semiconductor has developed a new digitally tunable capacitor (DTC) technology using their UltraCMOS process. Mobile-TV antennas must be able to receive signals efficiently over the frequency range of 470 to 862 MHz, so using a traditional passive internal antenna can result in a VSWR of 6:1 across the band causing reduced sensitivity. But using a DTC to change the antenna match across the band can maintain a VSWR of better than 2:1. In addition, this DTC technology can withstand the GSM transmitted power levels without affecting the mobile-TV signal integrity. The...

The MWJ editors conducted 7 video interviews yesterday at EuMW and they are now posted on each company's Virtual Trade Stand which are part of our Online Show Daily web site dedicated to EuMW coverage. The companies participating with videos are Anritsu, AWR, CST, Keithley, M/A-COM, Rohde & Schwarz and Triquint. Tune in to see the unique offerings of these companies on display at EuMW....

As David blogged earlier, EuMW is well underway and we hope you have a chance to attend this year. To keep up with all of the action at the conference and exhibition, we have our Online Show Daily so even if you are not there, you can see what is going on. In addition to the conference messages, exhibitor perspectives, news, product releases and virtual trade booths, we also have 3 audio casts covering the conference events, history of EuMW and what to see and do in Amsterdam. Today we video taped some exhibitor interviews to see what is...

I am here at the 45th AOC International Conference in Reno, NV and the attendance is very strong. There are courses and sessions Sun - Fri along with special classified sessions on Thurs. The exhibition runs Mon - Wed and has about 90 companies including the big players like Raytheon, BAe, Lockheed, NGC, Boeing, ITT, etc. The opening session featured keynote speaker Maj. Gen. Craig Koziol, USAF, Commander JIOWC. I attended the exhibition yesterday and got to see lots of old friends. Then I made my way over to the ITT Roost party which was a big hit. It...

Well, I have to write about my old company M/A-COM who was officially taken into the Cobham family at the end of last month. The defense portion will stay with Cobham, the automotive products were sold to Autoliv and the commercial portion has now formed M/A-COM Technology Solutions within Cobham and is probably going to be sold or spun off as a separate company. The land mobile radio group will remain part of Tyco Electronics so the company was essentially split up into 4 pieces. The M/A-COM brand (Microwave Associates in the early years) has over 55 years of experience...

A few years ago most of the HPA manufacturers were researching the next generation of high power devices on GaN and SiC. But is seems like most companies choose GaN for their next generation of devices and interest in SiC seemed to fade (except as a substrate material for GaN). Over the past year, many companies have released new high power GaN devices and it seems to be taking off for many of the higher frequency applications and high voltage LDMOS seems to be doing the same for lower frequency applications. So I am excited to see Microsemi bringing SiC...

Something a little more from fringe science: I recently heard on my favorite tech news podcast that there was an article published in New Scientist about a space (as in outer space) drive that converts electrical energy into thrust using microwaves. It has caused a lot of uproar about not being possible because it violates the law of conservation of momentum, making it impossible to build. But the Chinese (looking for any technological advantage in space they can get) claim to have confirmed the theory and are building a demonstration unit. The theory is that the drive creates thrust...