Articles by Pat Hindle, Editor, Microwave Journal

 The history of Wireless Communications started with the understanding or magnetic and electric properties observed during the early days by the Chinese, Greek and Roman cultures and experiments carried out in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Here are some selected events in the development of Wireless Communications (material taken from the book History of Wireless, Tapan Sarkar, et al., Wiley, 2006). 

I just returned from Mobile World Congress and the hot topics were 5G and IoT which mirrors what we have seen lately on the technology front. There is some controversy in discussing 5G these days as it is not defined yet, but we will cover the developments as the technology works itself out in the industry and standards organizations. IoT topics at MWC ranged from smart cities to the connected homes to vehicle-to-vehicle communications to wearable devices and were demonstrated in many of the booths at the exhibition.

Looking back at 2014, a few key technologies were prevalent in the news. 5G research and prototyping took off as investment in this area has quickly expanded with support from industry and academia. This happened at the same time as the 4G rollout gathered steam, especially in the Chinese market where demand for components has been strong. CMOS continued to advance in the RF marketplace by showing off single chip RF fronts ends for 4G handsets and integrated mmWave AESA chips with up to 16 elements. Although CMOS has taken more market share in the RF marketplace along with GaN, GaAs still has a major presence in our industry due to its flexibility and already established manufacturing infrastructure. As the focus for more efficient amplifiers continued, envelope tracking came into the mainstream as a MIPI standard.

Explores different market opportunities for GaN and provides expert industry perspectives from leading GaN suppliers