Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor

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FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler laid out his proposal for 5G spectrum allocation that he hopes will be approved by Congress on July 14. It is a comprehensive plan to designate spectrum in the low frequency bands, develop more mid-band frequencies in the crowed areas currently used and a gives specific focus to high frequency bands in the mmWave range. He stated that we will be the first in the world to approve these types of measures if Congress gives their approval next month. 

Lockheed Martin recently released new information about their Space Fence which caught my attention since they are using GaN amplifiers in the system. Space Fence is a long range radar system to track and monitor objects and debris in orbit around the Earth. They announced that objects in space will soon be monitored by a radar array for the U.S. Air Force’s Space Fence as part of Lockheed Martin’s new test site.

Electromagnetic radiation – it might sound like something that you’d be better off avoiding, but electromagnetic waves of various kinds underpin our senses and how we interact with the world – from the light emissions through which your eyes perceive these words, to the microwaves that carry the Wi-Fi signal to your laptop or phone on which you’re reading it.

It was fun meeting Chiphead for the first time at DesignCon 2016. The event covers areas such as PCB design tools, power and signal integrity, jitter and crosstalk, high-speed serial design, test and measurement tools, parallel and memory interface design, ICs, semiconductor components and more. The test/measurement, software and connector companies dominate the exhibition. As the speed of digital electronics has increased, the techniques and methods for digital and RF/microwave design have converged so it was interesting to see the similarities between the two worlds.

Swami Hindle makes his annual RF/Microwave Industry predictions for 2016. Read the future and share your thoughts.

See what the top 10 most viewed articles and videos were for 2015 on microwavejournal.com

This was my first time attending IEEE GLOBECOM that is one of two flagship conferences of the IEEE Communications Society (the other one is IEEE ICC). It drew more than 2300 scientists, researchers and industry experts this year and focused on the hot topics of 5G and IoT. The technical program included oral or poster presentations including about 850 scientific papers, grouped into 12 thematic symposia with more than 15 parallel sessions. In addition to the technical program, IEEE GLOBECOM 2015 featured an industry forum and exhibition program, including industry-focused workshops, tutorials, keynote talks from industrial leaders, panel discussions, small exposition, and business and industrial forums. 

I attended the annual COMSOL conference recently and it made me appreciate that there are many important physical aspects to simulate other than just RF electromagnetic fields. The environment and thermal effects can be significant, and that needs to be considered in many designs.

For the last year I have been following the RF Energy Alliance (RFEA) that is dedicated to presenting solid-state RF energy’s potential as a clean, highly efficient and controllable heat and power source. They envision a fast-growing, innovative marketplace built around this sustainable technology, contributing to quality of life across many applications. 

 I just visited Comsol’s annual COMSOL Conference 2015 Boston where Simulation for Everyone^TM is their trademarked expression. The pre-release of COMSOL Multiphysics® version 5.2 was the focus as it fosters collaboration within organizations by providing simulation specialists the tools to share their simulation work from design and development, to production and testing.