John Barr

On behalf of the Steering Committee for the 2006 IEEE Microwave Theory & Techniques Society International Microwave Symposium, I would like to invite you to join us on June 11–16 in downtown San Francisco, CA, at the Moscone Convention Center. This event, better known as the IMS, the MTT Symposium or “Microwave Week,” is the preeminent gathering of RF and microwave professionals in the world.


San Francisco has been the place to go since 1849 and the California Gold Rush. It is well known for its charm, diversity and fog. It also has been one of the leading regions in the world for RF and microwave work.

MTT-S first came to the San Francisco Bay area in 1958. In fact, MTT-S Historian Ted Saad called this the “first of the Annual Symposia as we know them today.” MTT-S has come back in each decade in 1966, 1975, 1984 and in 1996 — setting attendance records each time. A special session on Wednesday, June 14, will chronicle “50 Years of Microwaves in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

During “Microwave Week” there will be three symposia, the IMS2006 plus the RFIC Symposium (www.rfic2006.org) and the Automatic RF Techniques Group Conference (www.arftg.org), along with 42 workshops and five panels. There will be over 1000 technical presentations in the form of plenary sessions, technical sessions, special/focused sessions, poster sessions, panel sessions and workshops, in addition to a student paper contest, student power amplifier design contest and historical exhibits. There will be many opportunities to network and interact with the leading professionals in the field, master new skills and learn about advanced developments in our industry.

Occurring concurrently is the industry’s largest exhibition of RF and microwave companies. For three days you’ll have the opportunity to visit 200k sq ft of displays from nearly 500 companies that will be showing their latest products and services.

Each year the IMS evolves a bit. New in 2006 will be daily abstract books for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. These pocket size books will provide a convenient daily guide to all the events.

Also new for IMS2006 is a Print-on-Demand (PoD) service for attendees. The printed digest was discontinued in 2005, but with PoD attendees may order copies of specific papers on-line and have the prints ready for pickup at the conference. Attendees will be able to access this service from the Internet during pre-registration as well as at the conference. The service will be accessible through the IMS2006 web site at www.ims2006.org.

Another small change is that box lunches will be available by the registration process to take to the panels or as an alternative to going off-site for lunch. The panels themselves are open to all. There will be seating throughout the convention center for lunch, for impromptu meetings, a moment of quiet reading or reflecting, or using the wireless network to check your e-mail. E-mail access will also be available by a bank of computers in the Cyber Café.

While we as hard working professionals come to “Microwave Week” for the technical sessions and exhibits, you or your guest may have some spare time to see San Francisco and parts of Northern California. We have contracted with the Signature Hospitality Group to operate the IMS2006 Guest Program. Four tours will focus on the city of San Francisco, including: Motorized San Francisco City Tour; Golden Gate Park and the new deYoung Museum; walking tour of Chinatown; and Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf area. Four additional longer tours will touch on some of the highlights of Northern California, such as: Redwoods at Muir Woods; Monterey Peninsula; Wine Country; and the magnificent Yosemite Valley. We hope either by the Guest Program or independently you take an opportunity to see this marvelous area the Steering Committee calls home.

In addition to the guest program, there will be a number of evening social events open to all attendees. Monday is the Microwave Journal Reception in the Yerba Buena Gardens and on Wednesday evening is the All-Industry Reception at the Marriott.

Tuesday evening will feature a special evening reception and rump session talk by Jim Rautio on the life of James Clerk Maxwell marking the 175th anniversary of his birth. Maxwell stands shoulder to shoulder with Newton and Einstein, yet even those of us who have spent decades working with Maxwell’s equations are almost totally unfamiliar with his life and times. Tuesday evening there will be additional separate events for all the student attendees, for Women in Engineering and Ham Radio amateurs.

Due to the close proximity of the hotels to the Moscone Convention Center and the notorious downtown traffic issues, there will be no general attendee bussing from the hotel to the convention center. For those requiring transportation assistance, please contact e.cabrera@ieee.org. For local attendees we recommend using the conveniently located BART or CalTrains.

One last comment regarding the weather. By June the rainy season is finished and we are entering summer. Summers in San Francisco can be quite mild and are occasionally a bit foggy. While nearby can be quite warm, it is rare for San Francisco to get warmer than 80°F (26°C); it is more commonly 70°F (21°C) and the evenings are cooler.

For more information on any IMS2006 activity, please consult the web site at www.ims2006.org.

In closing, I personally want to thank all the members of the IMS, RFIC and ARFTG Steering Committees, the Technical Program Committees and all the presenters for their tremendous personal efforts into this “miss not” week. Thank you.

John Barr received his BSEE degree from Georgia Institute of Technology (1971), his MSEE degree from Stanford University (1974) and his MS degree in engineering management, also from Stanford (1982). After co-oping from 1967–70 with Scientific Atlanta, he joined Hewlett Packard in 1971. Having performed many roles in R&D, from designer to lab manager, he is presently the RFDE Platform Product Manager for the Agilent EEsof EDA division.

John has published 12 papers on component and RFIC manufacturing test measurement techniques, received five patents and participated in 10 conference workshops. This has included work in the area of network analyzer vector error correction, time domain conversion and multi-parameter measurement systems.

John is a Fellow of the IEEE and has been active in the IEEE Microwave Theory & Techniques Society (MTT-S). He has been a regular attendee and participant in International Microwave Symposiums for many years and was the Publicity/Program Chair for IMS1996. He served as President of MTT-S (2002), Vice-President and Treasurer while a MTT-S ADCOM member (1994–2005). Additionally, he has been active in the Automatic Radio Frequency Techniques Group (ARFTG). He was a member of the ARFTG Executive Committee (1984–1996) and served as Vice-President and President.