Industry News

$10 B Mobile Video Messaging Opportunity for 2012

Mobile video messaging services are at the center of the technology convergence that is helping mobile customers realize greater levels of self-expression and on-line community participation. This according to Dan Shey, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Mobile video messaging is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the convergence of...
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Around the Circuit

Industry News Dielectric Communications , a division of SPX and a developer of broadcast antenna systems, announced that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will present the company with a Technology and Engineering Emmy® Award at an awards ceremony during the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in...
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Electromagnetic Simulation of Mobile Phone Antenna Performance

The telecommunications sector is making great advances aimed at delivering an even stream of high-tech devices, covering the significant consumer demands in this sector. Electromagnetic (EM) simulation is becoming an increasingly important tool in the ...
Today’s handsets have to meet tough technical requirements. Mobile phones have to deal with an ever-increasing number of services, while at the same time the cost of the systems is being reduced. R&D in the mobile phone industry copes with this situation by continuously improving the mobile phone efficiency...
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Design Enablement for RF and Microwave IC Design: Part II

This two-part series from Jazz Semiconductor presents recent developments in design-support methodology from a pure-play wafer foundry specializing in RFCMOS and advanced CMOS technologies, including BiCMOS, SiGe BiCMOS and high voltage CMOS. In this s...
Variations in semiconductor manufacturing technology are unavoidable; therefore, the IC must be designed for yield even at the extremes of process variation. The goal of statistical and corner models is accurate simulation of the process-induced variation of circuit performances, such as gain-bandwidth products, distortion levels and phase noise. Process...
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Gallium Nitride Microwave Transistor Technology for Radar Applications

This article reviews the relative merits of silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) materials and describes how the attributes of each impact the operation of microwave transistors for the generation of hi...
Many microwave radar transmitters require active devices that can produce RF output power in the order of kilowatts to even megawatts. Routinely, microwave traveling-wave tube devices are utilized for this application. However, the currently used traveling-wave tubes are inefficient, large, expensive and have suspect reliability. While semiconductor-based amplifiers in...
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A Dual-mode Sensor Solution for Safe Helicopter Landing and Flight Assistance

Helicopters are in danger of suffering damage, collision or crashes when taking off and landing in brown-out/white-out conditions. This article provides an overview of how new developments in radar and laser technology and particularly sensor fusion ca...
During take off and landing flight phases, helicopters can encounter serious brown-out or white-out problems in dusty, sandy or snowy areas as the downwash of the rotor blades creates dust clouds that can completely engulf the helicopter. This is graphically illustrated in Figure 1 . During landing in particular,...
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A Multi-band Inserted Yagi-type Arrayed-slots PIFA Antenna Using a Large Offset Rectangular L-shaped Feed

By inserting Yagi-type arrayed-slots on a metallic plate placed on a foam base with a large offset U-L-shaped feed, a low-cost, surface-mount, planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA), suitable for cellular, PCS, IMT-2000 multi-band operations, is realized. Th...
Along with monopole, patch and slot antennas, the inverted-F antenna (IFA) has become of primary importance for portable and handheld wireless communication units. It is known as a high-efficiency, quasi-omni-directional antenna, with a height of approximately 0.05 to 0.1λ, which is 2.5 to 5 times shorter than a quarter-wave...
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