Industry News

Remote Sensing Through Satellites: A Tutorial Review

Remote sensing is a multi-disciplinary activity that deals with the inventory, monitoring and assessment of natural resources, following the analysis of data obtained through observations from a remote platform. This technology, under development since the early 1960s, has shown great promise in improving the information collection regarding the world’s...
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A Wideband MMIC-based Feedback Oscillator

Classic feedback oscillators have often been favored because of their low phase noise performance and wide frequency tuning characteristics. This article covers the basic theory of feedback oscillators, and shows how the addition of a vector modulator ...
The requirement for increased data rates in modern radio systems has led to higher order modulation schemes which, in turn, demand oscillators with lower phase noise. Meanwhile, manufacturers must also deliver low cost solutions covering many different frequency bands. These two criteria have generally been incompatible, since an improvement...
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Around the Circuit

Industry News Teledyne Technologies Inc. and Celeritek Inc. jointly announced that Teledyne, through its subsidiary Teledyne Wireless Inc., has completed the acquisition of Celeritek’s defense electronics business for $33 M in cash. Celeritek’s shareholders approved the asset sale at the company’s annual meeting. Wireless Telecom Group Inc. (WTT) announced...
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Passive Sensors Using RF Backscatter

An application of RF backscatter to monitor passive (zero DC power) sensors is presented. The technique uses an RF signal, from a probing platform, to probe a passive sensor. The passive sensor contains a transducer that acts like an impedance to RF si...
Low power wireless sensors are receiving considerable attention due to their multiple applications in the commercial and military scenarios. Wireless networks of “power aware” smart sensors are being developed that are deployed and forgotten, 1 as well as the sensor elements themselves. Transducers integrated with radio transceivers and networking...
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Cross-coupling in Microwave Bandpass Filters

The fast growing demand for microwave communication technologies, such as broadband wireless and satellite communication, point-to-point radio links, as well as a variety of radar systems, brings up stringent requirements to modern microwave filter design techniques aimed at minimization of electromagnetic interference, cross talks and jamming. The most critical...
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A High Efficiency Class-F Power Amplifier Design Technique

In this article, a medium power pseudomorphic HEMT device is used in the design of a high efficiency class-F power amplifier (PA) operating at 900 MHz. The purpose of this article is to describe the design procedure of a class-F PA with a very low drai...
High efficiency microwave amplifiers with low supply voltages are required for mobile telecommunications services, such as GSM or DCS1800 systems. Theoretically, class-F power amplifiers (PA) can achieve 100 percent drain efficiency by maximally flattening the voltage and current waveforms of the active device. 1 By increasing the efficiency of...
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Theory and Practical Considerations for Measuring Phase Noise Better Than –165 dBc/Hz: Part II

In part one of this article,1 the fundamental concepts of phase noise and phase noise measurements using direct spectrum analysis, instrument limitations, common sources of error and possible ways to minimize measurement errors were reviewed. In part t...
As discussed in part one of this article, the measurement of very good VCOs at large frequency offsets is limited by the spectrum analyzer’s dynamic range. This limitation can be overcome by using carrier filtering and selective amplification of noise at the offset frequency of interest. The bandpass filter...
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