Here’s my weekly recap of industry news:

Companies and Products

Analog Devices (ADI) released a GaN power amplifier (PA) that covers 300 MHz to 6 GHz and provides 35 W output, 20 dB power gain and up to 44 percent power-added efficiency. Biased at 50 V, the PA draws 1.3 A.

Custom MMIC released a packaged, DC to 20 GHz distributed PA with >28 dBm P_1dB, 38 dBm IP3 and 11 dB gain at 10 GHz.

Guerrilla RF announced a driver/LNA combination that covers 1.7 to 3.8 GHz with 17 dB gain, 24.8 dBm P_1dB and 0.8 dB noise figure (NF) at 2.5 GHz, biased at 5 V. Increasing the bias to 8 V, P_{1 dB} increases to greater than 28 dBm, with the noise figure and gain essentially the same. The amplifier is packaged in a 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm DFN-6.

Keysight was selected to provide 5G test solutions for Qualcomm’s sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave chipset and system testing.

At IMS, National Instruments (NI) announced a baseband version of their vector signal transceiver (VST). The VST’s 1 GHz I/Q bandwidth supports envelope tracking (ET), digital predistortion (DPD) and 5G testing. The PXIe-5820 combines a wideband I/Q digitizer, a wideband I/Q arbitrary waveform generator and high performance user-programmable FPGA in a single two-slot PXI Express module.

EU regulators extended their anti-trust investigation of Qualcomm’s $38  billion acquisition of NXP. The EU has concerns that the combined company will reduce competition, particularly in the automotive and NFC applications where NXP is strong.

Skyworks added a high efficiency, 5 GHz PA to their small cell family. The SKY66288-11 is designed for license assisted access (LAA) and unlicensed LTE services (LTE-U). This PA extends Skyworks’ small cell portfolio to all 3GPP bands.

After 22 years as a company, Yahoo is now part of Verizon and combined with AOL in a new business unit named Oath. Slate published an informative reflection on the rise and fall of Yahoo and the rationale for Verizon’s purchase.

In case you missed this year’s International Microwave Symposium (IMS), Microwave Journal's editors summarized company announcements and other highlights. We also recorded an episode of Frequency Matters, on the second day of the show.

Markets and Technology

GaN — ABI Research sees GaN gaining sockets in cellular infrastructure and GaN's share of the RF power market doubling by 2022. You’ll have to buy the report to get the numbers in their forecast.

Cellular/5G — Ericsson published the latest edition of their mobility report, with updated forecasts on the growth of mobile, including the IoT.

Six European industry groups criticized the EU's regulatory framework for 5G, calling it “timid” and the outlook for 5G “grim.” The groups say proposed changes to EU legislation will increase rules and complexity and hinder innovation. From leading the development of 2G and 3G technology, the EU is lagging behind China and North America.

To wit, China’s three mobile operators will invest $180 billion in their 5G networks over seven years, according to an estimate by investment firm Jefferies. This compares with the $117 billion China invested in 4G.

In a 5G test, Huawei achieved greater than 6 Gbps data rates from a single-user downlink and more than 18 Gbps peak rate for the cell. The test used 200 MHz bandwidth at C-Band (i.e., above 4 GHz).

ADI's CEO, Vincent Roche, expects a “meaningful ramp” in 5G revenue in 2019, reflecting an aggressive pull-in by carriers and OEMs. Listen to his comments, made during ADI’s Q2 2017 earnings call on May 31.

The 5G World conference was held in London last week. Watch Telecom TV’s video highlights here.

Automotive — Autotalks announced a bike-to-vehicle (B2V) chipset that will help prevent motorcycle accidents. The chipset, which uses the dedicated short range communications (DSRC) band, is being evaluated by Bosch.

Audi may be first to commercialize level 3 “self driving” cars, but they don't expect full autonomous driving soon: “Full autonomy is years away from being safe enough for the market.” Read more in this Axios profile.

Aerospace — Increasingly, airliners are antenna farms — the Boeing 787 has more than 20 antennas — meaning airline antenna maintenance and repair are critical to keeping the planes in the air. This article in MRO-Network.com discusses the challenges.

Mobile Society — Do you use a “what to take” checklist for business trips, so you don't forget to pack something important? I do. A new business model extends the concept to a concierge service that packs your suitcase and delivers it to your hotel. Will it fly?

Last Word — Assuming your workload slows during the summer or you will have some time to read during a vacation, you may be interested in these book recommendations from Bill Gates. He says, “This year, I found myself drawn even more than usual to books that took me outside (and I don’t mean the great outdoors). The books on this year’s summer reading list pushed me out of my own experiences, and I learned some things that shed new light on how our experiences shape us and where humanity might be headed.”

Thoughts? Leave a comment below.