The International Microwave Symposium (IMS), the annual conference and exhibition of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), will increase the number of student competitions this year, with an eye on amplifying both the volume and caliber of collegiate entrants. Due to the popularity of the annual events which generate some of the biggest crowds at IMS, this year’s competitions will take the form of seven hardware design competitions allowing students to present their research, design and communication skills to top industry professionals. IMS 2011 will be held June 5 - 10, 2011 in Baltimore, MD.

“Students worldwide look forward to IMS competitions as an opportunity to apply their skills to practical situations and work among world class talent,” said Scott Barker, Professor at the University of Virginia and Co-Chair of the IMS Student Competitions. “We’re always impressed with the energy and fresh ideas students bring to the symposium, and with an expanded menu of opportunities we anticipate an even more remarkable group of participants that we’ll surely see returning as professionals in years to come.”

The student design competitions are sponsored by the Technical Coordinating Committees of MTT-S will be held during IMS 2011. All participants will attend the Student Awards Luncheon where winners will receive cash prizes and be asked to develop summaries for the IEEE MTT-S Microwave Magazine.

The student paper competition recognizes the outstanding technical contributions of individual students. Six top papers and four honorable mentions will be announced at the Student Awards Luncheon on Thursday, June 9.

“The IMS student competition required perseverance, creativity and ingenuity to develop research to the standards of the world’s top microwave scientists,” said Louis-Philippe Carignan, engineering student at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and winner of the IMS 2010 Student Paper Competition. “Participating in this prestigious contest motivated me to strongly invest in my microwave device fabrication process and produce the highest quality research possible. I now feel better prepared for my career and thank IMS for the opportunity and support to realize my full potential.”

Sponsored by the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society’s technical committees as well as various company partners, the list of student design competitions are as follows. All competitions will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center’s Hall A at 12:00 p.m.

• The Power Amplifier Student Design Competition will require students to design, construct, and measure a high efficiency power amplifier.

• The Ash Receiver Student Design Competition will require students to design, construct, and measure an Amplifier-Sequenced Hybrid Receiver (ASH receiver) at a frequency of 433.92 MHz.

• The Low Noise Amplifier Student Design Competition will require students to design, construct, measure, and demonstrate a high linearity (as measured by the output third-order intercept point value), low noise amplifier at 2.45 GHz

• The Packaged Triplexer Student Design Competition will require students to demonstrate effective filter design techniques where the constraints of a package impact the design.

• The Wideband Balun Student Design Competition will require students to design, construct and test a passive wideband balun at a frequency band starting from a minimum of 1 MHz to as high as possible.

The Software Defined Radio Student Design Competition will require students to submit a software-defined radio implementation on a breadboard or a development board that contains one or more programmable devices, front-end analog RF circuitry, an analog to digital converter, and some form of analog output which can be either on the board or within an accompanying computer that includes SDR software producing an analog output from that computer.

• The Optical-to-Microwave Converter Student Design Competition will require students to demonstrate new and effective photodiode power combining and power extraction techniques for stringent microwave photonics applications.

The schedule of student events is included in the IMS 2011 program book http://ims2011.mtt.org/pdfs/IMS2011_Program_Book.pdf, on IMS 2011 Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and on the IMS 2011 App for iPad, iPhone and iTouch. The free application can be downloaded here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ims2011/id423819167?mt=8&ls=1

Registration

Advance registration for IMS 2011 is available until June 3. In addition to IMS 2011, Microwave Week includes the collocated RFIC Symposium and the ARFTG Conference. Early Bird registration for IMS 2011 is available until May 23 and offers a 25 percent discount. For more details on IMS 2011 registration visit: http://ims2011.mtt.org/Registration/IMS_registration.html.