EL SEGUNDO, CA – May 3, 2010 - AWR Corporation, the innovation leader in high-frequency EDA, will award a free, fully-functional, one-year personal term license for its popular Microwave Office® and Visual System Simulator™ (VSS) software suites (including AXIEM™ 3D planar EM software) to the individual or team who wins the Sixth High Efficiency Student Power Amplifier Competition held this month during the 2010 International Microwave Symposium.

The competition, which is open to all registered students and graduate students, requires competitors to design, construct, and measure the performance of a high-efficiency power amplifier. Its operating frequency must be between 1 and 20 GHz and RF output power must be between 5 and 100 W. The winning design will be the one with the highest power-added efficiency.

AWR views the IMS Student Design Contest award as an opportunity to provide students with a hands-on software experience that professors and future employers recognize as mandatory. The contest is another building block in AWR’s student/university outreach program and complements AWR’s recently-announced Graduate Gift Initiative that allows any qualified 2010 graduating engineering student to receive a free one-year, personal-use license of its high-frequency design software.

“AWR is committed to helping engineering students gain valuable hands-on experience with software design tools in preparation for entering the work world,” said Sherry Hess, AWR vice president of marketing. “Our Graduate Gift Initiative has received extremely positive feedback from universities and the industry media. We will continue to reach out to universities and students and look for opportunities to further student learning.”

More information about the 2010 International Microwave Symposium High Efficiency Power Amplifier Student Design Competition is available at the following location: http://www.ims2010.org/pdf/MTT5_PA.pdf.