The ARMMS RF & Microwave Society celebrated its 30thanniversary with a record attendance at its Teledyne Microwave Solutions sponsored April meeting, held near Oxford, UK, exceeding the previous record set in 2005. Indeed a number of people were unable to attend as the venue’s rooms sold out four weeks prior to the conference.
A significant contributor to the success of the conference was Technical Co-ordinator John Walker of Integra Technologies who put together an attractive programme. In its 30 years the emphasis of the society has moved from a focus on test equipment and methods to a wider discussion of topics of interest to practicing engineers and academics.
Topics ranged from frequency synthesiser measurement (Teledyne) to E-band radio design (Plextek RFI), GaN device modelling development (Cree) to Dielectric measurements (De Montford University). The society continued to attract overseas delegates and was pleased to welcome two papers from Spain, on Ultra Wideband GaN High Efficiency Amplifier (Indra) and improved nonlinear simulation techniques (Cantabria University).
Support and encouragement of young engineers continued with two of the delegates presenting papers being funded by the society. Indeed one of these, Robert Smith of Cardiff University, was awarded the prize for best paper for his presentation titled: Broadband push-pull power amplifier design at microwave frequencies.
As with previous conferences both the exhibition and society dinner proved useful networking opportunities and were cited by many as a key motivation for their attendance. Exhibitors present included society stalwarts such as AWR, APC Novacom and Microwave Marketing and relative newcomers to the conference PicoTech and National Instruments. The Rohde & Schwarz stand included an active load-pull demonstration using software from Mesuro. UK manufacturers were also well represented by the likes of Amplifier Technology and Linwave Technology.