Attending European Microwave Week 2013

Although Nuremberg will be the venue for EuMW for the first time, Germany is no stranger to playing host to Europe’s premier RF and microwave event. Like previous German venues, the Nürnberg Convention Center, NCC Ost will feature conferences, workshops and seminars offering quality content and a dynamic exhibition showcasing companies from across the globe, which together will attract a large and focused audience.

The motto for the 16^th European Microwave Week that will be held from Sunday 6th to Friday 11^th October is Meet Experts, Make Friends and Nuremberg is the perfect place to foster relationships, both professionally and personally. This beautiful city offers the culture, entertainment and history of a large metropolis, while also affording the charm and warmth of a much smaller city.

With more than 1000 papers submitted from all over the world, the EuMC, EuMIC and EuRAD conferences demonstrate the importance and attractiveness of microwave engineering in the modern world. In total, 630 submissions have been selected to be presented in three poster sessions and 106 regular sessions, 11 focused and five special sessions and a total of 48 workshops and short courses.

This year, particular emphasis is placed on displaying recent scientific and industrial microwave achievements in Germany’s eastern neighbouring countries by means of a series of three special sessions. Furthermore, based on an agreement between EuMA and the organizers of the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, three invited speakers from Asia will contribute with views from their home countries.

Bringing industry, academia and commerce together, European Microwave Week 2013 will see an estimated 2000 conference delegates, over 5000 visitors and 300 plus exhibiting companies spread over more than 8500 m² (gross).

Networking, interaction and exchanging ideas are a key to academic and commercial success today and EuMW will offer every opportunity to do so. None more so than at the EuMW Welcome Reception, which will be held on Level 1 at Hall Sydney and the Restaurant Vasco da Gama. The evening will begin with a cocktail reception at 18:30, when guests will be addressed by the 2013 EuMW chairmen, who will hand over to the 2014 EuMW chairman for Rome, followed by Platinum Sponsor Agilent Technologies, after which a three course buffet for 1000 people will be served.

Other social events have been organized throughout the week and although convivial interaction is essential to a successful event, of course, the main focus is to provide attendees with the opportunity to fulfill their specific goals. To help visitors to achieve these aims, the following quick reference guide is designed to complement the Conference Program and Exhibition Show Guide, where you will find more detailed information.

Conferences

Each with their own dedicated time slots throughout the Week there are three focused conferences:

• The 8^th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC) takes place on Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 October
• The 43^rd European Microwave Conference (EuMC) extends from Tuesday 8 to Thursday 10 October
• The 9^th European Radar Conference (EuRAD) ends the week and runs from Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 October.

The conferences cover a wide range of subject areas including: microwave, millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave systems, antennas and propagation, wireless technologies and telecommunication, encompassing RF, microwave and optical. There is also specific focus on: ICs, semiconductor materials and packaging, radar architectures, systems and subsystems, not forgetting sensors and remote systems and test and measurement. Many of these areas will also be covered by the workshops and short courses that start from Sunday 6 October.

Registration, sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz, opened online on 1^st June 2013 and remains open up to and during the event until 11^th October. There will be onsite registration from Saturday 5 October from 16:00 to 19:00 and from 07:30 each morning from Sunday 6 October to Friday 11 October.

The registration area will be located at the entrance, Level 0 within the NCC Ost. All those who have pre-registered should bring their badge barcodes and confirmations with them to the conference where they can print out their badges by scanning their barcodes at the Fast Track desk onsite. For those who have not pre-registered, there will be onsite registration terminals located within the registration area, where delegates can enter their details and pay immediately by swiping their credit or debit cards through the card readers attached to the terminals. Alternatively, there is the facility to pay at the cashier desk for those who require a printed receipt.

Once in possession of their badges, delegates can collect their delegate bags, sponsored by Infineon and Freidrich-Alexander Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, from collection points to the right of the registration area. The bags will include a USB stick containing the conference presentations.

The European Microwave Conference

Exactly 30 years ago, the EuMC was staged on its own in Nuremberg. Now it returns as the centrepiece and the biggest of the three conferences of European Microwave Week. It covers a broad range of high frequency related topics.

It will address the latest developments for passive components, modelling and design of high frequency and high data rate microwave photonics, highly stable and low-noise microwave sources, new linearization techniques, electronically steered antenna arrays and the impact of new packaging technologies on development applications.

Special emphasis will be placed on emerging technologies and materials for microwave components such as MEMS, meta-material structures and devices, tunable and reconfigurable RF systems, and systems-in-package. There will be specific focus on microwave components and systems for the rapidly growing field of wireless communications, radar with wireless communication capability, millimetre-wave imaging systems, and microwaves in medical applications.

The EuMC Opening and Closing Sessions are the formal opening and closing events of the entire week and both feature prominent keynote speakers. The Opening Session features Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon Technologies, Munich, and Ralf G. Herrtwich, director driver assistance and chassis systems, Daimler, Böblingen. Erich R. Reinhardt, president of Medical Valley EMN, Erlangen, and Dirk Beernaert, adviser to the DG for interdisciplinary and integrating activities, European Commission, Brussels are the Closing Session speakers.

The European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference

As the successor to the former GAAS Conference since 2006, EuMIC covers a wide range of semiconductor materials and monolithic integration techniques. It is the premier European technical conference on technologies, modelling, simulation, design and characterization of integrated devices and circuits for RF, microwave, millimeter-wave and THz applications. The conference will focus on the increase of data rates and energy efficiency being key aspects in the design of future wireless systems, while power amplifiers and integrated antennas are also hot topics.

Two eminent plenary keynote speakers – Hermann Eul, corporate vice president and general manager mobile and communications group, Intel, USA, and Sorin Voinigescu, University of Toronto, Canada – should not be missed, while the Closing Session will include a foundry panel discussion and an invited talk from Zhigong Wang, Southeast University, Nanjing, China on future challenges of integrated circuits in China.

The European Radar Conference

One of the most prominent radar events, not only in Europe but worldwide, EuRAD covers all relevant aspects of modern radar technology, including components and subsystems, architectures and applications, and signal processing.

The Opening Session, which forms part of the Defence & Security Forum, features keynote talks from two internationally recognised experts. Alberto Moreira, DLR, Germany, will highlight outstanding space-based SAR applications, while Jürgen Sachs, TU Ilmenau, Germany, will address the latest advances in ultra-wideband radar and sensing. During the Closing Session Andreas Stelzer, a leader in industrial radar applications from the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, will report on the most recent developments in this field.

Finally, in the Closing Sessions for all three conferences, prestigious awards will be handed out for the Best Paper and Best Young Engineer Presenters, with the papers and presenters carefully selected by a special awards committee.

Exhibition

Central to the week both chronologically and metaphorically, the European Microwave Exhibition will be housed in Hall 7A of the Nürnberg Convention Center from Tuesday 8 October to Thursday 10 October. Larger in gross space and the number of exhibiting companies than in 2012, it will be the hub of activity generated by the multitude of companies eager to display and demonstrate their latest introductions. As well as a platform for innovation that leading manufacturers often choose to launch new products and float future concepts, the show floor also offers visitors the opportunity to discuss their current work with the experts.

Hall 7A will feature companies large and small, established and emerging. Of course, European companies are to the fore, with both Germany and France having their own national pavilions. As always, the USA and Asia are well represented with the Chinese Pavilion expanding in 2013, demonstrating the country’s continued emergence as a force in the RF and microwave sector.

The established and popular exhibitor workshops offered by leaders in their respective fields will continue, offering attendees the opportunity to see live demonstrations and gain hands-on experience. To find out which companies will be exhibiting at the Nürnberg Convention Center see the latest exhibitor list, starting on page 178.

Germany is a powerhouse in the automotive sector, reflected in the fact that for the second year, the exhibition hall will house at least three vehicles that demonstrate that automotive technology is emerging from the lab and onto the road. All of the cars will be equipped with different 24 GHz, as well as 77 GHz radar sensors. The cars, a brand new S-Class from Mercedes-Benz and a Golf 7 from Volkswagen as well as an Actros II, a tractor trailer from Mercedes-Benz, will feature radar sensors from Bosch, Conti and Valeo respectively, demonstrating the upcoming democratization process of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Specifically, the Actros II will demonstrate the implementation of Automatic Emergency Braking Systems (AEBS), which will be mandatory for trucks and buses from November 1^st 2013. At the time of going to press there is also the possibility of a fourth car – a VW Golf 6 equipped with radar sensors from Hella. Furthermore, there will be a demo on Tuesday, 8 October on a 250 m strip of street adjacent to the hall exit, organized by Mercedes-Benz.

Now in their third year the European Microwave Week Microwave Application Seminars (MicroApps) has become a recognised event in itself. The AWR, Horizon House and National Instruments sponsored seminars will take place in the MicroApps Auditorium for the entire three days of the exhibition. Hall 7A will also be the home of the conference poster sessions, coffee breaks and the Publisher’s Corner.

Once again, CST is sponsoring a Cyber Café located within the Exhibition Hall for all delegates, exhibitors and visitors to use, as well as free WiFi access for delegates in all conference areas.

Exhibition Opening Hours

• Tuesday 8 October: 09:30 to 17:30 (followed by the Welcome Reception)
• Wednesday 9 October: 09:30 to 17:30
• Thursday 10 October: 09:30 to 16:30

Getting to the NCC, Nuremberg

Nuremberg (German: Nürnberg) is located in the south of Germany and it is well connected to the European motorway, rail and flight networks, which allow easy access to the Nürnberg Convention Center. The NCC is connected by subway lines to the main railway station (about eight minutes) and to the airport (about 25 minutes).

By Car

Navigation systems will find the NCC by inserting the address: Karl-Schönleben-Strasse, Nuremberg, Germany or entering Messezentrum, Nuremberg as a special destination.

By Rail

Nuremberg is served by four different kinds of trains: ICE (Intercity Express), IC (Intercity), RE or RB (local trains) and the S (commuter train). ICE trains are the fastest and enable access to Nuremberg from Frankfurt am Main and Munich in two hours and one hour respectively. For more information for connections within the German railway system (Deutsche Bahn) visit: www.bahn.com. To obtain more information for local connections and subway lines in and around Nuremberg visit: www.vgn.de/home_engl/.

By Plane

Nuremberg Airport (NUE) offers numerous direct flights from nearly all major European cities (more than 50 European direct connections are available). From overseas, NUE is easily reached by international flights via Frankfurt am Main or Munich. Within Germany, there are also excellent national flight connections. To get more information for connections to Nuremberg Airport visit: www.airport-nuernberg.de/english.

Hotels

Horizon House has teamed up with Hotelzon to offer a wide range of accommodations at competitive rates. To make a booking simply visit Hotelzon’s booking page at www.hotelzon.com/en/uk/events-eumw or email sally.garland@hotelzon.co.uk.

Shopping & Sightseeing

The Old Town of Nuremberg offers the experience of almost one thousand years of history. The city presents numerous shopping possibilities, whether it is on the Main Market Square with its fruit and vegetable stalls under their red and white umbrellas, or the glass facades of elegant shopping malls. The inner city offers a unique shopping atmosphere with 500 shops in an historical backdrop that are open until 20:00 during the week.

The city has an active art and culture scene and for those with culinary aspirations picturesque roast sausage ‘kitchens’ entice guests to sample Franconian specialities, while star rated restaurants offer gastronomic delights even for the most discerning palate.

Locals suggest that one should not leave Nuremberg without: having watched the Männleinlaufen clockwork on the facade of the Frauenkirche on the Main Market Square just five minutes before noon; looking down on the roofs of the city from the Imperial Castle; or eating some of the famous Nuremberg roast sausages or a ‘Schäuferle.’

There are various tours and excursions organised as part of the Social Events & Partner Programme and www.nuernberg.de/internet/portal_e/kultur offers information on shopping and sightseeing.