IMS2019 General Chairs’ Welcome

Mark Gouker, MIT Lincoln Lab and
Lawrence Kushner, Raytheon

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (Source: MCAA).

Boston and the local Steering Committee welcome the microwave world to the 2019 International Microwave Week. This year’s event takes place from Sunday, June 2 through Friday, June 7, and features the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) Symposium, the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), the 5G Summit and the ARFTG Microwave Measurements Conference. The technical presentations and industry exhibits will be held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC). The social and networking events and opportunities will take place throughout the revitalized Seaport District. This neighborhood, adjacent to the BCEC, has undergone a remarkable transformation since the 2009 IMS, and is now home to many museums, shops, restaurants and nightlife. The 2019 International Microwave Week will be memorable for years to come.

Boston has a rich microwave heritage that continues through today. The Radiation Laboratory, run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 1940s, made seminal contributions to the emerging microwave engineering field. Much of this knowledge was transferred to surrounding industry and universities in the 1950s. More recently, the local IMS Steering Committees have taken particular pride in balancing the traditions of IMS with innovative twists and a focus on creating the best experience for the technical and industry exhibition attendees. This year’s symposium continues this philosophy with new features that include:

  • A significantly enhanced mobile app has been developed to accelerate the momentum to make this the primary interface to the International Microwave Week.
  • Increased focus on startups and young professionals through the introduction of a Startup Pavilion in the Industry Exhibition along with an IP 101 information session, startup panel session and the Next Top Startup contest. Young professionals will have a lounge specifically to meet and exchange ideas and experiences.
  • Introducing Sixty Second Presentations where interactive forum authors can prerecord an overview of their papers, allowing attendees to get a preview of the paper’s content and target the papers of most interest to their work.
  • Interactive panel sessions with real-time audience participation via the Slido App.
  • Reduced cost for student attendees: by volunteering one day of service to the Symposium, they qualify for a $250 Superpass that allows attendance to all the conferences. The student rates for workshops are also reduced: $50 for half-day and $100 for full-day workshops.
  • Sweet Treats Tuesday to welcome the attendees to the industry exhibit. Dessert items will be provided during the lunch break, encouraging everyone to come to the Exhibition Floor for a treat and begin interactions with the industry exhibitors.

The overall format of the International Microwave Week remains the same. The RFIC Symposium begins on Sunday with workshops and concludes Tuesday morning. The 5G Summit, once again co-sponsored by MTT-S and ComSoc, picks up on Tuesday afternoon and concludes that evening with a panel session. The IMS will run Sunday through Friday with the Industry Exhibition taking place Tuesday through Thursday. The ARFTG Microwave Measurements Conference will also begin on Sunday with jointly sponsored workshops on Sunday and Monday, and the technical sessions on Thursday and Friday. In all, there will be over 9,000 attendees from around the world participating in the technical sessions, workshops and the Industry Exhibition. There will be more than 600 exhibitors showcasing the latest developments in microwave hardware, software, components and systems.

IMS2019 will begin with workshops and short courses on Sunday and Monday. The opening plenary session will be held Monday evening featuring a presentation on “The Mind-Body Problem for Intelligent RF,” by Dr. William Chappell, director of the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA. This will be followed by the Welcome Reception at the Seaport World Trade Center. The IMS2019 technical sessions will run Tuesday through Thursday, with the closing session on Thursday afternoon featuring Dr. Dina Katabi from MIT describing her work at the intersection of wireless microwave systems and machine learning focused on biological applications. The closing celebration reception will be held immediately after. The Symposium will conclude with additional workshops held on Friday.

The Industry Exhibition is another center piece of the International Microwave Week and will take place on Tuesday through Thursday. In addition to Sweet Treats Tuesday, the Industry-hosted reception will be held Wednesday late afternoon. The Exhibition Floor will be home to the MicroApps Theater, the Societies’ Pavilion and the new Startup Pavilion. The IMS schedule again will include exhibition-only time on Wednesday afternoon to ensure all attendees have an opportunity to interact with and learn about the latest products from the microwave industry exhibitors.

USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides) and Bunker Hill Monument (Source: MCAA).

The evenings throughout the week will be filled with social and networking opportunities, both organized and informal, so that attendees can catch-up with colleagues from across the globe. The RFIC and IMS Plenary Sessions and Welcome Receptions will be held on their respective Sunday and Monday evenings. Tuesday evening will have the Young Professionals’ social event and the Amateur Radio Social. Wednesday evening will have the Women in Microwaves (WiM) Reception and the Awards Banquet featuring Ryan Chin, CEO of Optimus Ride, as the guest speaker. Thursday evening will have the post-closing session celebration. In addition, there are dozens of restaurants and night spots within walking distance of the BCEC and the IMS hotels for informal and more private gatherings.

Finally, no overview of IMS would be complete without an invitation to spend a few days in the host city before or after Microwave Week. Whether you stay in your hotel in the Seaport District or move into a hotel in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood to be more central to the sights, there is an amazing variety of things to see and do. Boston has a number of world-class museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Science. There are many attractions centered on the American Revolutionary period, such as the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, Paul Revere House, the Old State House and the Freedom Trail. Boston is well known for its universities, and visiting the many campuses, each with its unique personality, is a great experience. If you visit MIT be sure to include a trip to the MIT Museum, known as the best research and innovation museum in Boston. No trip to Boston would be complete without a visit to Harvard and its Museum of Natural History. Here, the world-famous glass flowers - the Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants - will delight and amaze you. For the sports fans, visit the Boston Sports Museums in TD Garden, take a tour of Fenway Park or watch the Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays. Mostly, take time to get to know some of Boston’s neighborhoods. From Harvard Square, the North End, to the Seaport District, the city’s varied personalities and charm will leave a lasting impression.

IMS2019 Focus Sessions

Anton Geiler, Metamagnetics

Lawn on D (Source: MCAA).

The IEEE MTT-S IMS2019 will offer a number of Focus Sessions in addition to the regular technical sessions. Focus Sessions highlight emerging new technical topics that are gaining importance and are of high interest to the RF and microwave community. These sessions encompass a wide range of topics and may either involve a specific emerging technology or cover several technologies that are relevant to a common application. The following Focus Sessions are being developed for IMS2019:

  • Emerging mmWave Transistor Technologies with Extreme Linearity and Efficiency for 5G and DoD Applications: This focus session will cover some of the emerging mmWave transistor technologies that have shown promise to match or surpass state-of-the-art power-added efficiency (PAE) and linearity beyond “10 dB” rule of thumb in linearity/Pdc ratio. These technologies hold significant potential for 5G wireless communications and DoD RF systems in the mmWave regime.
  • Microwaves in Quantum Computing: This focus session will address various aspects of microwave qubits for quantum computing and associated challenges including 3D RF signaling, parametric amplification and cryogenic microwave circuits. It will highlight the links between the rapidly growing field of quantum computing and microwave field theory and techniques and how those can be leveraged to achieve the vision of “quantum supremacy.”