The MTT-S is an essential vehicle for Rohde & Schwarz to communicate the value of its products and technology to design engineers in commercial, military and academic organizations that use RF and microwave test equipment every day. This year, we will be demonstrating more new products and advances than ever before.
Rohde & Schwarz may be headquartered in Munich, Germany, but it is truly an international company, and our ability to be effective requires us to have a significant physical presence locally in the markets we serve. We have a global network of account managers, applications engineers, service technicians and customer service representatives in more than 70 countries that are dedicated to demonstrating our philosophy.
The MTT-S plays a significant role in demonstrating our products and communicating our message to a wide audience. As a pioneer in RF and microwave technologies, Rohde & Schwarz has had a presence at the event for decades, and we have watched as both the conference and exhibition have grown from their roots in serving primarily aerospace and defense applications, to their expanded focus on wireless personal communications, RFID, WiFi, Bluetooth and emerging technologies.
We believe that the next step will bring RF, microwave and millimeter-wave technology to consumers, industry and the military in applications that have yet to even reach the drawing board. To this end, it is essential that the MTT-S continue to be the pre-eminent forum for delivering technical information about each advance to the world’s engineers as it has done throughout its history.
This year’s MTT-S will be particularly interesting as Honolulu presents a unique opportunity for Rohde & Schwarz as an international company. We expect that this location will draw a larger number of engineers from Asia and the Pacific Rim than usual. Not only will we be able to demonstrate our commitment to the North American market, we will be face-to-face with customers and potential customers in the Asia/Pacific region as well. The Asian market is of paramount importance to us as the region continues its double-digit economic growth.
What can we expect when the MTT-S returns to mainland USA in 2008? As a manufacturer of test solutions, we know that the coming year will bring a host of new challenges. For example, the UMTS and CDMA2000 wireless standards are moving steadily forward to achieve the higher data rates that will enable the advanced features that wireless service providers and their users demand. WiMAX is rapidly entering the deployment stage.
Test equipment is vital to the timely introduction of these features, and our task is to provide developers with the tools to evaluate the performance of prototype designs based on standards-compliant measurement software and hardware. For example, Rohde & Schwarz is currently leading in measurement solutions for Long Term Evolution (LTE), allowing designers to develop prototype circuits well ahead of the ratification of the standard. As a company we will continue our long-term commitment to membership on international standards committees to ensure that engineers have the test solutions they need at the earliest stages of development.
We hope this philosophy will be evident at the MTT-S where we will be demonstrating more than two dozen instruments and capabilities that directly target commercial systems such as cellular and PCS, including measurement capabilities for CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. A and the upcoming LTE enhancement to UMTS, as well as MIMO, WiMAX, radar and military applications. Our four-port R&S ZVA vector network analyzers have just become the world’s first VNAs to provide the ability to accurately characterize balanced (differential) devices when they are operating under large-signal, nonlinear conditions. We are also introducing the R&S FMU36, which is an analyzer for evaluating the baseband performance of chip sets developed for mobile phones and base stations. To see these products and more visit booth 1233.