Articles by Microwave Journal

Test system migration and modernization doesn’t have to be expensive and fraught with hassle. In fact, carefully planned migration can maximize test-system efficiency, performance and readiness while providing meaningful cost savings. In aerospace and defense, missions evolve but one thing stays the same: the need to ensure system readiness. As system technology becomes more complex, it becomes more difficult to meet this challenge. Carefully planned instrumentation migration and modernization can maximize test-system efficiency, performance and readiness— and provide meaningful cost savings. There are certainly risks associated with test program set (TPS) migration and modernization. The decision to forego modernization...

While user interfaces in microwave CAE software have remained relatively stable, important strides have been made in simulation technology. Today, more designs incorporate integrated chip, package, module and board systems which are more difficult to design, analyze, debug and deliver in high-volume than the typical design of 10 years ago. During a CAE seminar in the late 1990’s, I asked a large group of RF and microwave engineers about the software that they actually use for design. Overwhelmingly, these...

When I was growing up my favourite book was undoubtedly the “Guinness Book of World Records.” I used to dip in and out of it searching for the craziest extremes of human experience, be they through human achievement or simply the result of extremes of natural human variation. It was not until many years later that I discovered a much less well-known but arguably much more important book called the “Mackeson Book of Averages.” Mackeson is also a brewer of stout and hence rival to the much larger Guinness Company so they thought they would poke fun at Guinness’ second most famous product being the Book of Records.

X-parameter technology has developed rapidly since its pioneering introduction by Agilent with the Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzer (NVNA) in 2008. See [8] for a recent introduction. Agilent provides a complete set of mainstream interoperable SW and HW tools based on X-parameters that are already redefining how the industry characterizes, models, and designs nonlinear components and systems. Several real customer applications are presented illustrating the power and ease-of-use of X-parameters to solve a broad spectrum of important industry problems where modern components exhibit both high-frequency and nonlinear behavior.

This article presents the role and evolution of simulation-based performance verification and yield for today’s highly integrated RFICs for digital wireless communications. Along the way, we will look at this problem from the foundry, EDA and designer perspectives to hopefully give a comprehensive picture of where we are today and what choices exist to improve RFIC verification and design for yield.

In the Agilent/MWJ Innovations in EDA webcast on “Discrete Oscillator Design Tools and Techniques”, Randy Rhea presented a discrete oscillator design using the Genesys product from Agilent, using techniques outlined in his new book “Discrete Oscillator Design: linear, nonlinear, transient and noise domains”. The method outlined by Rhea begins with a linear analysis as a first step.

Microstrip or stripline? That choice has been faced by high frequency designers for decades. Both transmission-line technologies are widely used in both active and passive microwave circuits, with excellent results. Is one approach better than the other? Before tackling such a question, it might help to know how each transmission-line technology works and what kind of demands each place on a printed circuit board (PCB) material.

Ever since I began learning science and engineering at Duke, I was always struck with the sullen reminder that engineers are generally viewed by laymen as outcasts who know strange things and behave in even stranger ways. I’ve always hated this mischaracterization because I find, almost invariably, that scientifically minded people tend to be some of the most amazingly well rounded and talented people I know. I began writing this blog to dispel some of this bad press and to provide some “engineering-centric” content along the way. Ultimately, my goal was to provide a forum where real engineers could express their thoughts about both absurd and important scientific issues, free of the pressures of selling products and services.

Outgassing is a concern for any electronic equipment intended for use in high-vacuum environments. It refers to the release of gas trapped within a solid, such as a high-frequency circuit-board material. The effects of outgassing can impact a wide range of application areas in electronics, from satellites and space-based equipment to medical systems and equipment. In space-based equipment, released gas can condense on such materials as camera lenses, rendering them inoperative. Hospitals and medical facilities must eliminate materials that can suffer outgassing to maintain a sterile environment.

November 4, 2010 John Coonrod is a Market Development Engineer for Rogers Corporation, Advanced Circuit Materials Division. John has 23 years of experience in the Printed Circuit Board industry. About half of this time was spent in the Flexible Printed Circuit Board industry doing circuit design, applications, processing and materials engineering. The past ten years have been spent supporting circuit fabrication, providing application support and conducting electrical characterization studies of High Frequency Rigid Printed Circuit Board materials made by Rogers. John has a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering degree from Arizona State University. Thinner printed-circuit-board (PCB) materials have some...