Greetings from Shanghai, where I am attending the fifth EDI CON conference and the first one held in Shanghai.

The past week has provided more interesting news to share:

Companies and Products

Anokiwave announced a 28 GHz 8x8 element phased array, developed in collaboration with Ball Aerospace. Intended to enable rapid prototyping of 5G systems, the array achieves 50 dBmi EIRP, has ±60° scan volume and offers programmable beamwidth.

CEL released two SPDT GaAs MMIC switches for medium power wireless infrastructure. The switches cover 50 MHz to 3.8 and 6 GHz, respectively. Both have a 0.1 dB compression point greater than 36.5 dBm.

IDT and Epson announced a low phase noise timing solution for telecom and data center applications. The reference design combines IDT’s 8V19N474 jitter attenuator/synthesizer with Epson’s VG-4513 VCXO.

Keysight released the 2017 update of their GoldenGate RF simulation tool for the Cadence Virtuoso design environment. The company also completed the acquisition of Ixia. The $1.6 billion purchase expands Keysight’s available market with testing, visibility and security solutions for networks.

MACOM broke ground on a 50,000 square foot facility in Lowell. The $25 million expansion, to be completed within a year, will extend MACOM’s commitment to the city, which began when the company first established a presence in Lowell in 1984. The city is assisting MACOM's expansion with an agreement that will save the firm $1 million in local taxes over the coming decade.

National Instruments is donating software defined radio (SDR) hardware and software to NYU WIRELESS. The donation, worth approximately $1 million, will support 5G research conducted by Ted Rappaport and his team at NYU WIRELESS.

The Samsung Galaxy S-8 went on sale Friday. iFixit delicately pried open the S-8 and S-8+ models to reveal that Broadcom, Murata and Skyworks won slots for the cellular and Wi-Fi modules. No mention of Qorvo. Unless iFixit missed a board, the RF front-ends are highly integrated.

Tektronix introduced an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) with 10 GSPS sample rate, 16-bit resolution and up to eight channels per AWG. The AWG5200 series was developed for test, radar, EW, quantum computing and advanced research applications.

Verizon reported Q1 results: revenue and profit were down year-over year. Total revenue was $29.8 billion, down from $32.2 billion in Q1 of 2016. Wireless revenue was $20.9 billion, down from the prior year’s $22 billion. Verizon reported 113.9 million retail mobile connections, up 1.2 percent year-on-year, yet down from the prior quarter by 324,000. The company adopted an unlimited data plan during the quarter, which stopped the erosion in wireless subscribers.

Also, Verizon signed an agreement to buy at least $1 billion in fiber-optic cable from Corning over a three-year period from 2018 through 2020. The cable will support upgrades to Verizon’s network for FiOS, cellular, fixed wireless access and 5G services.

Markets and Technology

5G — The fourth Brooklyn 5G Summit, organized by Nokia and NYU WIRELESS, was held last week. This year’s theme was “5G: how close are we to reality?” Read the agenda.

At the recent ETSI Summit on 5G Network Infrastructure, held in France, Telecom TV interviewed Gilles Garcia, Communications business lead at Xilinx. Gilles discussed network trends and how Xilinx is positioning for 5G.

Net Neutrality — Tech companies are reviewing their options and choosing sides, preparing for the likely fight over net neutrality.

Autonomous Driving and ADAS — GM is expanding its self-driving car development center in San Francisco, investing $14 million and adding some 1,100 staff.

Apple received a permit from California's DMV to test self-driving cars, namely three 2015 Lexus RX 450h hybrid sport utility vehicles. This news fuels speculation about Apple’s strategic intent in this nascent and fiercely competitive market.

Airbnb comes to the car: startup car brand Lynk & Co joined with Ericsson to develop a car-sharing platform that ties an app embedded in the car to apps on the car owner’s and borrowers’ smartphones.

Space — Malaysia Airlines is implementing global tracking of their aircraft using satellite collection of ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast) transmissions. You probably recall that Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared on 8 March 2014, while flying from Kuala Lampur to Beijing. The plane has not been found, although several pieces of the aircraft have washed ashore on the coast of Africa and islands in the Indian Ocean.

Economy — China's economy grew 6.9 percent in Q1, more than economists expected. The growth was fueled by government infrastructure investment and the continuing boom in real estate.

Technology and Society — Last year, only 21 percent of the undergraduate engineering degrees in the U.S. were awarded to women — and only 19 percent of computer science degrees. Although not an apples-to-apples comparison, we see a higher percentage of women attending the EDI CON conferences in China, suggesting a higher percentage of women engineers.