David Vye, MWJ Editor

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The RF/microwave semiconductor market is poised to undergo some major shifts in the not too distant future with recent news of mergers between leading GaAs-based integrated device manufacturers, RFMD and TriQuint, CMOS-based RF front-ends for multi-mode, multi-band mobile devices from Peregrine and Qualcomm and the continued success in commercializing GaN by a number of vendors.  As GaN and CMOS semiconductor processes continue to improve performance and reduce costs, market share will undoubtedly shift between players.

Last night my family and I watched the updated version of Carl Sagan’s television series “Cosmos” with new host Neil Tyson. Coupled with the national excitement over the Apollo moon missions, the original show was an amazing television experience that encouraged a generation of young people in the 1960’s and 70’s to pursue careers in science and related fields.

Last week marked the deadline for final papers to be submitted to the peer-reviewed portion (technical sessions) of the Electronic Design Innovation conference(EDI CON)  coming this April in Beijing. This year's crop of papers is an excellent representation of the state of the industry in terms of systems being developed and the advances in technology that will support these systems. Radar, LTE-A, Navivation satellite, 802.11 and MIMO were among the recurring system topics submitted mostly by industry, while GaN, CMOS, SOI and SIW were among the popular technologies submitted for consideration. Overall, we added two specific modeling tracks (one for system-level and the other for EMC/High-Speed Digital) and an additional twelve hours of presentations to the first day in order to accommodate the increase in paper submissions over 2013.

The big news from CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas this past week has been about “able” technology as in “Wearable” and “drivable” devices. Once portrayed as futuristic (Dick Tracy’s watch) or nerdy (Google Glass), wearable electronics is the darling of technology trend spotters thanks to the combination of exciting aesthetic design and the availability of low cost, miniaturized electronics. The most compelling products of tomorrow are based on the rise of the personal area network, an RF-enabled concept that we have covered in Microwave Journal for several years, initially developed for the modern war fighter and now targeting today’s hipsters and tech-savvy business person. 

This month Microwave Journal launched a new video feature called “Frequency Matters”. This short, bi-weekly video segment, starring me and MWJ Technical editor Pat Hindle will be an opportunity for us to highlight some of the articles appearing in the current and upcoming issues of Microwave Journal. We will also discuss online news items and product releases that caught our attention, inform viewers of some of the discussions taking place through social media on the Linked-in RF & Microwave community and focus on some of the conferences and trade shows that relate to industry.

The Association of Old Crows (AOC) is an international professional organization specializing in electronic warfare, tactical information operations, and associated disciplines. This year, the organization celebrated the 50th year of its International Symposium and Convention with a well-attended event at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC from October 27th to the 30th. This event, which focuses on Electronic Warfare (EW), Information Operations (IO) and Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO), brings together technology and military professionals from around the world. It was especially well attended by top local military brass who had been AWOL from many other events this year due to sequestration-related cut-backs in defence department travel budgets.

As an American attending this year’s European Microwave Week (EuMW), I was happy to spend time away from the political circus taking place in Washington over the government shut-down and looming debt ceiling. The week was also a welcome opportunity to spend quality time with leading members of the European microwave industry and the technologists, marketers and executives who travelled from across the globe to conduct business at this annual gathering. Early reports back from the show organizers (Microwave Journal’s parent company Horizon House) show a record number of unique registrants and record number of exhibitors.

Vendors at trade shows staff their booths with sales representatives and field engineers and the occasional developer to interface with potential customers. Some will also include staff from their marketing communications department or a hired PR agent to arrange editor meetings.  Such meetings, which may include an interview and live demo, provide editors with the information we need to pass along to our readers.

Autotestcon is an IEEE-organized conference and exhibition focused on automated test systems (hardware and software), covering a wide-range of applications and technologies related to the aerospace and defense sector. This annual event includes participants ranging from system integrators such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman and EADS to RF/microwave test and measurement equipment and component manufacturers. This year’s event held September 16-18 in Schaumberg, Illinois offered a peak at the latest trends in test automation, synthetic instruments, COTS, modularity and high performance, cost sensitive components for embedded test systems.