Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor

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 Most people are aware of drastic consolidation in the semiconductor industry especially in the RF sector. In just over a years time, MACOM acquired Nitronex, TriQuint and RFMD merged, Murata bought Peregrine, NXP acquired Freescale - but is selling off the NXP RF power business to Jianguang Asset Management (China), Infineon acquired International Rectifier, Cree is spinning off their RF power business, Avago is acquiring Broadcom, Intel is buying Altera and the list goes on. This level of consolidation and confusion seems unprecedented in our industry. What is causing all of this uproar? 

I recently read this blog written by Patrick Connolly, Principal Analyst at ABI Research, and thought it would be interesting to others as IMS2015 highlights Wearables as a main theme this year:

 It’s funny, there is so much hype around wearables, yet few I speak to are fully convinced about converged devices- there is a real emperor’s new clothes feel about this market that is leaving many reluctant to truly back it unless the emperor (in this case Apple) says it’s okay-to paraphrase a semi-famous neighbour, “the rich buy dearest cause they need to be sure”. 

 Function generators are one of the stalwarts of electronics testing equipment. In fact, function generators are used throughout the life cycle of an electronic component – in its development, testing, and repair. Typically, a modern digital function generatorcreates electrical waveforms either in a continuous loop or a single-shot, across a variety of frequencies. It is these frequencies by which manufacturers differentiate the value of the function generator. Nowadays, the available variety of function generators online is very extensive, and usually categorized by frequency, which can range from the lower limit of 0 Hz to the top limit of 20 or even 50 MHz and beyond depending upon the make and model.

 5G has been one of the hottest topics over the last 12 months and was seen in many booths at Mobile World Congress this year. There were live demos in the booths of Keysight, NI, R&S, Anritsu, Cobham/Aeroflex, China Mobile, Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and others at the event. While this is a hot topic for the test/measurement companies who have to lead the industry development cycle, the semiconductor companies are only just warming up to the topic as they want to see the standards worked out before investing too much in R&D. 

 We extensively covered the RF/microwave industry consolidation in 2014 and many wondered if it would continue into 2015.  Well, the answer is a big “yes” as in just over a month into the year we have seen the acquisition of Mesuro by Focus Microwaves, Miteq by L-3 Narda, TE Connectivity’s Enterprise, Telecom and Wireless businesses by CommScope and Exelis (previously ITT) by Harris. 

It is that time of year, here are my predictions for 2015:

1.  The hot areas for 2015 will be 5G, IoT and UAVs

2.  Consumer wearables will switch from fitness monitoring to health/medical monitoring

 3.  UAVs will be legalized for many commercial applications ahead of FAA schedule as safety issues become the major concern..... 

 The China International Conference & Exhibition on Microwave and Antennas (IME/China) took place October 29 to 31 at the Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center. This is a microwave show combined with an EMC show which is the primary focus with the EMC booths up front and the microwave companies in the back.

 European Microwave Week just wrapped up in Rome last week. It was a busy event with strong attendance this year despite the awkward location of the venue which is far from the city and hotels.  Keysight, R&S and National Instruments were front and center at the exhibition along with a large presence from companies like Anritsu, CST, ANSYS, TriQuint, Macom, Maury and Cascade to name a few.  Selex Finmeccanica also had a large booth to support the show in locally in Italy. The booth traffic was strong by almost all accounts and exhibitors seemed to have good quality leads from the event.