Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor

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As Mobile World Congress starts this week, one of the biggest trends taking place on the mobile handset side is the release of 4G CMOS PAs that integrate other functions such as envelope tracking and antenna tuning.  While CMOS PAs have been around for a while, most have struggled to meet 4G performance requirements but these new products promise to reduce the costs, reduce RF footprint and improve efficiency even in the highest end phones.

Metamaterial-based technologies have a come a long way in the past few years and have realized many practical applications. One company leading the charge for the last 20 years is Fractal Antenna Systems of Waltham, MA.  I had the pleasure of visiting Fractal Antenna right before the holidays and was able to learn about the technology and video a couple of demonstrations.

Balancing commercial and defense technologies was the theme of Military Communications (MILCOM) Conference 2013 in San Diego, CA Nov 18-20.  Last year MILCOM was blown away by hurricane Sandy and cancelled.  This year it took a hit as the “Classified Sessions” were cancelled due to budget cuts that did not allow the military to travel to the conference.  The show moves back to the east coast to Baltimore next year, so we expect everything will be back to normal and the conference/exhibition will draw a strong attendance again.

For almost 100 years, quartz based oscillators have dominated the precision timing market due to their high stability over temperature, low noise, low current and relatively low cost. While MEMS devices have been around for a while, the traditional electrostatic type of device has several issues that prevent it from being successful in high precision timing. Sand9 has developed a piezoelectric MEMS device that overcomes most of these issues and now is poised to compete with the traditional precision quartz devices.