Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor | Microwave Journal

Pat Hindle is responsible for editorial content, article review and special industry reporting for Microwave Journal magazine and its web site in addition to social media and special digital projects. Prior to joining the Journal, Mr. Hindle held various technical and marketing positions throughout New England, including Marketing Communications Manager at M/A-COM (Tyco Electronics), Product/QA Manager at Alpha Industries (Skyworks), Program Manager at Raytheon and Project Manager/Quality Engineer at MIT. Mr. Hindle graduated from Northeastern University - Graduate School of Business Administration and holds a BS degree from Cornell University in Materials Science Engineering.

Wireless Charging Coming This Year

February 5, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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While I did not attend CES 2009, one of the hot emerging products was wireless charging. Powermat was there showing off its family of charging mats (using inductive coupling) for mobile devices like cell phones, PDAs , etc. They are very efficient (like 93%) so charging is relatively fast and they should be available soon (maybe Q2 this year). These mats would would cost about $100 so they are reasonably priced for a first to market, high tech product. Fulton is taking a different approach with their wireless charging technology dubbed eCoupled . They are working with large consumer product...

Star Trek Cloaking Device Becoming a Reality?

February 3, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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Metamaterials are a hot subject in microwave technology these days. Much of the work I see is going on with the design of antenna structures or substrate materials, but the researchers at Duke University have designed and tested a microwave cloaking device that can almost completely "hide" a small structure from microwaves. While this is not new news, they have more recent work going on to apply this technology to sound waves. The Duke cloaking device is a structure made up of copper rings and wires patterned on a fiberglass composite. The structure is designed to route the microwaves around...

Pulsed RF Power Devices Expected to Show Solid Growth

January 30, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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So let's get to some good economic news. ABI research is saying that markets for pulsed RF power devices below 4 GHz are expected to show continued solid growth over the next five years despite the current economic turmoil. While the volatility of many global electronics markets is fueled by their association with consumer spending, markets for pulsed RF power devices are supported by quite different priorities. “Many RF power semiconductor manufacturers are on a quest to find markets unrelated to mobile wireless infrastructure,” notes ABI Research director Lance Wilson. “Device prices in wireless infrastructure are falling, and the total...

Some Cuts Announced

January 28, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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As with many other industries, the electronics market is suffering from the downturn and several companies have announced layoffs. STMicroelectronics has outlined a major cost-cutting effort, including a plan to shed 4,500 jobs. In total, STMicroelectronics (Geneva) plans to reduce its costs by over $700 million in 2009. The actions are focused on ''resizing'' the company's manufacturing operations and streamlining expenses. The company - which issued a recent warning about Q4 - also reported sales of $2.276 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to $2.696 billion in the third period and $2.742 billion in the like period a...

Cellular Growth Expected in 2009

January 22, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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The Strategy Analytics (SA) has posted a new Wireless Network Strategies service report, “US Wireless Market Outlook: 2009 Key Trends,” and predicts that US cellular subscriber growth will remain strong despite the economic situation but growth levels will scale back slightly from 2008. US cellular service revenues will also continue to grow, albeit at a slower growth rate of 3.9%, down from 7.5% in 2008. This is consistent with some surveys I have heard about saying that the technology products people expect to continue to buy are cell phones and HDTVs (those products are part of our everyday life and...

LTE Market Provides Enthusiasm for Market Growth

January 13, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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While WiMAX dominated the news over the last year or so, LTE will probably be the hot topic this year as deployments start to happen. ABI Research reports that more than eighteen operators globally have announced LTE deployment plans, and the tough economy does not seem to have dampened their enthusiasm. ABI Research estimates that operators will spend over $8.6 billion on LTE base station infrastructure alone . Verizon has announced acceleration of its LTE deployment timetable, bringing the launch forward from 2010 to 2009. Many of the others are looking at a 2011-2012 time frame , by which time,...

Economic Ups and Downs

January 2, 2009

Patrick Hindle

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As we kick off the new year, we will be posting our thoughts and related news items that discuss economic trends we see in the hope of gaining some insight into the markets that will grow this year as we try to pull out of this recession. This is certainly a time where market focus is more important than ever and targeting growth markets and any other market opportunities that arise will be a key to success. In this type of economic market, we believe that new product development and targeted marketing are two key areas to concentrate on. Strategy...

Look Mom, No Batteries - Peregrine & K-State Working Together on Energy Harvesting Radios

December 19, 2008

Patrick Hindle

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Kansas State University engineers are helping Peregrine implement its idea of an energy-harvesting radio. This concept could be used to implement bridge structural integrity monitoring with wireless sensors since changing the batteries on hundreds of sensors on each bridge is not practical. Kansas State is developing the energy harvesting radios for Peregrine to be used in these types of applications. Peregrine's UltraCMOS process leads itself well to very low power devices and K-State engineers are looking at the design challenges of a radio system. Although the prototype captures and stores light energy with solar cells, these energy-harvesting radios could be...

A Sparkling New Microwave Idea for the Holidays

December 17, 2008

Patrick Hindle

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In case you did not see this news item, I just thought I had to share it since it is so appropriate for the holidays (Source: Carnegie Institution for Science): If you are still deciding on what to give the woman (or microwave engineer) who has everything this holiday season, then researchers in Washington may have solved that last minute gift problem – microwaved diamonds. Members of Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory have used a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method to grow synthetic diamonds for their experiments. Unlike other methods, which mimic the high pressures deep within the earth where natural...

Defected Ground Structures

December 8, 2008

Patrick Hindle

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We receive several technical articles each month about circuits that utilize Defected Ground Structures (DGS) to improve performance. A DGS is where the ground plane metal is purposely modified with a certain geometry (and positioning of that geometry) to enhance performance. They can be used in various circuits with antennas, filters, delay lines, phase shifters, etc. to improve performance such as modifying the band pass/reject characteristics for filters or modifying the slow wave effect for delay lines or phase shifters. While DGS may improve performance, these circuits are highly susceptible to the effects of the packaging since they radiate. Any...