Spring-Loaded ■ John Wood
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t’s the New Year already! The turkey-related feasts of Thanksgiving in the United States and, more recently, Christmas dinner in the United Kingdom are, thankfully, behind us. Actually, I quite like turkey, though you can have too much of a good thing. We used to have turkey every Wednesday in the Agilent canteen (perhaps they still do): every Wednesday became known as Turkey Day or, to some, Tryptophan Wednesday, where after a couple of helpings at lunch, the goal was to get through the afternoon without suffering from keyboard face. And now the turkeys are over, we have the groundhog to look forward to. Not, I hope, as a lunch delicacy but through the magic of Groundhog Day here in the United States, where a groundhog, or woodchuck, called “Punxsutawny Phil” from Pennsylvania, will predict the weather for the next six weeks. Perhaps he’ll say “Global Warming.” Groundhog Day falls on the same day as Candlemas, a Christian holy day that marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, so we’re halfway to Spring. Actually, Candlemas has John Wood (
[email protected]) is with Maxim Integrated, San Jose, California. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2013.2292752 Date of publication: 21 January 2014
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traditional meteorological associations, for example, the old English rhyme: If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight, if Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again. This January/February issue of IEEE Microwave Magazine continues the metrology theme of the November/ December issue, but here the focus is upon measurement techniques for RF nanoelectronics. This Focused Section has been put together by Mitch Wallis from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, Colorado, and Prof. Luca Pierantoni of Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy, and is sponsored by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Technical Coordinat-
ing Committee (TCC)-25. We have three articles in this Focus Section. The first is by Dr. Henri Happy and colleagues from IEMN in France and focuses on characterization and modeling techniques for RF nanomaterials. The second article is by Min Liang and Hao Xin from Arizona State University, on the development of measurement techniques from microwaves to terahertz for carbon nanomaterials. The third article is authored by Atif Imtiaz and the team at NIST and is a review of the development of a new technology, near-field scanning microwave microscopy as a technique for measuring nanoelectronic materials. We also have one regular issue feature, by John Dunn of AWR Corp, who provides a fascinating review of the development of electromagnetic CAD tools over the past 20 or so years and how they have become easier to use, to the point where we probably don’t even realize that we are using them. We also take the opportunity in this issue to celebrate the award of the IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award for Emerging Technologies in 2014 to Prof. Gabriel Rebeiz, of the University of California, San Diego, “for pioneering contributions enabling commercialization of RF MEMS technology and tunable microand millimeter-wave systems.” In addition to this prestigious prize, it should
January/February 2014
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be noted that Prof. Rebeiz is also one of the most-cited living electronic engineers, underscoring a career of achievement that is far from over. In the January/February issue of the magazine we also publish articles written by the winning individuals or teams in the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) Student Design Competitions held
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at the conference in the previous year. This year, we welcome nine articles from the IMS2013 winners of the nine competitions, sponsored by 15 of the MTT-S TCCs and ARFTG. Several teams entered each competition, and all the measurements were made on the Tuesday of IMS, which proved to be a busy and exciting morning. The support of instrumenta-
tion companies such as Agilent Technologies, Rohde & Schwartz, Anritsu, and others in providing instrumentation, expertise, and personnel to get the measurements made on the students’ circuits is gratefully acknowledged. The student papers were for the 2013 design competitions as follows.
High-Efficiency Power Amplifier Design Competition This is the ninth year of this competition. The winning team of Christian Karl Musolff, Michael Kamper, and Zeid Abou-Chahine from the Fraunhöfer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Germany, won the competition for the second year, with a modification to last year’s Doherty PA design, seeing off stiff competition.
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Rugged High-Linearity, LowNoise Amplifier Design Competition The LNA design competition has also run for several years. This year’s competition was won by the team of Christian Stedler and Mikhail Kuntsev of Köln University, Germany, with this being Christian’s third success in a row.
Features:
Wideband Balun
• Amplifiers from 1 kHz to 65 GHz
This competition was to design the widest bandwidth balun given a set of specifications on insertion loss, imbalance, CMRR, and VSWR. The winner is Bryant Baker from Portland State University, United States.
• Utilizing GaAs FET/BiPolar/MMIC technologies • Narrow Band to Ultra-Wideband designs • Coaxial/Waveguide and Surface Mount Packaging
Software Defined Radio Design
• Custom designs are welcomed
The aim of this competition was to design a frequency agile SDR system for white space applications in the RF spectrum. The winning design was from Andre Prata from the Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal.
MITEQ Amplifier Application notes can be found at:
Packaged Tunable Notch Filter Design
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The goal of this competition was to design and build a filter to pass two frequency bands, given return and insertion loss specifications. The winning design was from Yi-Ming Chen, Sheng-Fuh Chang, and Yu-Chieh Wang from the National Chung-Cheng University in Taiwan. (continued on page 22)
• Large array of Catalog offerings • Integrated RF Input limiter protection
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January/February 2014
but that’s no longer the case. Feel free to ask the employer what typical business attire is when you schedule the interview. (Hint to employers—give guidance to candidates ahead of time. If everyone wears shorts and t-shirts in your office, do you want a candidate to show up in a suit?) But do dress on the formal end of the spectrum. If the employer tells you that everyone wears shorts and t-shirts, it’s best to show up in jeans and a nice polo shirt. If the employer says that its business casual, wear a nice shirt or blouse with slacks or a skirt. If everyone wears a suit, there is no need to show up in a tuxedo. You get the idea. There are a wide range of interview styles. But you should be prepared for a few things. If something appears on your resume, you should be able to explain it clearly and concisely. But don’t try to describe something you have no business discussing—someone else’s work, confidential or proprietary work, etc. If you are reading this magazine, you should be able to navigate a Smith chart. You may be asked to give a presentation on some of your work. If so, make it a well-thought-out presentation on one topic. Don’t try
From the Editor’s Desk
Sean Korhummel is from the University of Colorado, Boulder, United States.
This is the second year this competition has been offered. Students are required to construct and validate a transistor model from a set of provided data, enabling entries from students whose departments do not have the expensive characterization systems available. The winner is Tyler Ross from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
Wireless Energy Harvesting Design Competition This competition is also in its second year. A new figure of merit was introduced this year, with the goal to design a dual band receiver and rectifier. The winning team of Robert Scheeler and
interviewed you, and try to personalize each one. Collect business cards throughout the day so you remember who you talked to and you know how to contact them. If you traveled to the interview, typically the company will reimburse your expenses. You’ll likely have to submit an expense report. Try to be modest. If you needed to have dinner, don’t take a couple or your old college buddies to the best place in town and ask to have it covered. They probably will pay it, but they’ll question your professionalism. And unless they tell you to do so, don’t buy any souvenirs. You don’t want to be remembered for your expense report. You want to be remembered for how you interviewed. Hopefully, during the course of the day, they bought you lunch. I have a colleague who went on an interview and was left sitting in a conference room during lunch. The interviewers all disappeared and presumably had lunch. No one told the candidate he was going to have to provide his own lunch. It makes you wonder how company treats its employees if that’s how it treats candidates. There isn’t always a free lunch, but there should be.
(continued from page 8)
Microwave Transistor Modeling Competition
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to fit your life’s work into a 30 minute talk. And do your best to encourage questions and discussions. You want to show your mastery of this topic. There may be opportunities to socialize during the course of the day. Do your best to make pleasant conversation. Try to avoid potentially controversial topics such politics and religion. You can talk about your hobbies and family, but I don’t make it a focus. You don’t want to leave the impression, for example, that you are so preoccupied with you hobby that you have no room in your life for anything else. Talk about that great article you read in the last issue of IEEE Microwave Magazine. Make sure you leave a positive impression with everyone, not only the people that interview you. The receptionist should think you’re nice to work with. The person that helped you book your travel should have a positive impression of you. Your goal is to have everyone like the idea of your getting hired. After the interview, make sure you send a note of thanks. I’ve heard some people recommend that you mail an old-fashioned thank-you note. I think a brief e-mail is more than adequate. Write one to each person that
Efficient Optical to Microwave Conversion This was a new competition in 2013. The design goals were that the converter should operate between 2 and 6 GHz with a 10% bandwidth and achieve maximum power conversion from 20 mW of optical power, given several design constraints. The winning team is Daniel Fisher and Klevore Burden from the College of New Jersey, United States.
LSNA Round-Robin Measurement Artifact The objective is to design a measurement artifact that can be used to assess
the accuracy of nonlinear measurements, on a comparative basis between different systems. The winning team of Kuangda Wang and Sulav Adhikari is with the Ecole Polytech n ique, Montreal, Canada. This is the second year that Sulav has won this competition. This competition is cosponsored by ARFTG. The list of Student Design Competitions that are being offered for IMS2014 in Tampa, Florida, is also outlined in the “IMS2014 Student Design Competitions,” by Baylis and Simonson. There will be 12 design competitions in 2014: take a look and find something that you are interested in, and have a go!
January/February 2014
