Trending RF & Microwave News Stories of the Week (11

European Microwave Week Rescheduled to January 2021

As a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic and strict measures imposed by authorities worldwide, organizers of the EuMW (European Microwave Week) have decided to reschedule the event to 10 -15 January 2021.

EuMW 2020, was originally scheduled to take place in September 2020. The event will still be held in Utrecht, Netherlands, and will be the 50th European Microwave Conference, the 15th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference, and the 17th European Radar Conference. The technical program and exhibition will provide an opportunity for attendees to experience the latest products, research, and initiatives in the microwave sector. Click here to read more.

BBox Makes 5G Beamforming Easier than Ever Before

5G New Radio requires the use of phased array antennas for beamforming. For beamforming to work, we need to feed an antenna array with signals that have different phases and amplitudes. This task is quite complex and usually requires a set up of its own.

Tmytek, a Taiwanese mm-Wave company has created a solution for this. The BBox is a beamforming system that has been built for 5G developers, through which they can easily perform mmWave beamforming. This device makes it is easy to explore beam steering and beamforming characteristics and algorithms of phased antennas, before making the AiP (Antenna in Package). It has a USB control port on one end and then multiple channel outputs on the other end. A dedicated designed GUI control phase and amplitude of each RF channel independently and empowers antenna designers to conduct beamforming based on their designs. Software API is also provided to help production line automation and research environment setup. Click here to read more.

Spinner Introduces Multiband Combining System for In-Building 5G and IoT Applications

More than 80 percent of mobile communication data traffic today comes from within buildings. Mobile network coverage in buildings tends to be much weaker behind concrete and glass facades. Often, mobile phone signals cannot penetrate large buildings and thus result in bad connections. Spinner, a leading provider of innovative standard products and customized solutions, has recently launched a passive in-building system that ensures excellent cellular connections in large building complexes with minimal operating costs.

The new multi-band combining system is a 19” Rack or Wall mount system that can be used for a wide range of applications including 5G or IoT. The BN 572690 system can combine up to four mobile providers with five bands each at the device’s inputs. Click here to read more.

RF GaN Market Expected to Reach $2 Billion by 2025

Yole, a leading market research and analysis company, released the annual RF GaN technology & market report. According to the report, the total GaN RF market will increase from US $740 million in 2020 to more than US $2 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 12%. All year long, Yole’s analysts investigated this domain to get a deep understanding of the technology evolution, the potential application and business impact. The GaN RF report proposes an updated packaged device and bare die market segmentation as well as an extensive analysis of 5G wireless infrastructure and competitive analysis of GaN versus other existing technologies.

The Report: GaN RF market: Applications, Players, Technology, and Substrates 2020 answers these questions: Click here to read more.

Cadence Releases AWR Design Environment Version 15

RF design simulation solutions provider, Cadence, has announced the release of the Cadence AWR Design Environment Version 15 (V15). The new update includes the AWR Microwave Office, AWR Visual System Simulator (VSS), AWR AXIEM and Analyst electromagnetic (EM) simulators.

The latest release brings RF/microwave design solutions to the Cadence software portfolio for monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC)/RFIC, package/module, and printed circuit board (PCB) designs. The release provides key new features, add-on modules and enhancements driven by 5G, automotive and aerospace and defense applications. Click here to read more.

Pico Introduces Innovative Multi-Channel Probe Positioning System for Oscilloscopes

Oscilloscopes with more than two channels present engineers with a common problem, not enough hands to hold more than two oscilloscope probes in place. This is especially an issue when using an 8-channel oscilloscope such as the new PicoScope 6800E devices, so it was particularly important for Pico Technology to address this issue.

There aren’t many solutions to this problem, and they’re nearly all either inefficient or uneconomical. Pico Technology has developed an ingenious solution to hold a PCB under test firmly in place and accurately position as many test probes as required, so that the user has their hands free to operate the oscilloscope or other test equipment. Click here to read more.

Qorvo Reports Strong Q4 Results Under Challenging Circumstances

Qorvo has announced financial results for the Company's fiscal 2020 fourth quarter that ended March 28, 2020. Revenue for Qorvo's fiscal 2020 fourth quarter was $788 million, gross margin was 42.6%, operating income was $102 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.43. This was higher than their revised quarter outlook that they gave in March this year at the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Qorvo CEO, Bob Bruggeworth, said that they delivered a strong quarter under challenging circumstances. Their technologies and operations are more important than ever as Qorvo supports global deployments in 5G handsets and infrastructure, defense, Wi-Fi 6, and IoT. Click here to read more.

Keysight Introduces 8 Channel Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes for 2 to 6 GHz Signals

Keysight Technologies has introduced the first oscilloscope with 8 analog channels at 6 GHz and 16 simultaneous digital channels, enabling customers to reduce test bench and workflow complexity to achieve higher performance as well as accurate and repeatable multi-channel measurements in a single instrument.

High-speed digital designs, power integrity verification, Wi-Fi 6, IoT, IIoT and imaging and gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors utilize frequencies between 2 GHz and 6 GHz that are currently under-served or require costly trade-offs. Testing these new products requires time and frequency-domain equipment capable of simultaneous analog and digital channels, ideally with software enabled protocols, standards, built-in test assistance, and test team remote collaboration. Click here to read more.

Ultra-Low-Power Wi-Fi SoC Can Enables Operation on a Single Battery for 5 Years

Dialog Semiconductor a leading provider of Wi-Fi, Bluetoothlow energy and Industrial ICs has introduced a highly-integrated, ultra-low-power Wi-Fi networking SoC, and two modules that leverage Dialog’s VirtualZero technology to deliver a breakthrough in battery life for Wi-Fi connected, battery-powered IoT devices.

The rise of IoT products, including connected door locks, thermostats and security video cameras, that require always on connectivity with a continuous Wi-Fi connection has challenged engineers to develop solutions that don’t compromise battery life. Unlike competing Wi-Fi SoCs, the DA16200 is specifically optimized to support such battery-powered IoT devices. The DA16200’s VirtualZero technology enables such a low level of power consumption that even continuously connected devices can typically achieve at least a year of battery life and in some cases up to 5 years. Click here to read more.

Boonton Launches a Uniquely Capable and Flexible RF Power Meter from 4 kHz to 40 GHz

Boonton, a Wireless Telecom Group company, has announced the launch of a new power meter. The new PMX40 RF power meter is a uniquely capable and flexible instrument that leverages Boonton's existing portfolio of high-performance USB power sensors and demonstrates its leadership in RF power measurement solutions.

The new meter delivers additional value to design engineers and technicians by combining the utility of a traditional benchtop instrument, the flexibility and performance of modern USB RF power sensors, and the simplicity of a multi-touch display built with Boonton award-winning technology. The PMX40 streamlines RF testing and increases instrument versatility for broad use in the semiconductor, military, aerospace, medical, and communications industries. Click here to read more.

These GNSS Modules Simplify Integration of Satellite Navigation into Products

Manufacturer of electronic and electromechanical components, Würth Elektronik has launched Elara (Elara-I and Elara-II) and Erinome (Erinome-I and Erinome-II) product families of GNSS modules which represent some of the smallest GNSS modules on the market - both with and without an integrated antenna. For sophisticated navigation tasks, the Erinome Series uses GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou global navigation satellite systems at top speed. Elara modules are dedicated to mobile applications with the smallest space requirements while Erinome modules are designed for responsive navigation and difficult conditions.

All four modules can be operated in low-power mode and offer I²C in addition to the usual UART interface. With tools like the Würth Elektronik Navigation Satellite Software (WENSS) and the evaluation board, developers who are integrating satellite navigation into their product for the first time will be able to quickly achieve optimum results. Tracking of containers, navigation by agricultural machines or drones, fleet management, cartography, geotagging of cameras, monitoring of animal transports, referencing for international time synchronization - the most diverse requirements of position-based applications can be met with the GNSS modules from Würth Elektronik. Click here to read more.

Holographic Beam Forming Repeaters Reduce 5G mm-Wave Deployment Costs

Pivotal Commware, a recognized pioneer of 5G mmWave technologies, systems and applications using Holographic Beam Forming (HBF) has released a new whitepaper and video that demonstrate how a tier-one mobile operator can use Echo 5G and Pivot 5G repeaters to increase indoor 5G mmWave coverage while reducing deployment costs. This analysis proves that the $100 billion pay TV market is within the grasp of mobile network operators.

To establish a baseline, Pivotal modelled a one square kilometer American suburb with seven 3-sector base stations deployed in locations determined by standard radio network planning software. Once a baseline of indoor coverage was determined, Pivotal augmented the network, first by adding more gNodeBs (gNB) and then contrasting that with the deployment of Echo 5G and Pivot 5G repeaters. The incremental cost per subscriber of adding Echoes and Pivots to achieve 80% indoor coverage was $468, versus $1,822 to achieve the same coverage from 21 more gNBs alone. Click here to read more.

Using Acoustic Waves in Microchips Could Lead to Faster Signal Processing

According to researchers from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, chips that use light and sound, rather than electricity, will be important for the development of future tech, such as high-speed internet as well as radar and sensor technology. This will require the low-heat, fast transmission of information. Scientists in Australia and Europe have taken an important step towards removing ‘hot’ electrons from the data chips that are a driving force in global telecommunications. Microchips without electrons will allow for the invention of data processing systems that don't overheat, have low energy costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This foundational work will help scientists invent systems to achieve those aims.

As demand for high bandwidth information systems increase, researchers want to get ahead of the curve to ensure the invention of those devices that don’t overheat, have low energy costs and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. The idea is to use sound waves, known as phonons, to store and transfer information that chips receive from fibre-optic cables. This allows the chips to operate without needing electrons, which produce heat. The Australian and European team was the first in the world to successfully manage this process on-chip. Click here to read more.

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Trending RF & Microwave News Stories of the Week (11 - 15 May, 2020)