Sunday the 14th
It was a lot of work, but I finally
finished a version of the "RF &
Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols" that works well with
Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™. This is
an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch, connector,
waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols for system
block diagrams and schematics as those for Visio™. Each of the 1,000 or so
symbols was exported individually from Visio™ in the EMF file format, then
imported into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to
be scaled up or down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be
resized in a document and still look good. The imported symbols can also be
UnGrouped into their original constituent parts for editing. Check them out!
This
Physics & Science Theme crossword puzzle for Valentine's Day 2021
contains only words and clues related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry,
physics, and other technical words. As always, this crossword contains no
names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars,
or anything of the sort unless it/he/she is related to this puzzle's technology
theme (e.g., Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll). The technically inclined cruciverbalists
amongst us will appreciate the effort. Enjoy!
Friday the 12th
Mackay Radio & Telegraph Company,
established in 1925 in Nevada by Clarence Mackay as a sort of spin-off of
his father's Commercial Cable Company, is not usually a name that comes to
mind when recalling early communications pioneers. Mackay was one of the earliest
radio and telegraph companies, but also is still in business today under the
name of Mackay Communications, Inc., based in Raleigh, NC. That makes Mackay
one of the oldest electronics companies in the United States and in the world.
Congratulations to them for surviving the cut-throat realm of corporate mergers,
buy-outs, and hostile takeovers. As with nearly all technology concerns during
World War II, Mackay did its part to help the Allies beat back the advances
of Communism, Marxism, and Socialism by designing and manufacturing state-of-the-art
radio communications systems...
"A low-power and non-volatile technology
called the
memristor shows initial promise as a basis for machine learning. According
to new research, memristors efficiently tackle AI medical diagnosis problems,
an encouraging development that suggests additional applications in other
fields, especially low-power or network 'edge' applications. This may be,
the researchers say, because memristors artificially mimic some of the neuron's
essential properties. Memristors, or memory resistors, are a kind of building
block for electronic circuits that scientists predicted roughly 50 years ago
but only created for the first time a little more than a decade ago. These
components, also known as resistive random access memory (RRAM) devices, are
essentially electric switches..."
This "UFO
Patents" story has gotten a lot of traction in the last week or so (play
Twilight Zone theme
in background while reading). It is based on patents filed by U.S. Navy scientist,
Dr. Salvatore Pais, who works at the
Naval Air Warfare Center,
(NAWC - source of the very popular
Electronic
Warfare and Radar Systems Handbook). A
Google Patents search on Dr. Pais' name returns some rather odd designs
that include "Craft using an inertial mass reduction device" (US10144532B2),
"High frequency gravitational wave generator" (US10322827B2),
and "Plasma Compression Fusion Device" (US20190295733A1).
Maybe he is just a brilliant visionary... or maybe he finally decrypted information
stored in those Area 51
vaults?
In spite of the proliferation of cellphones
and near ubiquitous communications, there are still many applications that
require private
2−way communications systems. Emergency services like police, fire, and
ambulance; amateur radio, vehicular dispatch for utilities, delivery and repair
services; and anywhere that cellular service is not either available or extremely
reliable, cannot rely on cellphones for mission critical needs. There are
a lot of legacy 2-way radio system antennas and associated towers still being
used and many new installations in place. Word has it that use of Citizen
Band (CB) radio is on the rise amongst not just truck drivers but everyday
drivers and base station operators - largely for the anonymity factor...
This assortment of custom-designed
themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee
Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly
clever "We Are the World's
Matchmakers" Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow
Chart." My "Matchmaker's" design has been ripped off by other people and used
on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear.
My markup is only a paltry 50¢ per item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your
purchase price. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids,
significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for
excellent service. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...
Nancy Friedrich, a name I haven't seen
in a while (she used to be the editor of Microwaves & RF magazine),
has an interesting article on the Aerospace & Defense Technology website
entitled, "Electronic Warfare: Vying for Control of the Electromagnetic Spectrum."
The flood of wireless everything has made protecting and securing the EM environment
an increasingly difficult task. She begins, "Over the past decade, preeminent
countries involved in major military conflicts mainly focused on asymmetrical
warfare — surprise attacks by small groups armed with modern, high-tech weaponry.
During that same period, however, near-peer adversaries began attaining impressive
electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. As a result, a plethora of new, dynamic
threats flooded the EW spectrum, pushing threat detection and analysis to
keep pace. Large military forces now face ongoing development and evolution
to stay ahead of their adversaries..."
SF Circuits' specialty is in the complex,
advanced technology of PCB fabrication and assembly, producing high quality multi-layered
PCBs from elaborate layouts. With them, you receive unparalleled technical
expertise at competitive prices as well as the most progressive solutions
available. Their customers request PCB production that is outside the capabilities
of normal circuit board providers. Please take a moment to visit San Francisco
Circuits today. "Printed Circuit Fabrication & Assembly with No Limit
on Technology or Quantity."
Thursday the 11th
I know a guy who began in radio back
in the 1960s as a
short wave listener (SWL), and then earned his Amateur Radio license in
order to be able to send messages as well as listen to them. Short wave listening
was a very popular pastime for many people - not just technical types - back
before advances in communications made the world, to cite a cliché, "a much
smaller place." Being just a "listener" was much less expensive and less involved
that setting up a transmitting station (often requiring huge cabinets of vacuum
tube equipment). Prior to around the 1960s, the only personal exposure most
people had to the rest of the world was while serving in the military service.
Movies, television documentaries, and magazines like National Geographic provided
insight into foreign cultures. As with radio itself, existence outside your
local town was a mystery so fantastical stories told by cosmopolitan travelers
garnered troves of interested listeners. "All-Wave" radios tuned the AM (and
later FM) bands and also included one or more shortwave bands. Under ideal
radio wave propagation conditions, even a simple set could pick up broadcasts
half a world away. Immigrants could listen to happenings in their home...
"Conventional adhesives require light
or heat to bond. Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
(NTU Singapore), have developed a new way to cure adhesives: passing them
through a magnetic field. The non-contact method of curing leads to adhesives
that can be activated on demand. The 'magnetocuring'
adhesive is made by combining a typical commercially available epoxy adhesive
with specially tailored magnetic nanoparticles created by the NTU scientists.
Unlike the two-component adhesives that require the mixing of two liquids
before use, the NTU-developed coating does not need to be mixed with any hardener
or accelerator. The ease of use, according to..."
Artech House today announced the publication
Radio Wave Propagation Fundamentals, 2nd Edition, by Artem Saakian. This
completely updated second edition of an Artech House classic provides a thorough
introduction to the basic principles of electromagnetic wave propagation of
radio frequencies in real-world conditions, fully updated by including new
achievements in theory and technology. It serves as an invaluable daily reference
for practitioners in the field and as a complete, organized text on the subject.
This comprehensive resource covers a wide range of essential topics, from
the classification of radio waves, electromagnetic wave theory, and antennas
for RF radio links, to the impact of the earth surface on the propagation
of ground waves, atmospheric affects in radio wave propagation, and radio
wave reception...
In the present era, designing a
frequency converter circuit consists in most cases of picking from a catalog
an IC or connectorized component that has the characteristics you need from
a gain and mixer spurious product standpoint. Add a couple filters, a local
oscillator (although in some cases the oscillator is part of the IC), and
a power supply, and you're good to go. Of course there are special cases where
you have to use a basic mixer and do everything yourself, but even that is
simpler than designing a primary circuit using diodes or vacuum tubes as rectifiers.
Obtaining match sets for good mixer spurious product cancellation is very
difficult, especially in a large volume production environment. It really
is amazing what engineers and hobbyists of yore were able to accomplish using
point-to-point wiring and a slide rule. Here is a good article form the February
1941 QST magazine...
Anatech Electronics offers the industry's
largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized RF and microwave
filters and filter-related products for military, commercial, aerospace and
defense, and industrial applications up to 40 GHz.
Two new cavity bandpass filters have been introduced. The AB5424B1314
has a center frequency of 542 MHz and a bandwidth of 52 MHz. Insertion
loss in the passband is less than 1 dB. The AB800B843 is an LTE band
narrow band filter centered at 800 MHz with a bandwidth of 12.3 MHz
and a 2 dB passband insertion loss. Custom RF power directional coupler
designs...
RF Superstore launched in 2017, marking
the return of Murray Pasternack, founder of Pasternack Enterprises, to the
RF and microwave Industry. Pasternack fundamentally changed the way RF components
were sold. Partner Jason Wright manages day-to-day operations, while working
closely with Mr. Pasternack to develop RF Superstore into a world class RF
and microwave component
supplier. RF coaxial connectors & adapters, coaxial cable & cable
assemblies, surge protectors, attenuators. Items added daily. Free shipping
on orders over $25. We're leading the way again!
Wednesday the 10th
Due to the era in which this "Electronic
Puzzle Square" appeared (1945), I made a couple edits to help prevent
misinterpretation. For instance the "mfd." in question 5 is microfarad (μF)
in today's units standard. Question 4 originally had an upper case "E," which
was a typo since it should have been a lower case "e," as in the base of the
natural logarithm. When working Q7, leave the input and output terminals open
when calculating the equivalent resistance; it's not like doing a "Pi" to
"Tee" attenuator conversion. Q11 originally had "logE" where it should have
been just "e." Q9 is a piece of cake. Question 15 assumes you know the resistance
per foot of #25 B&S (AWG) copper wire, which you can find here (hint:
it's 32.4 Ω/1000 ft)...
"To remain competitive in the field
of the Internet of Things, even medium-sized industrial and process metrology
companies need to increasingly integrate their sensor circuits into ASICs.
The semiconductor industry is currently meeting this need with lower costs
for development cycles and decreasing quantity hurdles. However, this is not
occurring often enough in chip packaging, meaning that ASICs requiring individual
packages are at risk of being bogged down due to the quantity hurdles of package
service providers, most of which are Asian. This issue is now resolved by
a consortium of seven partners from industry and research. Radar sensors for
industrial and process metrology, as addressed in the project 'Glass
Interposer Technology for Implementing Highly Compact Electronic Systems
for High-frequency Applications (GlaRA) sponsored by BMBF..."
Measuring
voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) is a fairly common and simple operation
these days with readily available and relatively inexpensive test equipment.
Inserting a power meter in series with a signal to measuring the incident
and reflected power, or even simpler, inserting a bidirectional power coupler
in series with the signal and measuring the difference between the forward
and reverse ports is a routine matter for even modestly equipped laboratories,
Ham shacks, or field operations. Simply plug the two values into the following
equation for the answer: VSWR=(1 + β)/(1-β), where β=√(Prev/Pfwd).
What if all you have is an oscilloscope, then how would you make the measurement?
Actually, the calculation is even simpler because you use the ratio of the
peak incident and reflected waves, but making the measurement requires more
work. This article presents one way to get the job done...
Providing full solution service is
our motto, not just selling goods. RF & Connector Technology has persistently pursued
a management policy stressing quality assurance system and technological advancement.
From your very first contact, you will be supported by competent RF specialists;
all of them have several years of field experience in this industry allowing
them to suggest a fundamental solution and troubleshooting approach. Coaxial
RF connectors, cable assemblies, antennas, terminations, attenuators, couplers,
dividers, and more. Practically, we put priority on process inspection at
each step of workflow as well as during final inspection in order to actualize
"Zero Defects."
Digital Intelligence Systems (DISYS),
a global staffing, IT consulting & managed services firm with more than
33 offices worldwide, is in search of an
RF Design Engineer. This engineering position will report to the manager
of RF Solutions, primarily support the Tactical Solutions business unit, and
will have Radio Frequency (RF) engineering as its area of specialization with
design and test of RF electronics circuits and systems as the focus. You will
be responsible for the hands-on design and realization of RF passive and active
circuits used in phased array antennas, larger RF systems, and other RF components.
Also, you will design and test circuits for receivers, transmitters, local
oscillators, and RF subsystems. Designs typically range in frequency from
VHF through 20 GHz. Simulate circuit and system performance using analytical
software such as AWR Microwave Office, VSS, Agilent ADS, System Vue, and MATLAB...
Reactel has become one of the industry leaders in the design and manufacture
of RF and microwave filters,
diplexers, and sub-assemblies. They offer the generally known tubular, LC,
cavity, and waveguide designs, as well as state of the art high performance
suspended substrate models. Through a continuous process of research and development,
they have established a full line of filters of filters of all types - lowpass,
highpass, bandpass, bandstop, diplexer, and more. Established in 1979. Please
contact Reactel today to see how they might help your project.
Tuesday the 9th
These four
electronics-themed comics appeared in the March 1944 issue of Radio-Craft
magazine. People worldwide were still obsessed with radio and many forms of
media created content to feed the frenzy. For that matter, any form of electronic
gizmo was deemed to be magical to the average person. All sorts of fantastical
inventions were envisioned. In 1944, less than half the households had even
one television set, and hard as it may seem to believe, many did not have
a single radio, either. Newspapers and magazines constituted the primary form
of news distribution and consumption. I have to say that the comic with the
quasi-Baroque-angel-style baby holding a "radio-bottle" kind of creeps me
out...
Axiom Test Equipment, an electronic
test equipment rental and sales company has published a new blog post entitled
"Setting
up a Home Test System," that discusses the most important equipment you
will need when creating your home's test studio either for hobby endeavors
or for the need to outfit a work-from-home environment due COVID-19 conditions.
Cost of equipment is a significant factor when building your home test studio.
However, keeping costs reasonable is possible by either renting equipment
or purchasing quality used equipment at a fraction of the price which can
be found through Axiom's extensive inventory. Setting up a Home Test System
Social distancing has become a new way of life due to the COVID-19 pandemic
and efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Instead of daily trips
to a test lab or electronic manufacturing facility, many engineers are being
asked to work remotely to minimize contact with others and the potential spread
of the virus. For many, home is the new office and workplace and for electronic
circuit designers, testing is a helpful if not essential part of working on
electronic designs at home...
"Active
Mold Packaging (AMP) is a novel interconnect technology for IC packaging.
Here, the previously unused areas of the epoxy mold compound (EMC) of an IC
package are converted into an active carrier of electrical functionality.
AMP offers additional metallization layers on the surface and in the volume
of the EMC, thus enabling a new approach towards mm-wave applications. The
LPKF solution provides simple, time-saving, and space-saving antennas with
package integration. The simple, time-saving and reliable technology is based
on three proven and standardized electronic production technologies..."
Most people know that World War II
marked the point at which a large percentage of American women made a major
move from the role of homemaker to the roles of factory and trades workers.
The societal shift was made necessary because a large percentage of American
men were off fighting the war in Europe and the South Pacific, and therefore
were not available to do those tasks. This article appeared in the September
1942 edition of Radio Retailing Today magazine less than a year into
America's involvement in the War. Even a militant feminist would probably
conclude that, given the state of the world at the time, it is a very fair
assessment and generally exceedingly complimentary. Note this observation
regarding use of women for manufacturing, "Women
have made more radio tubes and radio sets than men ever will." I thought
about that while preparing for the restoration of my 1941 Crosley Model 03CB
console radio...
Rhode & Schwarz now has a website
area dedicated to electromagnetic interference
(EMI) debugging and analysis. "EMI debugging in the design phase will
help keep product development on schedule Detecting, analyzing, and correcting
causes of electromagnetic interference (EMI) early in the development process
is the surest way to successfully pass an EMI compliance test and the best
way to avoid redesigns, delays, and added costs late in a project. EMI debugging
for unwanted emissions can start as soon as a circuit is live. Rohde &
Schwarz supply multipurpose equipment including oscilloscopes with leading
FFT functions, advanced trigger possibilities and very low input noise, and
spectrum analyzers..."
Electro-Photonics is a global supplier
of RF & Microwave
components. Their products include SMT hybrid and directional couplers,
wire bondable passive components, mounting tabs, filters, transmission lines,
and very useful test boards for evaluating components (spiral inductors, single-layer
capacitors). The Electro-Photonics team can support your small R&D design
requirements with RF & Microwave test fixtures and save you valuable design
and characterization time. Please take a moment to visit Electro-Photonics'
website and see how your project might benefit.
Monday the 8th
Hugo Gernsback, as I have often pointed out, had a penchant for predicting
technology development and user trends. Decades of researching and publishing
articles and books, inventing electrical and mechanical devices, and creating
educational material enabled a synergistic combination of real-world experience
and visionary thinking. In this 1945 Radio-Craft magazine editorial
entitled, "The
Radio Alarm," Mr. Gernsback envisioned a form of public emergency
broadcast system that would notify the public of impending and/or in-process
dangers like natural and man-caused disasters, invading armed forces, police
alerts, etc. His idea involved incorporating a special always-on circuit into
radios that would listen for a broadcast tone and then switch the radio on
automatically. Of course in 1945 there would need to be a minute of two allotted
for the tubes to warm up before sending out the actual message. In 1951 the
CONELRAD system was put into operation to alert citizens in the even of a
Cold War era invasion or attack, doing exactly what Gernsback had envisioned,
albeit without a the special turn-on circuit. Then, in 1963 the more familiar
Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) took over...
Innovative Power Products (IPP) has
over 30 years of experience designing & manufacturing RF & microwave
passive components. Their high power, broadband
couplers, combiners, resistors,
baluns, terminations and attenuators are fabricated using the latest materials
and design tools available, resulting in unrivaled product performance. Applications
in military, medical, industrial and commercial markets are serviced around
the world. Please take a couple minutes to visit their website and see how
IPP can help you today.
June of this year marks the 10-year
anniversary (albeit a sad one) of the passing of
Bob Pease. Many of us
read his sage insights on analog circuit design for decades; I remember first
seeing his articles in
Electronic Design magazine back in the early 1980s. "Pease
Porridge" (nursery
rhyme) was a technical dietary staple, to be ingested once each month
when it came via snail mail. Electronic Design magazine has just
released
Bob Pease eBook Vol 1 as "A compendium
of articles from [National Semiconductor's]
legendary electronic design engineer Bob Pease." You'll recognize the trademark
"What's All This..." beginning to titles (some have tried to hijack it). If
for some reason you cannot complete the registration, you might be able to
download directly from
here. This is a great 2016
tribute
to Bob - with photos, including of the famous messy cubicle.
Installing commercial broadcast radio
receivers in cars and trucks was a big deal in the 1930s - even bigger than
having one in your home. Having an ability to receive the popular shortwave
bands was a real sign of success (as was merely owning a car). An advantage
to auto radios was not needing an AC-to-DC rectification circuit like in-home
models that required at least one additional vacuum tube and a hefty transformer
- although many people in non-electrified rural areas had DC radios in their
homes as well (the Rural Electrification Act wasn't passed until 1936). In
its service instructions,
Remler suggested to owners that if poor reception was experienced, the
auto should be parked somewhere that a 50-foot secondary aerial couldn't be
deployed. I could locate any examples of restored...
Christian Block, of Qualcomm, has an
interesting article on the Electronic Design website entitled, "6
Reasons to Move to a Complete Modem-to-Antenna Solution in the Era of 5G."
Says he, "To help tame complexity as 5G continues to expand, network operators
and OEMs should consider complete modem-to-antenna solutions." The short piece
deals with how the smartphone industry is transforming with 5G, how 5G complicates
RF design and finally how to tame 5G RF complexity. As with software, one
of the biggest challenges with adopting new standards is deciding how far
backwards in compatibility the new products need to be...
Aegis Power Systems is a leading supplier
of AC-DC and DC-DC power
supplies for custom and special applications. Aegis has been designing
and building highly reliable custom power supplies since 1995. They offer
a complete line of switch mode power supplies and power converters for a variety
of markets including defense, industrial, aircraft, VME, and telecom. Supports
military, aircraft, EV, telecom, and embedded computing applications. Design
and manufacture of custom power supply solutions to meet each customer's exacting
specifications. Please visit Aegis Power Systems today.
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RfCaFe
autodidacts
Electronics-Themed
Comics June 1951 Radio-Electronics
RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000
website visits each weekday and about half that
on weekends. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists,
and students all over the world. With more than 13,000 pages in the Google
search index, RF Cafe
returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for
text and images. New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major
search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items
added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours
of being posted. I also re-broadcast homepage items on LinkedIn. If you need
your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be.
Advertising begins at $40/month.
It was a lot of work, but I finally
finished a version of the "RF &
Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols" that works well with
Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™. This is
an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch, connector,
waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols for system
block diagrams and schematics. Each of the 1,000 or so symbols was exported
individually from Visio in the EMF file format, then imported into Word on
a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to be scaled up or down without
becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be resized in a document and still
look good. The imported symbols can also be UnGrouped into their original
constituent parts for editing. Check them out!
RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is the next phase in the evolution
of RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are
you have never used a spreadsheet quite like this (click
here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built
in MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is a cinch and
the format is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster
than using a multi-thousand dollar simulator when a high level system analysis
is all that is needed. An intro video takes you through the main features...
With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and
schematic drawings! Every object has been built to fit proportionally
on the provided A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your
own). Symbols are provided for equipment racks and test equipment, system
block diagrams, conceptual drawings, and schematics. Unlike previous versions,
these are NOT Stencils, but instead are all contained on tabbed pages within
a single Visio document. That puts everything in front of you in its full
glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing. The file format
is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
This assortment of custom-designed
themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee
Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly
clever "We Are the World's
Matchmakers" Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow
Chart." My "Matchmaker's" design has been ripped off by other people and used
on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear.
My markup is only a paltry 50¢ per item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your
purchase price. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids,
significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for
excellent service. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...
RF Cafe's raison d'être is and always
has been to provide useful, quality content for engineers, technicians, engineering
managers, students, and hobbyists. Part of that mission is offering to post
applicable job openings.
HR department employees and/or managers of hiring companies are welcome to
submit opportunities for posting at no charge. 3rd party recruiters and temp
agencies are not included so as to assure a high quality of listings. Please
read through the easy procedure to benefit from RF Cafe's high quality visitors...
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"It's been a good decade or so for
the makers of plastic lenses. In recent years, smartphone manufactures have
been adding
camera modules, going from one to two to five or more. And each of those
camera modules contains several plastic lenses. Over the years, these lenses
have changed little, though image processing software has improved a lot,
merging images from multiple camera modules into one high quality picture
and enabling selective focus and other features. The glory days of the plastic
camera lens, however, may be drawing to a close. At least that's the hope
of Metalenz, a Boston-area startup that officially took its wraps off today.
The company aims to replace plastic lenses with waveguides..."
"Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology
(Tokyo Tech) and NTT Corporation (NTT) have developed a novel CMOS-based transceiver
for wireless communications at the
300 GHz band, enabling future beyond-5G applications. Their design
addresses the challenges of operating CMOS technology at its practical limit
and represents the first wideband CMOS phased-array system to operate at such
elevated frequencies. Communication at higher frequencies is goal in electronics
as researchers attempt to achieve greater data rates that and to take advantage
of underused portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Many applications beyond
5G, as well as the IEEE802.15.3d standard for wireless communications, call
for transmitters and receivers capable of operating close to or above 300
GHz. Current CMOS technology is not entirely suitable for such elevated frequencies..."
"Niobium metal is used in the implantation
of a variety of superconducting quantum devices. However, the technology is
typically limited to use in conventional Josephson junctions based on Nb-AlOx-Nb
produced entirely by sputtering. In addition, the devices are most commonly
in a vertical stack covered by niobium metal, making it physically limited
to access the embedded films that could comprise insulators, semiconductor,
or hybrids with ions. There is a need for improvement in the design as well
as integration of functional materials for use in devices such as qubits as
well as ion embedded devices for
quantum memory. Also, implementation of large-scale computers requires
nanofabrication technologies. Sending qubits states and implementing quantum
networks requires an optical interface. This research presents nanofabrication
processes..."
"Zero Emissions" has got to be one
of most egregiously contrived, deceptive terms in the history of technology.
Likewise for "Green Dollars," which really means government subsidization
for something that citizens will not pay for. Per the story: "Despite accounting
for only 9% of the global vehicle stock, large diesel truck engines represent
39% of the transport sectors' greenhouse gas emissions, and about 5% of Co2
emissions from fossil fuels. But this may soon change. For those in the automotive
world trying to convince the boss that climate change is an important strategic
issue for business, something important is happening: Companies are going
after green dollars, money spent to reduce pollution and waste, and in doing
so, they're also demonstrating good corporate citizenship."
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