Friday 13
Who knew the 'left leg
shake' was a well-known symptom of Glossophobia? "As a an engineer, there is a good chance that you
are an introvert. There is nothing wrong with being soft spoken unless part of your job includes
public
speaking. You are great at communicating complex ideas, but just not to large groups of people.
You get speech anxiety. In the privacy of your dim lit office, your fingers dance across the keyboard
and you have no problem expressing yourself. You love what you do, but when the time comes to give
..."
Dividing network is another name for a
crossover
network used to separate and direct parts of the audio frequency band to specific speakers - bass,
midrange, and tweeter, for example. It is the audio equivalent of a diplexer or multiplexer filter in
the RF and microwave realm. As with many other aspects of consumer electronics, there was a time when
many audiophiles chose to design and/or build their own crossover networks for home-built speakers.
Although never really a bona fide audiophile
...
Don't miss out on
the 10th Annual Military Radar Summit
- February 27 through March 1, 2017, in Arlington, Virginia. This conference will have an excellent
lineup of speakers, workshops, and exhibitors that span the entire spectrum of the military radar community.
Recently there has been further improvement on these modern radars which has led to more enhanced performance.
Topics covered include: • Next Generation Radar for Contested Environments • Upgrades
in Military Radar for UAVs • Transforming the Battlefield Sensor Network
<more>
"Molybdenum
disulfide, a
2-D semiconductor that's just 3 atoms thick, has had a big year. In October, a group
of researchers made a 1-nanometer transistor from the material, showing that even if silicon transistors
stop shrinking, the new material might provide a path forward. In December, at the IEEE International
Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco, researchers presented work they say shows that molybdenum
disulfide not only makes for superlative single transistors
..."
"Google
Fiber and Nokia are among the stakeholders throwing their support behind a petition by the
Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC) that seeks to explore ways to facilitate
greater terrestrial use of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band. The FWCC filed a petition with the FCC in October asking
regulators to update the rules for the 3.7-4.2 GHz band so that more of the spectrum can be used for
terrestrial applications. Not surprisingly, the satellite industry
..."
Thursday 12
"Technavio
has published a new report that provides an analysis of the most important trends in the global
automotive radar sensors market expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021.
They have compiled the data for the automotive radar sensors market by using a bottom-up sizing approach.
They assimilated the sizes for of the different constituent markets by application. They then further
refined the data by applying selective
..."
This latest collection of articles from our industry's magazine
publishers with a mix of topics including one of my favorite: grounding. Items move onto and off of
all homepages quickly, so even if you visit Microwave & RF, Microwave Journal,
Microwave Product Digest, High Frequency Electronics, et al
...
• Properly
Ground Your Circuits
•
Free Software Shows
Radar
Coverage
•
Near-Field Scanning: Useful
or Misleading? <more>
"Researchers in Singapore, the USA and Italy have been developing
a modified model of
Schottky
contacts between graphene (Gr) and 2D and 3D semiconductors. The model takes better account of the
effective 'zero mass' and zero gap (semi-metal) conduction/valence band structure of Gr with approximately
linear energy-wavevector relations relations. Metals and semiconductors are usually modeled with quadratic
energy-wavevector relations, giving non-zero effective mass. The Gr material was produced by chemical
vapor ..."
Transistor
basics have not changed since they were first introduced to the market around 1953. The first available
transistors used germanium substrates, and then in 1954 Texas Instruments introduced the first commercial
silicon transistor. The
hybrid pi equivalent circuit for a PN junction transistor used in modern circuit simulators has
many more 'virtual' components in it that allow for high frequency and nonlinear operation modeling,
but for audio and AM type that operates entirely within the linear region
...
"A
team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has advanced gallium nitride (GaN)-on-silicon
transistor technology by optimizing the composition of the semiconductor layers that make up the device.
Working with industry partners Veeco and IBM, the team created the high electron mobility transistor
(HEMT) structure on a 200 mm silicon substrate with a process that will scale to
larger industry
..."
"When you think about it, wireless communication seems nothing
short of magic, it is a brilliant, reality-anchored application of physics and engineering in which
radio signals travel from a transmitter to a receiver in the form of electric and
magnetic fields woven into fast-as-light electromagnetic waves. However, that very same physics imposes
some strict limits, including ones that frustrate the Department of Defense. Key among these is that
radio frequency signals hit veritable and literal walls when they encounter materials like water
..."
Wednesday 11
"42.5 dB of low loss
optical gain has been demonstrated in a CMOS waveguide at wavelengths around 1,500nm.
Key to the achievement is a parametric amplifier architecture using a silicon nitride waveguide with
far higher silicon content than usual – Si7N3. 'We have developed an optical amplifier which is able
to amplify light by 17,000 times at the telecommunications wavelength
..."
Raise your hand if your old stereo system had a "Loudness"
control, but you never really knew what it did - other than change the loudness (my hand is up). Author
Rudolph Jacobs addresses the subject in a technical manner - Fletcher-Munson curves and all - in this
1963 edition of Electronics World magazine. In a nutshell, in case you don't feel like reading
the entire article, Loudness compensates for the difference in perceived sound intensity level across
the audio frequency spectrum as the reference level is varied...
Pasternack has launched a new line of USB-controlled Phase Locked
Loop (PLL) frequency synthesizers. These new
PLL synthesizers can be useful in applications involving signal generators, benchtop
test and measurement, electronic warfare, and microwave radios. Pasternack's six new models of PLL frequency
synthesizers cover a broad range of frequency bands from 25 MHz to 27 GHz. The compact and
rugged ...
"A new method of fabricating
nanoscale optical crystals capable of converting infrared to visible light has been
developed by researchers in Australia, China and Italy. The new technique allows the crystals to be
placed onto glass and could lead to improvements in holographic imaging – and even the development of
improved night-vision goggles. Second-harmonic generation, or frequency doubling, is an optical process
whereby two photons with the same frequency
..."
"Most of the celebration and hand wringing over Moore's law focuses
on the ever-shrinking
silicon transistor. But increasingly researchers are focusing on another critical
part of the infrastructure: the copper wires that connect individual transistors into complex circuits.
At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco in December, researchers described
the coming problems for copper interconnects, and debated ways of getting around them. One approach
studied by a group led by
..."
Tuesday 10
If
one of your New Years' resolutions was to finally, seriously look for a new job, now is the time to
start. There is reason to hope that this year will be the beginning of a new era of manufacturing in
America, so there should be a wave of openings for manufacturing, test, and quality control engineering
specialists. Not that doing the design and R&D ...
•
How to Talk About Your
Soul-Sucking Job While You Look
for a Better One (love that title!)
•
Get Your Resume
Ready for
a Job Search
•
What
You Can Do to Get
Promoted
in 2017, <more>
"An international team of
researchers has developed a
transistor
that can be stretched to twice its length and still maintain most of its conductivity. As the group
notes in their paper published in the journal Science, such a transistor could prove very useful in
the design of wearable electronic devices, particularly those affixed directly to the skin. As the researchers
note, use of transistors in bendable
..."
"If you're not using
transistors already,
chances are you'll consider them for amplifiers and oscillators in future circuits." So says the line
in an advertisement for General Electric vacuum-sealed transistors in a 1953 edition of QST
magazine. To say the claim was prescient is an understatement. A lot of people resisted the switch to
transistors for many years - especially hobbyists who had grown accustomed to working with vacuum tubes.
Maybe GE figured pitching the newfangled devices as being "vacuum-sealed" would help the
...
"NASA's Langley Research Center has developed a waveform processing
technique to eliminate signal noise resulting from sources of interference (scatterers)
that can degrade continuous wave (CW) lidar return data. The algorithm
was developed to enable CW lidar measurement of atmospheric gas concentrations as part of NASA's Active
Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) program,
but can be used to test any chemical species
..."
"The next time you place your coffee order, imagine slapping
onto your to-go cup a sticker that acts as an
electronic
decal, letting you know the precise temperature of your triple-venti no-foam latte. Someday, the
high-tech stamping that produces such a sticker might also bring us food packaging that displays a digital
countdown to warn of spoiling produce, or even a window pane that shows the day's forecast, based on
measurements of the weather conditions outside. Engineers at MIT have invented a fast, precise printing
process that may make such electronic surfaces
..."
"Qorvo®,
a leading provider of innovative RF solutions that connect the world, has introduced a new family of
5 GHz and 2.4 GHz
Wi-Fi Front-End Modules (FEMs) that pave the way for smaller, more energy-efficient
wireless routers, gateways and other networked devices in the home. The seven new FEMs support high-bandwidth
throughput with minimal power consumption in a small form factor and maximum reliable range. With more
than 1.2 Gbps throughput per stream
..."
Monday 9
The 1954 Tournament of Roses was famously the world's first national
commercial
color television broadcast, provided by the National Broadcasting Company
(NBC). Prior to the NTSC finally settling on an all-electronic scheme for TV sets, many electro-mechanical
and electro-optical types were developed. The integrated RGB color gun within a CRT was a relatively
new concept in 1949. This article presents some of the propositions by the two major research and development
players at the time: RCA and CBS. They might seem ridiculous in the light of
...
"Renesas has added
automotive radar microcontrollers to its 32bit RH850 family. Called RH850/V1R, they
are aimed at driver assistance and autonomous driving. “Radar sensors are required for ADAS [driver
assistance] applications, including emergency braking and adaptive cruise control, because radar sensors
are not negatively affected by adverse weather conditions, such as rain, fog or whether the sun is shining
or not.” In autonomous
..."
"Imagine if you could walk into your living room and all your
electronics started charging, without a single wire or plug needed. According to a team of engineers
at Duke University and the University of Washington, this idea isn't too far from reality, and the technology
already exists to build it. They say a single charger mounted high on a wall could
'beam' power to several ..." Just be sure to take it out of your pants pocket before
entering the room
... :-o
The
ZFR-20000-XA is a multi-octave frequency synthesizer operating from 4 to 20 GHz with fast switching
capability (<100 µSec) and <-60 dBc spurs across the entire
range. The ZFR offers a low profile design for use as a local oscillator in airborne radar applications
capable of withstanding high vibration and shock. The ZFR-20000-XA locks to an external 10 MHz reference
and exhibits extremely low phase noise at any frequency; <-101 dBc/Hz
...
What better way is there to begin another week of long hours,
marginally useful meetings, unpredictable customers, nagging design and/or production issues, and, hopefully,
even a success or two, than to see a couple
electronics-themed
comics from a mid-last-century magazine? These appeared in 1947 edition of Radio & Television
News. Seeing a comic panel in any modern technical magazine these days is rare, if for no other
reason than a fear amongst publishers (and their lawyers) that somebody,
somewhere might be
...
"Dr. Konstantinos Stavropoulos,
Technical Marketing Lead at Amdocs discusses the biggest elements of a
5G spectrum
strategy worth considering. 'Better use of radio frequencies: Reducing divergences between regulatory
practices, long license durations, coupled with more stringent requirements to use spectrum effectively
and efficiently, and timely release of spectrum […] and more converged spectrum policies.' These are
excerpts from the 2016 State of the Union address of Jean-Claude Juncker
..."
Avid cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate this new
RF & Microwave crossword puzzle
that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical words.
You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamar). Enjoy!
Friday 6
After looking
at so many vintage electronics magazines, the differences in form factors of resistors, capacitors,
inductors, amplifiers, and even hookup wire between then and now is very apparent. Physical sizes have
shrunken significantly, and the packaging materials are noticeably more refined today. There were no
surface mount devices, and nearly all components had either long leads for wrapping and soldering to
posts or lugs, or they had lugs or posts to which said components leads
...
Saelig Company, Inc. announces the availability of the
Aaronia
GPS Logger - a six-parameter datalogger that has been designed for recording the position and orientation
of RF antennas (such as the Aaronia HyperLOG X, HyperLOG EMI, and Magnotracker
series) during field investigations. But it is also very useful for a wide range of non-RF applications
where position and movement logging is required. The Aaronia GPS Logger includes a total of six state-of-the-art
sensors in
...
This article from an issue of Short Wave Craft shows
that the necessity for
Morse code in order for amateur radio operators to ply their hobby was in question as early as 1935.
Elimination of the requirement to demonstrate proficiency in Morse code when earning an Amateur Radio
license did not formally begin until 1991 - nearly 60 years later - when the 5-words-per-minute code
test for the entry-level Technician level license was removed. It was done so to prevent scaring off
potential newcomers who might otherwise seek an operator's license. Licensee numbers had
...
"Researchers
in China and France have developed photomultiplier tube (PMT)-type performance from
avalanche photodiodes (APDs) that implement periodically stacked structures (PSSs)
of gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminium nitride (AlN). The PSS APD had a record high gain of order 104
with noise factor as low as 500 and ionization coefficient of 0.05, according to the researchers. The
highest gain for silicon APDs in linear mode is about 100
..."
As far back as the mid 1980s, I remember going to the technical
library at the Westinghouse Electric Oceanic Division in Annapolis, Maryland to read the latest copy
of NASA Tech Briefs. During and after doing a four-year
stint in the U.S. Air Force as an air traffic control radar technician, I was voraciously consumed all
the information I could obtain on electronics, mechanics, aerodynamics, astrodynamics, etc., and was
determined to earn an electrical engineering degree. In the pre-Internet days, acquiring such material
required finagling a ...
"An optical
atomic clock has been used by physicists in the U.S. to study the effects of
spin–orbit coupling. Spin–orbit coupling is fundamental to understanding how electrons
behave within condensed-matter systems and could be exploited in the design of new materials, such as
topological insulators and superconductors. The researchers also plan to adapt their atomic-clock design
to study other fundamental phenomena in
..."
Thursday 5
"Radar
signal processing experts at the Raytheon Co. will upgrade a
missile-defense radar system in Greenland in place to provide missile defense and
early warning of enemy ballistic missile launches and potential threats in space. Officials of the Missile
Defense Agency (MDA) in Huntsville, Ala., announced a $40.5 million order Friday to the Raytheon Integrated
Defense Systems segment in Woburn, Massachusetts, to upgrade the Solid State
..."
everything RF
has been sponsoring RF Cafe's publication for many years through direct advertising. They have
a very wide presence across the Internet on engineering websites. "everything RF
is a product discovery platform for RF & Microwave Products/Services." They currently have 203,125
Products from more than 874 Companies across 229 Categories in their database and enable engineers to
search for them using the customized parametric search tool. Please visit everything RF now to
see how they can help your project
...
"Scientists
have officially developed the world's thinnest possible
electrical
wire measuring three atoms wide. The work comes from scientists at Stanford University and the Department
of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. They determined how to use diamondoids, the smallest
possible bits of diamonds, to put together the thinnest electrical wire. Nicholas
..."
Return on investment for
advertising is always a prime consideration for companies, regardless of how wide the perspective
audience or the size of the competition. Luck plays some part in whether a certain advertising campaign
is successful, but as Mac points out in the July 1949 edition of Radio & Television News,
there is great advantage to measuring the effectiveness of each strategy. Advertising has never been
cheap, especially in venues with a large contingent of followers. In the Internet age, one of the more
popular schemes is 3rd-party pay-per-click ads that are served by
...
"The Boy Scouts of America (-··· ··· ·-) have updated the requirements for
the
Radio Merit Badge for 2017, although a formal announcement is pending the publication
of the 2017 Boy Scouts Requirements pamphlet. A new option for the Radio Merit Badge is Amateur Radio
Direction Finding (ARDF). ARRL ARDF Coordinator Joe Moell, K0OV, said he's 'really excited' about the
move, and he credited Jamboree on the Air Coordinator (JOTA) and K2BSA trustee Jim Wilson, K5ND, with
being the 'spark plug' behind the ARDF addition
..."
"Autonomous and
connected vehicles are positioning themselves as the way of the future. For some
years now Google has been testing their driverless car, and in Pittsburgh Uber recently launched its
self-driving car service in collaboration with Volvo. A number of other companies like Apple and Tesla
are also working on their versions of autonomous vehicles. A key challenge to the advancement
..."
Wednesday 4
"The
experimental 1,000-component
optical processor is made for challenges like the 'traveling salesman problem.'
We may use photons to carry our data, but we rely on the electron to put it to use. One day that division
of labor might not be so stark. A team at Hewlett Packard Labs, in Palo Alto, California, has built
a demonstration chip that could help push some particularly thorny computations into the realm of light,
potentially
..."
"The
European Commission has presented a proposal to coordinate the use of the
700 MHz band for mobile services. It will improve internet access for all Europeans
and help develop cross-border applications. Radio frequencies know no borders: spectrum needs to be
better coordinated at EU level to avoid interferences and to allow innovative services, such as connected
cars or remote health care, to work across the continent. The EU also has to cope with the growing demand
..."
Something that is always in the forefront of my mind when reading
these articles from vintage American electronics magazines is how most of the products - including even
the smallest components - were made in the United States. When I read vintage British electronics magazines
(e.g., Wireless World), most of the products were produced in
Europe. The
technical and manufacturing know-how was spread throughout the regions of the world where its citizens
dreamed up and realized the wonders that made the modern world. Part of the reason is supply and distribution
chains were not as capable due to
...
"Cortec
Corporation has developed a
static dissipative corrosion inhibiting paper that serves as a complete packaging
paper for valuable electrical and electronic items. Sensitive electronic metal items can be wrapped
in EcoSonic ESD Paper to be protected from damaging static electricity buildup and corrosion. The EcoSonic
ESD Paper eliminates static electricity buildup through the use of an environmentally friendly coating
made from soybean oil and coated on the surface of the paper
..."
"The
rumors have been swirling for months. Though they couldn't be confirmed, their persistence suggests
that something significant may be coming from Samsung, possibly as early as this year: a
foldable mobile. Today, the world of mobiles consists of two major realms - tablets
and smartphones. Tablets are good for reading magazines and books, typing long messages on a linked
keyboard, looking at pictures, and surfing the Web
..."
Tuesday 3
"The
FCC has approved Globalstar's request to build a
terrestrial wireless network using 11.5 MHz of its satellite spectrum at 2483.5-2495
MHz. 'We thank the Commissioners, their staff and the staff of the Bureaus and Offices who worked tirelessly
to bring this proceeding to a successful conclusion. We look forward to a busy 2017 as we plan to put
our terrestrial authority to use for American consumers and pursue similar authority internationally,'
Globalstar CEO Jay Monroe said
..."
I have been scanning and posting Radio Service Data Sheets like
this one featuring the
Emerson Model
678 "Auto-Dynamic" 5 Tube superheterodyne radio receiver for many years now. There are still many
people who restore and service these vintage radios,
and often it can be difficult or impossible to find schematics and/or
tuning information. The
RCA Victor
Model 261, 555 to 107 meter, dual-range, 10-tube superheterodyne radio receiver is also available
now.
The
TTRM1054
class AB LDMOS amplifier by Triad RF Systems operates at a frequency range of 2,300 MHz to 2,500 MHz
and has a power output of 40 watts, while still maintaining a compact form factor of 5.3" x 3.25"
x 0.57". This unit also features internal protection against over/under voltage and excessive temperature
conditions, which coupled with its rugged construction, ensure fault-free operation in even the most
...
"The giant
CES tech show marks its 50th
anniversary this week. As it gets under way in Las Vegas, we look back at some of the hundreds of thousands
of gadgets to be have been put on show in past years."
Slideshow
"T-Mobile
CTO Neville Ray said that the carrier recently conducted tests in its lab using LTE technology that
he said reached peak speeds of close to
1 Gbps. The results, he said, indicate that T-Mobile will be able to at some point
provide gigabit speeds over its existing LTE network. 'Just last week we reached nearly 1 Gbps (979
Mbps) on our LTE network in our lab thanks to a combination of three carrier aggregation
..."
"Before the extraordinary range of short waves was discovered
by amateurs, it was held as incontrovertible that the electric waves followed the surface of the earth,
and that the strength of the field decreased in proportion to the distance." -
Ferdinand Bödigheimer in December
1931/January 32 Short Wave Craft article titled "How Are Shortwaves
...
Monday 2
"Researchers with the University of Alberta's AlbertaSat team
have developed a miniature fluxgate magnetometer. This magnetometer has been developed to go atop the
Ex-Alta 1 CubeSat which is set for launch in the spring 2017. The miniature, low-cost instrument will
take world-class measurements of the near-Earth magnetic field which influences space weather, demonstrating
the potential of nanosatellite technology to significantly reduce barriers
..."
"Talks
on a funding project valued in the billions of euros and that could include support for European chip
manufacturing are making progress, according to a senior executive with ECSEL. ECSEL, which stands for
Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership, is a public-private partnership
and secretariat that selects and funds projects of collaborative research in Europe. Speaking at the
European Nanoelectronics Forum held in
..."
'Nuclear' this and 'nuclear' that were big attention getters
after the dropping of the uranium and plutonium bombs that ended World War II in August of 1945.
Science was at the cusp of its foray into understanding and manipulating atoms at the nuclear level
- a realm that at the time was not directly observable. 'Shadows' of
elementary particles were successfully imaged, but many theorized that it would never be possible
to directly 'see' an electron, proton, or neutron. One cause
...
"At the IEEE IEDM conference, imec, reported for the integration
of vertically stacked gate-all-around (GAA)
silicon nanowire MOSFETs on a CMOS Process. Key in the integration scheme is a dual-work-function
metal gate enabling matched threshold voltages for the n and p-type devices. Also, the impact of the
new architecture on intrinsic ESD performance was studied, and an ESD protection diode is proposed.
These breakthrough results advance the development of GAA
..."
"The
BY70-1 CubeSat launched on December 28 from the Taiyuan Space Launch Center in China,
but in a lower orbit than intended. The satellite carries an Amateur Radio FM transponder. BY70-1 was
intended to go into a 530-kilometer (approximately 329-mile) circular
Sun-synchronous orbit, but it appears the orbit is 524 × 212 kilometers, which will give the spacecraft
an orbital lifetime of just a month or two
..."
This is the first RF Cafe crossword puzzle of 2017, which marks
the beginning of the 16th year that I have been creating weekly crosswords. Avid cruciverbalists amongst
us appreciate that each week I create a new crossword puzzle that has a theme related to engineering,
mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical words. You will never be asked the name of a movie
star unless he/she was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy
...