In my previous blog, City Girl at Heart, I described the way in which San Francisco has shaped my life and instilled in me a love for the unique places and atmosphere that one finds in the hills and valleys along the Bay. The sights and sounds of San Francisco, combined with the natural warmth and diversity of its people, leave a lasting impression on those who arrive for a brief visit as tourists, or the lucky ones who call this place 'home,' as I once did. Whether by cable car or on foot, in an Uber or by bike in the green lane, an adventure around the City is typically an enriching, spontaneous experience. Some of my most memorable (and oftentimes demanding) moments in San Francisco came during the annual marathon, a race that gives meaning to the term 'hill repeat' which describes the training required to make it, with a respectable time, to the finish line.
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The IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) is a transnational professional society with more than 10,500 members and about 200 chapters worldwide. This society promotes the advancement of microwave theory and its applications, including RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz technologies. The International Microwave Symposium (IMS) is the flagship conference of the MTT-S and is held annually in North America.
The move to mmWave frequencies in 5G offers the promise of massive bandwidth. But will it work? This is the topic of my MicroApp keynote presentation “Now you see me, now you don’t!”, free to all attendees on Tuesday morning, 10:05 on the MicroApps stage. We will explore where we are with mmWave radio links, provide a look at on- going research that will make it possible to use mmWave for 5G and offer opinions on how broadly mmWaves will be deployed and what challenges need to be overcome to make this a reality.
You would never guess by looking at me that I’m a geek at heart! I’m a blond-haired, green-eyed SoCal native and spent all my summers on the beach with nothing but my bike to get me around. I used to call my friends from old-school rotary phones. No personal computers, no internet, no smartphones or iPads. Once I got my driver’s license, I shared a very used 1970-ish pimento colored Olds Cutlass Supreme V-8 with my sister. It sported a white vinyl top—and we were delighted to have it. So, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that a blond-haired SoCal girl would have a blossoming geek inside…but there was!
...Listening to Tony Bennett’s “I left my heart in San Francisco," I can’t help but think of the many ways that the City has been such a big part of my personal and work life. Growing up in the Bay Area, my father would take us to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. At one of the many tourist landmarks—a massive cross-section of the cable that suspends the bridge—my father would photograph us. Only two of these huge cables hold the entire weight of the middle section of the bridge, containing 80,000 miles of wire steel strands, enough to encircle the equator three times. We posed and we climbed on the cable.
Yikes! Here I am, noodling away, trying to figure out why people aren't more conservative, at least when it comes to charge in transistor modeling, when I realize that it's only TWO WEEKS until the IMS technical paper submission deadline! I hope you are already well into writing your summary paper. If not, we need to get our skates on over the Thanksgiving break and come up with three scintillating pages of technical excellence and eye-popping interest. I am assuming here that you have already done the hard work, maybe just last week, or perhaps you are going to dust off those measured data or notes on that clever theory that you did last February, and you're in a position to crack on with the actual writing of the paper.
Hold on, not so fast. Let's just take a moment to think about what we should write and how we should go about it, to make sure that we have that best chance possible of getting our paper accepted into the most prestigious microwave conference in the world.
At Murrietta Circuits, we have exhibited in our share of trade shows over the last few years, so when our friend Judy Warner, of Zentech Manufacturing, recommended we check out IMS we were very open-minded. Once we reviewed the website, we quickly agreed with Judy that this would be the perfect venue to showcase Murrietta Circuits and the eSurface technology that we offer. http://www.murrietta.com/licensed-esurface-manufacturing.html
We are “newcomers” to IMS and with that comes new opportunities. We have been in business for about 35 years and during that time we’ve been involved in programs for the military; drones and wireless communications, aerospace; satellites and radar, medical; implantable devices and controllers for devices. These are all very interesting and exciting programs and we take great pride in the quality of service we provide our customers.
(…You Were Going to be an Engineer?)
When the IMS steering committee met for the first time last November in Phoenix, to begin putting the wheels-in-motion for IMS 2015, those of us on the publicity committee thought it would be fun to get a glimpse of the history and humanity behind some of the talented RF/Microwave engineers that attend IMS each year. Additionally, we thought that these stories would inspire and resonate with the STEM students that will be involved in this year’s conference. No doubt, these stories will be full of surprises and a bit of humor, too.
So, when did you know you were going to be an engineer? Was it your obsession with Legos? Was it because you wanted to know how everything worked? Was it because you were a whiz at Math and Science? Was it because you kept deconstructing and reconstructing things? Was it that chemistry set you got for Christmas—or that Science fair you won? No doubt, every story is unique, and that “aha” moment came in different ways, at different ages for every one of you that chose an engineering profession.
I am excited by all of the activity in the microwave industry this year, with many new developments in areas such as mmWaves, 5G communications, Internet of Things/wearable technologies, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, UAVs and modular test, to name a few. There is a continuing trend of industry consolidation that was strong last year and has continued this year with mergers such as the acquisition of Mesuro and Auriga by Focus Microwaves, Miteq by L-3 Narda, TE Connectivity businesses by CommScope, Exelis by Harris, Freescale by NXP, Vitesse Semiconductor by Microsemi and more — all before the end of the first quarter of 2015.
...A couple of weeks ago, two former colleagues and dear friends, who I had not seen in several years, blew through San Diego for a short conference visit: Dr. Kenji Itoh, formerly of Mitsubishi and now of Kanazawa Institute of Technology, and Dr. Larry Larson, formerly of IBM and now inaugural Dean of the new School of Engineering at my alma mater, Brown University. They were both so busy, I managed to only have a quick bite with them separately and on the fly. We three pledged to get together again at IMS in Phoenix where we would finally have a chance to catch up over the course of the conference. I have not been to IMS for a couple of years. Time, money, circumstance… life has a way of intervening in the best laid plans of mice and men. But the occasion of seeing my two dear colleagues again resurrected all the reasons I need to get myself together to attend the conference once again. There are soooo many good reasons to do this and so few reasons not to, that even the irony of Jimmy Fallon’s Pros and Cons cannot dissuade me from doing so this year.
...Finally I can have warm toes.
Have you heard of wearable Wednesday? If you have not yet, you’ll hear about it now. This year at IMS (on Wednesday funnily enough), we are promoting the use of wearable electronics for anything and everything from Fitbits for counting steps on the show floor to iPhone apps for ‘Sleep Cycle’ tracking and reminding us of all of the sleep we are not getting.
But let me share with you what has me excited about wearables—finally that I can have warm toes all year long! On a flight back from Texas recently, I grabbed a copy of United Hemisphere Magazine to read on the descent into LAX. One article (and its image) caught my attention…“Bluetooth is the new Black.”
Being at one of the early 2015 IMS committee meetings I heard about some event called “having a beer with Steve Cripps”. I must have missed the meeting prior where the concept was discussed. I did not take it seriously and thought it was just another IMS idea that had beer in it. Seems like we have a lot of those!
I know of Dr. Steve Cripps – by name - from his book and work in the use of load line contours for matching PA’s. In fact, the philosophical subject comes up periodically at work. To load-pull or not to load-pull and use the “Cripps Method”…now that is the question.
I also know Steve is a regular attendee at IMS and personally I like the idea of grabbing a beer with him to get to know him. Meeting new people and seeing old friends in the industry is one of the facets of IMS I really enjoy.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… a time for joy, hope and the anticipation of getting together with friends and longtime acquaintances. Think I’m talking about the holidays? Wrong. I’m actually referring to IMS. OK, I may be stretching it and next year’s event in Phoenix may seem a long way off as winter settles upon us, but nonetheless I encourage everyone to think of the warm spirit of IMS and Phoenix in May (oh Yeah!) and consider how we can extend the spirit of staying connected throughout the year.
...You might think it's a long time until IMS 2015 in Phoenix, but I just realized that it's only seven, yes, seven weeks until the technical paper submission deadline! We'd better get our skates on and get writing. Well, of course, you need to have something to write about, so I am assuming that you have already done the hard work – the design, modeling, build, characterization and measurements, and also come up with an explanation of what you have seen. Writing the paper should be breeze from here.
...Bring yourself, your love of the outdoors and no ties to this premier event… the IMS2014 Kickoff Celebration. Why wait until the end of the week when we are all exhausted to celebrate? Let’s get started early. Monday night. Don’t miss it.
...IMS was my first conference when I joined this industry way back in 19xx cough, cough. I was young and optimistic, and I stepped into a conference that was marked by an industry that was frightened and wondering what the future held. Most of the companies were what many now refer to as “the old microwave guys” who really only had military customers. And the military orders were drying up. There were whispers on the show floor of this new “wireless” technology. Many scoffed at the term. Heck, wireless was the word used to describe Marconi’s invention. But what if… what if there really was a commercial market for this fantastic technology that we all loved so much. Could there be a brighter future?
...To be a better engineer, get Linked-in to the IMS Community.
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