Homepage Archive - March 2024 (page 3)

See Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | of the March 2024 homepage archives.

Friday the 22nd

Thursday the 21st

Wednesday the 20th

Tuesday the 19th

Monday the 18th

Electronics-Themed Comics

Electronics-Themed Comics, December 1964 Radio-Electronics - RF CafeIt's been a while since I posted a new set of electronics-themed comics from vintage magazines. These three appeared in a 1964 issue of Radio-Electronics. The page 37 comic shows the wife asking a presumably inane question, but in fact there were duo-whatever vacuum tubes that were the inclusion of a pair of single tube types, usually with a 12.6 V heater voltage. A well-known example is the 12AX7, which is essentially a pair of 6AV6 triode tubes. Besides that, there was both a 6SN7 and a 12SN(X)7 tube, the former with a 6.3 V heater and the latter with a 12.6 V heater. Here's a question for you: What is that thing on the floor to the right of the box of vacuum tubes in the page 37 comic?* The page 72 comic is not so far-fetched. I have no doubt that somewhere in the world - multiple places and times, likely - people have heated or cooked something in front of a microwave communications dish...

Russia Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle

Russia Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle - RF CafeA lot has been in the news recently about Russia's new hypersonic glide vehicle capable of delivering nuclear (and conventional) warheads across the globe at over than Mach 20 (14,822 mph) in the atmosphere. That's 4.1 miles per second. From a 150 mile high apogee, that's less than 40 seconds from space to target. Not even a high power laser can stop that. The great circle path from Siberia to San Francisco is 5,900 miles, for a flight time of less than a minute after launch phase. Moscow to D.C., (4,900 miles) takes a little less time. Here is a recent interview with Putin on Russia's state of the union regarding social, economic, and military issues - including hypersonic weapons. Oh, and they're not fixing their low birth rate by importing felons, psycho patients and cannibals from the third World. Interestingly, he addresses the rampant embezzlement schemes that U.S. defense contractors and their management perpetrate. Sure, a lot is propaganda, but so is what comes out of Washington.

Dodging the Weather - With Radar

Dodging the Weather - With Radar, August 1956 Popular Electronics - RF CafeAs with nearly things electronic, innovations in radar systems that were ground-breaking a few decades ago are now available commercially at a small fraction of the cost, a much more compact size, and much greater performance and reliability. Radar operators during World War II noticed that they were able to detect strong rainstorms demonstrating that signals did not necessarily need a metallic object to be reflected strongly enough to be received and processed. Research began soon thereafter to build radars optimized for detecting weather phenomena. Early weather radars were "simple" reflective types that indicated distance, height, and speed (by comparing successive samples). Doppler radar was developed next, adding a much greater capability to characterize particular weather systems according to intensity, direction, rotation (hurricanes , tornadoes), composition (ice, snow, rain, etc.), speed (average and gust), and other parameters...

everything RF's 2024 "RF Filter Digest" eBook

everything RF's 2024 "RF Filter Digest" eBook - RF Cafeeverything RF has published an eBook titled "RF Filter Digest 2024." This eBook is crafted to be a comprehensive resource for anyone looking to learn about the current-generation RF Filters. With the introduction of new wireless technologies, the frequency spectrum is getting very crowded. To maintain seamless operation among these technologies without interference, RF Filters play an integral role. RF Filters are crucial in optimizing signal transmission and reception, selectively allowing desired frequencies to pass through while attenuating unwanted signals. The "RF Filter Digest 2024" eBook discusses the challenges involved with 5G mmWave filtering, high-rejection LTCC filter performance, the role of MMIC filters in developing next-generation systems, and the impact of BAW filters on 5G applications. This eBook also includes an exciting section that discusses filter design in the Cadence AWR design environment...

Opportunity Awareness

Opportunity Awareness, October 1970 Popular Electronics - RF CafeEach month I used to post a list of articles with advice on career enhancement including tips on preparing resumes, conducting yourself properly at interviews, getting along well with co-workers, handling a difficult boss, etc. I also posted links to polls and studies done on career satisfaction, pay rates, education and experience levels, years in the field, etc. Those types of articles have been around since Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press. In the 1970s, Popular Electronics magazine ran a series of articles titled "Opportunity Awareness" that offered such advice, much of which in principle is still valid today. One of the biggest advantages you can give yourself when job hunting is a willingness to relocate to a new area - even if you need to pay for the move yourself. I moved many times during my career and before getting my BSEE, paid my own moving expenses as a technician...

RF Cascade Workbook

RF Cascade Workbook - RF Cafe RF Cascade Workbook 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 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...

Friday the 15th

Fresnel Zone Calculator in Espresso Engineering Workbook

Fresnel Zone Calculator in Espresso Engineering Workbook - RF CafeThere are many online Fresnel Zone calculators. Most do the basic calculation for the maximum radius of the Fresnel Zone for a given frequency and separation between antennas. Some allow you to enter an obstacle's distance from one of the antennas, and its height, then lets you know if the obstacle falls within the Fresnel Zone. Very few plot the shape of the Fresnel Zone, and even less include an obstacle positioned on the plot. Most rare are calculators which take the curvature of the Earth into account. RF Cafe's Espresso Engineering Workbook includes a Fresnel Zone calculator incorporating all those features - and more...

What's Your EQ?

What's Your EQ?, August 1967 Radio-Electronics - RF CafeThis "What's Your EQ?" (EQ = Electronics Quotient) from a 1967 issue of Radio−Electronics magazine offers just two challenges to your circuit analysis prowess. The first, "Voltage Booster," is a classic black box (although I colored it blue) mystery where you are supposed to figure out what is inside that produces the stated output given a stated input. Spoiler: You'll need to be familiar with vacuum tube characteristics in order to solve it. Unlike with many such circuits, a simple mental substitution of a field effect transistor will not do the job. You might as well not even try "Shifted Tuning" unless you have hands-on experience with tuning mechanisms of the era. Just go straight to the answer, and gain an appreciation for advancements in radio technology. Guys like Mac McGregor dealt with this kind of phenomenon on a regular basis...

LadyBug LB5975W 50−75 GHz True RMS Power Sensor

LadyBug LB5975W 50 GHz to 75 GHz True RMS Power Sensor - RF CafeLadyBug Technologies' LB5975W is 50 GHz to 75 GHz a high accuracy, platform independent RF & Microwave Power Sensor for general purpose average power or True RMS and scalar measurements. The sensor features exceptionally fast measurement speed, a broad dynamic range, and the widest set of options for programmatic and embedded applications in the industry. LadyBug's feature rich Power Meter Application is provided with each sensor. Time domain trace visibility is included and aids in setting markers. The sensor is useful in research & development, manufacturing & service applications including radar, satellite and telecommunications. Highlights include coverage from 50 to 75 GHz, accurate power measurements on any modulated signal, dynamic range: -50 to +18 dBm, Just Measure - patented NoZero NoCal before use technology, and a variety of options such as triggering, security & analog outputs...

Mac's Service Shop: Philosophy of a Kit Manufacturer

Mac's Service Shop: Philosophy of a Kit Manufacturer, November 1972 Popular Electronics - RF CafeIf you are a seasoned reader of episodes of "Mac's Service Shop," you might have noticed that the stories almost always begin with either Mac or Barney commenting on the weather, which corresponds to the time of year in which the story was originally published. Note the reference to the "bleak, cold November morning" in this 1972 edition of Popular Electronics magazine. This time around, the boss and trusty employee discuss the value of electronics kits, Heathkits in particular. BTW, Heathkit is now making an impressive comeback into the kit realm with new designs. Manuals for some of the more popular vintage Heathkit projects are available again, which are a welcome thing to collectors. They also are producing some replacement assemblies, like for replacing old Nixie tube displays with LEDs (of course most people would probably rather have replacement Nixie tubes). Back in the 1970s, before everything we bought was assembled in far away lands using pseudo-slave labor, it was often less expensive to buy a kit of parts and put together you own television or radio. It was also an era when electronics service shops still did a brisk business fixing appliances, and building such devices were part of the schooling process for up−and−coming technicians. Every study−at−home electronics course included a color television, AM/FM stereo, and even build−it−yourself...

Huawei Foldable Smartphone's Liquid Armour

Huawei Foldable Smartphone's Liquid Armour - RF Cafe"Researchers with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei spent three years developing the technology for its foldable phone screens, drawing inspiration from the impact-absorbing qualities of starches under certain conditions. Huawei's technical team told the Post that the resilience of its Mate X3 and X5 phones stemmed from the unique properties of a flexible inner screen beneath the scratch-resistant outer surface. The material - which took more than 100 experiments to develop - is based on a phenomenon that turns starch solution in the right proportions into a non-Newtonian fluid that acts like water but hardens into a solid under sudden impact..."

Solitron Devices Fetrode Advertisement

Solitron Devices Fetrode Advertisement, March 1973 Popular Electronics - RF CafeBy the early 1970s, many types of vacuum tubes had already been replaced by solid state devices. A lot of the resistance by hardline lovers of glowing tubes was beginning to accept the reality of superior electrical characteristics of many types of germanium and silicon diodes and transistors over tube equivalents. During my enlistment in the USAF from 1978-1982, the vacuum tube diode used to trigger the pulse forming network for the airport surveillance radar (ASR) circuit was replaced with a plug-in solid state replacement. It seemed to work just as well. I don't recall ever having to replace the faulty vacuum tube version, so I cannot attest to whether the solid state version was an improvement. Part of the motivation for replacing tubes with solid state devices was obsolescence of the tubes, so maybe that is why it was done. The "fetrode" introduced here by Solitron Devices in this 1973 issue of Popular Electronics magazine was designed to be a plug-in replacement for the 6AK5 vacuum tube, which is a pentode amplifier. Although not specifically stated, I assume the name "fetrode" implies it was a field effect transistor (FET)...

RF Cascade Workbook

RF Cascade Workbook - RF Cafe RF Cascade Workbook 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 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...

Solid State Electronics

Solid State Electronics, August 1970 Popular Electronics - RF CafeBeginning in the 1960s, Popular Electronics magazine had a long-running column titled "Solid State" that reported on the newfangled science. Even in 1970, there were still people who distrusted solid state electronic devices in terms of reliability and ruggedness. Their skepticisms were not totally without merit at the time. However, advances were occurring at a very rapid rate. This particular Solid State report describes how charge coupled devices (CCD) might someday serve as photographic imagers because of their efficiency at converting photon impingement to electric charge in potential wells and the subsequent serial shifting of the data to an output port. It also raves at the development by Motorola of RF power transistors (40 W) that exhibited useful gain way up into the 25 MHz realm...

The Great Electron-Pedantic Project

The Great Electron-Pedantic Project, February 1970 Popular Electronics - RF CafeThere's not a much better way to wrap up a work week than to read through a short technohumor (I just made up that word) novel by Carl Kohler or John T. Frye. Reading a few technocomics (another made-up word) by various illustrators is a great resource, too. This story, which appeared in a 1970 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, is another episode in the life of technotinkerer (a "Maker" in today's lingo) Kohler (who also drew a lot of the technocomics) and his skeptical helpmeet (for good reason) "Friend-Wife," as he unveils his repurposed homebuilt UNIversity computer...

How Come No Two Snowflakes Are Alike?

How Come No Two Snowflakes Are Alike? , 1986 Old Farmer's Almanac - RF CafeWith less than 24 hours left in winter this year (vernal equinox is April 19th at 11:06 pm EDT), I figured I had better get this snowflake article posted now. It appeared in the 1986 edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac (OFA). That's not a publication targeting old farmers, btw. For many decades, I was a faithful purchaser and reader of the OFA, but sometime in the early 2000s, the nature of its contents changed pretty significantly and I lost my interest. I've got enough vintage issues with sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, and high and low tides tables that I don't need newer versions. Besides, all that up-to-the-minute information is available online. But I digress... We've all been told about how no two snowflakes are alike - like fingerprints - and that it has something to so with static electric charges as the flake is formed. Even so, just like DNA controlling how living cells divide and reproduce with and without symmetry, the creation of a snowflake's unique symmetry is and variation is magical...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Sponsor RF Cafe for as Little as $40 per Month - RF CafeBanner Ads are rotated in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 280,000 times per year! 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. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...

RF Cascade Workbook

RF Cascade Workbook - RF Cafe RF Cascade Workbook 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 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...

RF & Electronics Stencils for Visio

RF & Electronics stencils for Visio r4 - RF CafeWith more than 1000 custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every stencil symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included A-, B-, and C-size drawing page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment, racks, and more. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Office™

RF & Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols for Office™ r2 - RF CafeIt 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 created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000+ 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...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Visio

RF Electronics Wireless Analog Block Diagrams Symbols Shapes for Visio - RF CafeWith 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...

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

Custom-Designed RF-Themed Cups, T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks (Cafe Press) - RF CafeThis assortment of custom-designed themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers" Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...

Espresso Engineering Workbook™ for Excel

RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ for Excel - RF CafeThe newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet (Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available - Espresso Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth Bandpass Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but also phase and group delay! Since 2002, the original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download. Continuing the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is also provided at no cost, compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature, power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...

How to Target RFCafe.com for Your Google Ads

Google AdSense - it makes good sense - RF CafeOne aspect of advertising on the RF Cafe website I have not covered is using Google AdSense. The reason is that I never took the time to explore how - or even whether it is possible - to target a specific website for displaying your banner ads. A couple display opportunities have always been provided for Google Ads to display, but the vast majority of advertising on RF Cafe is done via private advertisers. That is, companies deal with me directly and I handle inserting their banner ads into the html page code that randomly selects and displays them. My advertising scheme is what the industry refers to as a "Tenancy Campaign," whereby a flat price per month is paid regardless of number of impressions or clicks. It is the simplest format and has seemed to work well for many companies. With nearly 4 million pageviews per year for RFCafe.com, the average impression rate per banner ad is about 280k per year (in eight locations on each page, with >17k pages)...

Update Articles

Carl & Jerry: How to Haunt a House

The Field-Effect Transistor

Mac's Service Shop: Single Sideband for the CB'er

Mac's Service Shop: A New TV Antenna

Mac's Service Shop: Leakage Current Testing and Using Square Waves

Mac's Service Shop: Electronics and the Energy Crisis

Radio Craft 2015 search

June 1969 P-E, Kohler p40

August 1969, Hobnobbing Harbaugh p68

Radio Craft 2015 search

June 1969 P-E, Kohler p40

August 1969, Hobnobbing Harbaugh p68

Robot Builds 5-Meter Communications Tower

Robot Builds 5-Meter Communications Tower - RF cafeIs it my imagination, or does this tower have a tilt to it? Since it's meant to demonstrate autonomous erection of communications towers on the moon, I hereby dub it the Leaning Tower of Luna. "In a scenario meant to mimic the lunar surface, four robots cooperatively built a five-meter communications tower, including antenna - and then disassembled it, simulating not only the construction of such a structure but maintenance and sustainable operations for lunar infrastructure development. Robotics company Gitai's Lunar Rover and three of its 'Inchworm' robots achieved the build, which the company called 'groundbreaking' and a first of its kind. Japanese operator KDDI was also a partner on the project, providing specifications and information about their mobile phone base stations that allowed Gitai to develop an antenna suited for robotic construction. Gitai's robotics were selected late last year to be part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s 10-Year Lunar Architecture capability study..."

MIT's 2D Integration Breakthrough

MIT's 2D Integration Breakthrough - RF Cafe"MIT's breakthrough in integrating 2D materials into devices paves the way for next-generation devices with unique optical and electronic properties. Two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, can exhibit some incredible properties, such as the ability to carry electric charge extremely efficiently, which could boost the performance of next-generation electronic devices. But integrating 2D materials into devices and systems like computer chips is notoriously difficult. These ultrathin structures can be damaged by conventional fabrication techniques, which often rely on the use of chemicals, high temperatures, or destructive processes like etching. A New Integration Technique To overcome this challenge, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new technique to integrate 2D materials into devices in a single step while keeping the surfaces..."

235 GHz Sensor Measures Distance Accurately

235 GHz Sensor Measures Distance Accurately - RF CafeSeriously, someone should have wiped that smashed spider off the die before the photo was taken ;-) "Researchers at the University of Michigan have made what is in effect a very agile ruler using a novel sub-THz radar technique, and reported it last week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Its 235 GHz antennas and the core active components are integrated on a single IC, and across a desktop it measures the range to a target with sub-mm accuracy, even if the object is moving at 600 m/s - twice the speed of sound. These core components implement a 'self-injection-locking' oscillator, which exploits the sometimes undesirable effect of oscillator 'pulling' where varying the load on an oscillator alters its frequency. The oscillator in this case is a differential second-harmonic Colpitts and it is attached to a slot antenna..."

IC Converts Light into Microwaves

IC Converts Light into Microwaves - RF Cafe"Researchers from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Colorado Boulder, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology, the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Virginia and Yale University have developed a chip that converts light into microwaves. The chips reduce timing jitter to 15 femtoseconds making the signals more stable and precise in ways that could increase radar sensitivity, the accuracy of ADCs and the clarity of astronomical images captured by groups of telescopes. Researchers have taken what was once a tabletop-size system and shrunk much of it into a chip, about the same size as a digital camera memory card. Reducing timing jitter on a small scale reduces power usage and makes it more usable in everyday devices. Right now, several of the components for this technology..."

Papertronics Biodegradable Alternative to Traditional Circuits

Papertronics Biodegradable Alternative to Traditional Circuits - RF Cafe"Binghamton University Professor Seokheun Choi sought to investigate his ideas about integrated papertronics. A new research paper published in Advanced Sustainable Systems reports his latest findings - and they could revolutionize how we monitor the world around us. 'The biggest problem with paper for electronics is that the paper is highly porous and rough,' said Choi, a faculty member in the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 'These properties are very helpful for paperfluidics, because those devices require high surface area and roughness - but for electronics, they pose a critical challenge.' To mitigate some of those issues, most previous papertronics have used laminated paper with electronic components affixed to them. That method maintains the flexibility that paper has but does not fully utilize what the material offers. Choi worked with Ph.D. students Zahra Rafiee and Anwar Elhadad as part of the Bioelectronics and Microsystems Laboratory to develop a solution that takes advantage of paper's attributes, combining functional inks, the capillary action..."

Orbital Express Refuels Satellites

U.S. Space Force Orbital Express Refuels Satellites - RF Cafe"In April 2007, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency demonstrated the ability to refuel a satellite in orbit - equipping a spacecraft with a robotic arm, docking it to another spacecraft and transferring nearly 32 pounds of hydrazine into its fuel tank. The mission, known as Orbital Express, was full of technology firsts, according to Fred Kennedy, who led the project for DARPA. Along with demonstrating the first-ever in-space refueling operation, the U.S. mission showcased the ability to use tracking and imaging sensors to attach to a receiving satellite and perform maintenance, such as swapping out a battery or replacing a flight computer. 'The big deal was autonomy,' Kennedy told C4ISRNET in a Feb. 27 interview. 'We were able to show sort of a push-button approach to getting up close and personal to a spacecraft and delivering a variety of servicing capabilities.' But four months after it took flight, the Air Force and NASA - DARPA's mission partners for the effort — pulled the plug on the program. The project, conceived to support a space-based radar program that was canceled before Orbital Express even got off the ground, lacked a clear mission application, according to the Air Force and NASA. Orbital Express undergoes testing in space. (U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) The outcome wasn’t particularly surprising for DARPA, whose projects often explore technologies that are ahead of their time..."

Quantum Films for High-Speed Terahertz Electronics

Quantum Films for High-Speed Terahertz Electronics - RF Cafe"A research team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Salerno in Italy has discovered that thin films of elemental bismuth exhibit the so-called non-linear Hall effect, which could be applied in technologies for the controlled use of terahertz high-frequency signals on electronic chips. Bismuth combines several advantageous properties not found in other systems to date, as the team reports in Nature Electronics. Particularly: the quantum effect is observed at room temperature. The thin-layer films can be applied even on plastic substrates and could therefore be suitable for modern high-frequency technology applications. 'When we apply a current to certain materials, they can generate a voltage perpendicular to it. We physicists call this phenomenon the Hall effect, which is actually a unifying term for effects with the same impact, but which differ in the underlying mechanisms at the electron level. Typically, the Hall voltage registered is linearly dependent on the applied current,' says Dr. Denys Makarov..."

SmallSat GEO Solution for Satellite Communications

SmallSat GEO Solution for Satellite Communications - RF CafeI wonder if this this is an actually representative of the SmallSat mentioned in the article. It looks like someone Photoshopped a set of PV panels on a standard subsystem module package. "Terran Orbital Corporation has made a significant move into the geosynchronous orbit (GEO) small satellite market with its unveiling of the SmallSat GEO solution, designed for satellites weighing over 500kg. This cutting-edge solution will be showcased at the upcoming SATELLITE 2024 trade show from March 18-21 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington D.C., featuring an immersive augmented reality experience. The SmallSat GEO solution is specifically crafted for the communications sector, capable of operating in geosynchronous orbit to deliver unprecedented power and performance, a demand that has surged in the GEO sector's gradual shift towards smaller satellites. Leveraging a state-of-the-art 94,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility equipped with advanced automation in both construction and testing, along with the experience gained from three prior GEO missions..."

World's 1st N-Channel Diamond MOSFET

World's 1st N-Channel Diamond MOSFET - RF Cafe"A National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) research team has developed the world's first n-channel diamond MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). The developed n-channel diamond MOSFET provides a key step toward CMOS integrated circuits for harsh environment applications, as well as the development of diamond power electronics. The research is published in Advanced Science. Semiconductor diamond has outstanding physical properties such as ultra wide-bandgap energy of 5.5 eV, high carriers mobilities, and high thermal conductivity, which is promising for the applications under extreme environmental conditions with high performance and high reliability, such as the environments with high temperatures and high levels of radiation (e.g., in proximity to nuclear reactor cores). By using diamond electronics, not only can the thermal management demand for conventional semiconductors be alleviated but these devices are also more energy efficient and can endure much higher breakdown voltages and harsh environments..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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