|
 RFMD (now Qorvo) was
an early player in the gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor field. During the time I was employed there
as an applications engineer in the 2000s, the company bought a start-up GaN firm called
RF Nitro Communications,
and moved their equipment and staff onto RFMD's Greensboro campus. The engineers and scientists were
struggling to fabricate 2" wafers at the time (the 2001 link mentions striving
for a 4" wafer, but they were still at 2" when I left in 2007). The cost of GaN amplifiers was
very expensive due to low yield and small wafer size. Having come from the defense electronics realm,
I suggested to one or more managers that they approach the DoD as a customer since it has notoriously
deep pockets, but it fell on deaf ears (my e-mail is somewhere in their archives).
Now, defense contractors are major customers of GaN devices. I still believe RFMD's GaN progress would
have been greatly accelerated had they partnered with the DoD early on. But, hey, that's just my opinion,
an probably explains why I (and others) never considered myself management material. I only mention
my GaN story because of the prominence that GaN is gaining in the 5G world, as evidenced by the first
article in the list.
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, regularly, you might have missed something in the list below.
Here is a complete list of all featured
RF & microwave
articles in 2017.
-
The
Evolution of GaN: from Defense Applications to 5G, by Scott Vasquez
-
Frequency Synthesis: Current Status and Future Projections, by Alexander Chenakin
-
Oscilloscope Triggering Advanced Course: Advanced Trigger Features,
(Part 5) by Colin Mattson
-
Analyze Noise with Time, Frequency, and Statistics, by Arthur Pini
-
Solving
Millimeter Wave Test Challenges, by Tom Brinkoetter
- Miniature Filter Takes Aim at
EMI, by Chris DeMartino
- Compare Phase-Locking
Methods of RF Sources, by Dr. Richard Jenkins
- Mixed-Signal Instrumentation
for Design and Test of 5G Systems, by M. Jordão, P.M. Cruz, D. Ribeiro, A. Prata, N.B. Carvalho,
Marc Vanden Bossche, and David Vye
-
Radio Frequency and Microwave Test and Measurement Equipment Market Trends, by Jessy Cavazos
- Testing
for IoT Power Concerns, by Ken Johnson, David Maliniak
- Study the Loss of Microstrip
on Silicon, by Kamaljeet Singh, A.V. Nirmal, and S.V. Sharma
Posted May 10, 2017
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