The August 2021 issue of the IEEE Microwave Magazine is now out!

In this month’s issue, we have three technical features and an Applications Note that cover a wide range of microwave topics.  Our first technical feature focuses on the two-decade history of ultra wide band (UWB) filter applications.  The feature is titled “Two Decades of UWB Filter Technology: From Elementary Designs-to-Recent Developments” and is written by Shome, et al.  The paper reviews various UWB filtering technologies and discusses their design and performance characteristics. Several comparison tables and an extensive list of references have been provided for you to further investigate the technology.  The second technical feature by Belostoski is titled, “Review of Cryogenic Noise-Parameter Measurements and an Application Example” and looks at some of the history behind cryogenically cooled low noise amplifiers (LNA) and their various low noise measurement techniques.  The author then reviews these techniques in a specific cryogenic LNA case to show their usefulness. If the theme of low noise sounds familiar, it is because we published a focus issue from the MTT Technical Committee 11 on Low Noise Techniques just last month.  The third technical feature this month, “Performance Optimization Techniques for Gyrator-C Based CMOS Active Inductors” by Mhiri and Besbes, provides an extensive overview of on-chip active inductors.  Fundamental physics dictates that even as CMOS devices trend smaller in size, for a given value of inductance, the physical dimensions of inductors do not scale accordingly and so inductors exhibit an oversize footprint in RFIC designs.  The authors of this technical feature review methods for improving performance in CMOS active inductors and they provide extensive references and comparison tables for the studied circuits.  In this month’s Applications Note, Zhou, et al. investigate methods for “Harnessing Harmonics in Doherty Power Amplifiers” to help improve performance and even help improve the overall third order intermodulation performance.

As microwave engineers, we continually strive to stay informed with the latest technologies and applications.   In this month’s MTT President’s column, Greg Lyons focuses on some of the ways that the MTT Society is helping foster education and mentoring by outlining the various activities underway by various groups within the Society.  Keeping with the education theme, the MTT Society’s Education Committee’s column provides a summary of the 2021 Graduate Student Fellowship Awards, where the awardees and their research projects are outlined.  I was impressed by the breadth and level of the work these students are undertaking and I am sure you will be, as well.  Over the last few months, our MicroBusiness column has covered the various aspects of success. The theme of this month’s MicroBusiness column is success’ linkage to merit and technological quality.  Periodically, the Microwave Magazine publishes an interview with the chair of one of the MTT Administrative Committee (AdCom) sub-committees.  In this month’s Spotlight, we talk with the current chair of the Electronic Information Committee (EICo), Anding Zhu.  In this interview, Anding describes the far reach of this committee and the exciting initiatives that EICo has helped foster, including those that have come out of the pandemic, as well as those that might continue post-pandemic.  I found the work by the committee on MTT’s social media presence to be particularly interesting.  Keeping with news about the MTT Society, we also have a report from the MTT Technical Committee 12: Microwave High-Power Techniques on their activities over the last few years. Rounding out the issue is the Ombuds Officer Report, a new Enigma for you to consider.  Finally, we have an In Memorial column dedicated to Tapan K. Sarkar, who passed away this past March.  Dr. Sarkar was well known and worked tirelessly for both the MTT and Antennas and Propagation (AP) communities, having served as President of the AP Society in 2014.  He will be sadly missed.

Don’t forget to check out the conference calendar.

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