Integration Evolving – Silicon Ceramic

The October issue of the IEEE Microwave Magazine is out. The theme for this issue is Silicon-Ceramic (SiCer) substrates and is brought to us by the Microwave Acoustics technical committee. We have four feature articles and three of them focus on how low temperature confirmed ceramic can combine with Silicon chips and take us where printed circuit boards cannot go. Evolving RF systems, MEMs resonators and BAW or FBAR resonators as well as switches form a next generation of products. The last article focuses on oscillators in SiCer systems. There is lots of information on design, modeling and measurements in these articles so there is something for everyone. A cousin of a feature article is an Application Note. This issue has something everyone who has worked on baluns, power amplifiers and mixers will enjoy – a note on how to model the implementation of coaxial baluns in microstrip circuitry. The various ground references can get tricky and this article will show you how to sort it out.

Of course, as much fun as the articles are we also have the columns which give us insight into this issue, into our society and into business. The two best columns to start with are the Editor’s Desk which gives you an overview of the issue and the Guest Editor’s Desk which gives you an overview of the feature articles. Your next stop should be the President’s Column. Prof. Schreurs does an excellent job of keeping us in touch with what is evolving in our society and our sister societies. The MicroBusiness column in this issue tells how anyone can have a significant impact in a company. We also have columns with a book review and a conference report. And sadly we have another In Memoriam column. This one is on R.J. Trew who, along with Mike Golio, is responsible for the magazine you are reading today. They both sacrificed a lot of personal time to work with the IEEE and create a professional magazine for the benefit of all of us in the MTT Society. I think you will also enjoy reading about all the other ways Bob Trew has impacted this Society.

As always, check out the Conference Calendar and enjoy the issue!

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