Long Beach, Calif. has changed for good since the Microwave Symposium was last held here in 1989. Rich like the city's ethnic diversity, this year's IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society's (MTT-S) International Microwave Symposium will serve as the center stage for the latest advances in microwave technologies and products from June 12-17 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Packed with five days of workshops, tutorials, panel sessions and technical sessions, it will present a variety of topics on research, development and application of RF and microwave theory and techniques to microwave engineers from around the world. In addition to IMS2005, a microwave exhibition, a historical exhibit, the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) Symposium and the Automatic RF Techniques Group (ARFTG) conference will be held during Microwave Week 2005. While the technical sessions will run Tuesday through Thursday of Microwave Week, workshops will be held Sunday through Tuesday, and the ARFTG microwave measurements conference will be held on Friday, June 17.

In addition to the three symposia under the Microwave Week banner, more than 400 companies will display the latest hardware, software and test and measurement instruments in the exhibit halls of the convention center. Plus, it will present Microwave Application and Product Seminars (µAPS), which are now in their tenth year.

While workshops and tutorials will begin on Sunday, June 12, two plenary talks will mark the formal opening of IMS2005 on Tuesday, June 14, 2005 in the ballroom at the Long Beach Convention Center. Two keynote addresses will be presented in this plenary session. Teresa Meng, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, will address “Digitally Assisted Analog Design for Wireless SoCs and its Future” and Ziqiang Hou, Professor of the Institute of Acoustics China Academy of Science, will address “3G and Mobile Broadband Wireless Access.”

The IMS2005 program also offers special and focused sessions in technically diverse areas of interest. This year's focused and special session topics include FBAR Filters for Cellular Phone Applications, Distributed RF Sensor/Communication Systems, Terahertz Imaging, Analysis and Applications of Low Phase-Noise Oscillating System Arrays, Future Technologies for Microwave/Millimeter-wave Applications, Trends for Future Radar Systems with Electronically Scanned Arrays, Part I, and Trends for Future Radar Systems with Electronically Scanned Arrays, Part II.

To serve the appetite of engineers, the program grid also presents eight lunchtime (12:00 p.m. to 1:20 p.m.) panel sessions. While six of these panel sessions are sponsored by IMS2005, there is one sponsored by RFIC2005 and another by IMS2005 and RFIC2005. The topics include CMOS PAs Step on the GaAs, 3G Handsets — Too Much Power In Your Hands?, Outsourcing: The Impact On the Microwave Industry, RF/Microwave/Millimeter-wave Applications of Metamaterials, CAD Tools for Microwave IC Design, Trends for Future Deep Space Exploration, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Microwaves, and On the Impact of Nanotechnology On the Microwave Field.

For instance, in the session on “CMOS PAs Step on the GaAs,” the panelists will debate the impact of CMOS advances on power amplifier ICs and whether they represent any threat to GaAs HBT and Si BJT technologies. Or, are CMOS PA's ultimately destined for the ash heap? Although the physical limitations of CMOS devices ensure that the incumbent (GaAs HBT and Silicon BJT) technologies will always be preferred for the mobile phone's power amplifier from a pure performance perspective, can the CMOS PA's offer other compelling advantages? The experts on this panel will discuss the performance (RF, thermal, robustness), process technology, cost and maturity (levels of integration and packaging) related to CMOS power amplifier design and deployment. The panelists will also argue the specific future of GaAs HBT and CMOS power amplifiers for handset applications.

The panel session “RF/Microwave/Millimeter-wave Applications of Metamaterials” will provide a forum to identify important applications of metamaterials that exploit left-handed (backward) wave propagation (or alternatively, doubly negative materials or materials with negative-refractive index). Such applications might include, but are not limited to: directional couplers, filters, and antennas. The panelists will be asked to provide their vision of the applications that this field is most likely to impact.

Likewise, to explore the impact of nanotechnology on the microwave front, the panel on “On the Impact of Nanotechnology On the Microwave Field” brings together experts in nanotechnology and microwaves. Nanotechnology has been heralded as “the next big thing.” Indeed, the annual federal budget for nanotechnology R&D reached $849 million in 2004.

Dedicated to the advancement of ICs and subsystems for RF and communications systems, the RFIC Symposium begins on Sunday, June 12 with workshops and tutorials addressing RF technology, design and simulation, at the system and circuit level. The RFIC symposium features 25 technical sessions, an interactive forum, 160 presentations, workshops, panel sessions and tutorials. During Sunday evening's plenary sessions, two experts will share their views on two key trends. Jerry Neal's, co-founder and vice president of RF Micro Devices talk will focus on “Integration Technologies: Cellular and Beyond.” Ed Healy, vice president of Silicon Laboratories, will discuss “The Drive for Integration.”

Over the last decade, wireless connectivity has become a way of life. As the world's highest volume consumer electronics product, the cellular phone is a leading driver of mobility. Consumers continue to demand cell phones that feature advanced capabilities, including web access, cameras and even TV tuners, which require higher data rates. To accommodate this trend, handset manufacturers are focusing on incorporating these advanced functionalities into the cell phone, and they are looking to their semiconductor suppliers to provide more highly integrated components and complete system solutions that are smaller, better performing and more cost competitive. To drive these higher levels of integration and develop more complex, complete system solutions with optimal performance, suppliers are combining multiple processes and packaging technologies. In addition, cell phones are moving beyond their traditional roles. Thus, handset makers are exploring multiple radios, including Bluetooth®, wireless LAN and GPS. Besides these radios, other wireless devices are also forecast to populate cell phones of the future.

As the handset emerges as a platform for the convergence of communications applications, the requirements for smaller, easier-to-implement components are necessary in order to make room for application processors, display requirements and memory chips. Fully integrated, mixed-signal ICs that offer high performance, flexibility and ease of use will continue to dominate the cellular handset market. Monolithic RF ICs in CMOS will enable the technology leap required to meet the challenging integration and cost savings goals of handset manufacturers.

In a market ruled by the consumer, ease of use and continuous integration will become increasingly important to handset manufacturers who must quickly deliver cost effective and differentiated solutions. Best-in-class components allow handset manufacturers to enjoy supply chain control and flexibility as well as faster design cycles. Semiconductor companies that succeed in the cellular market will abandon incremental levels of integration that require multiple discretes, opting for revolutionary, first of a kind innovations that push the boundaries of design resulting in integrated, easy to use, high-performance solutions.

For engineers who are involved in test and measurement, the 65th ARFTG conference being held at the Renaissance Hotel on Friday, June 17 will offer a wealth of information via technical presentations, an interactive forum, and an exhibition. Besides generating the required information, these sessions also enable engineers to interact with their counterparts in the automated RF and microwave test community. This year's ARFTG conference theme is “Measurements for Millimeter-Wave Applications” with papers focusing on measurements for point-to-point communications, line-of-sight systems, automotive radar, differential measurements, traceability to national standards laboratories, models for measurement verification, vector network analysis, large-signal network analysis, power, and noise including on-wafer measurements.

The 65^th ARFTG is also co-sponsoring two workshops: “On-Wafer Microwave Measurement: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions” and “High-Frequency Digital Backplane Interconnect Characterization and Design.”

For information, visit www.ims2005.org.

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