Q: Given the current economic crisis affecting the U.S. – which will certainly have international repercussions – how do you think the markets you serve may be impacted? How do you and your company plan to address this?

A: There are business applications that I think will still do well, such as new niche offerings that can quickly offer significant new value and provide solid growth and returns in the near term. I don’t think companies are going to take on any new large-scale opportunities, so as I said, I think niche applications that can be highly leveraged is the place to be in the near term. At M/A-COM Technology Solutions, or M/A-COM Tech, we’re responding to the market’s growing need for those high-end, niche applications.

Concerning our own investments, whether it be R&D dollars or human capital, for example, we will be focused more on those new niche applications. The other area on which we will focus our business, and where we will invest, is in our primary customer base. We deal with global leaders and they will survive. While there may be some rocky roads ahead, we aren’t going to take the pedal off the metal for them.

Q: At the last MTT-S show, “LTE” was added to “WiMAX” as the killer app for 2009. Would you agree with this, or do you have something else in mind?

A: To enable both LTE and WiMAX, companies will be looking for ways to turn their investments into revenues quickly. WiMAX is clearly first to market for the OFDM technologies, while LTE systems will not be rolled out in earnest for another 12 months or so. Looking into 2009, one strategy may be to turn on network segments or possibly Femtocells. LTE is long-term evolution; it’s not a revolution. So there will be some technology plays that are going to be tested. And the ones that work the best are going to get a lot of play.

As data rates increase and linearity becomes increasingly important, technologies that lead toward better power efficiency will be getting more and more attention, and therefore investment. I think there will be a lot of focus on how the RF & Microwave industry can lead to improved conservation and more efficient energy solutions. That may not be a killer app that comes up today, or even tomorrow, but I think these conditions will affect what kind of decisions will be made in the types of programs that people go after. They aren’t going to go down a technology path that is a power hog.

Q: What do you feel are the greatest opportunities for manufacturers in either the commercial or military markets?

A: The government market is a good area for us. While you are going to see governments have to reduce overall spending, specifically they will be looking for ways to get more efficient. Wireless, we know, provides the way to get instantaneous connectivity without a lot of costly hardware infrastructure. I expect government to aggressively use innovative RF technology applications to realize new efficiencies.

On the commercial side, the greatest opportunities may be in niche applications. If someone comes up with an idea, particularly if it doesn’t require billions of dollars to roll out the solution set, the industry will want to jump on it as soon as possible and roll it out fast. So you have to be quick to market with your designs and even quicker to market with production.

Q: Which of the past year’s developments or emerging technologies has you most excited?

A: While they are not exactly emerging technologies, the developments of CMOS & Bi-CMOS technologies continue to march up the frequency curve. What’s exciting about that is there will be more convergence with RF technology and digital technology. Having a high-frequency silicon based process offers tremendous opportunities in how you can bring together analog and digital technology. These mixed signal solutions can enable a new generation of System–on-a-Chip (SoC) and System–in-a-Package (SIP) products that will be applied to a much wider range of applications than they currently address. They will have to have appropriate volumes to warrant the expense it will take to bring these products to market, but this has the potential to have a profound effect on the microwave industry. The ultimate System–on-a-Chip (SoC) is an antenna going onto a microwave or millimeter wave A-to-D chip and we’re just not there yet, but the speeds that you see happening in that area are very encouraging. Lower frequency digital receivers are very commonplace right now.

M/A-COM Tech is an analog based company, but we’re making strides in digital world. Two of the more promising products that we’re designing right now combine our analog and digital expertise. This is an example of how companies can innovate by leveraging existing technologies into new application sets. One of these is patent protected, which in itself speaks to the unique quality that innovation can bring to market. We also have a lot of experience in SiGe design, so expanding into CMOS and Bi-CMOS are logical extensions to our SiGe experience. At M/A-COM Tech we are aggressively looking at how these technologies could lead us to develop new, useful applications in the future.

Q: How would you rate the health of the microwave industry as we near the end of the decade?

A: It’s very healthy; healthier than it’s been in any other decade. RF and microwave technologies are a logical choice for wireless connectivity versus say, optical technologies or any other mechanism. Three decades ago the most prevalent applications were primarily in government applications, but in that short time wireless has become a pervasive technology across commercial markets and it will continue to grow.

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