Q: Last year, we asked what kind of impact the worldwide economic crisis had on the markets you serve and on how you run your business under these conditions. One year later, what is your perspective?

A: As we rapidly approach our 20-year anniversary in the microwave industry, we have successfully survived a number of economic crises. We continue to build our customer base in both the military and commercial arenas. In any economy (good or bad) it is important to strive to diligently respond to customers’ specific needs. We will also continue to use our resources to improve our in-house capabilities as we develop innovative products to support existing and emerging technologies.

Q: Do you think that spending for RF and microwave products will increase or decrease in the 2010 military budget?

A: We believe that spending for RF and microwave products will be at the same level as 2009. There have been some discussions which indicate there will be significant shifts in spending. Programs, which were previously in the R&D budgets, slated for preproduction and production this year are being pushed out, or shelved. However there are also many active programs both in R&D and production of existing systems.

Q: There’s a serious shortage of RF engineers out there – what’s the solution? Is your company involved in any programs that might promote or encourage talented engineering students to concentrate on a career in the microwave industry?

A: We maintain a good relationship with a local university that has an excellent microwave engineering program. We are actively involved with the university and hire engineering interns while they pursue technical degrees. We have also been involved with the community by participating in career fairs and giving talks to high school and junior high school students.

Q: WiMAX networks are being deployed now and LTE networks are a year or so behind. Do you expect to see (or are you already seeing) a positive impact on hardware orders for products based on either of these technologies?

A: According to published literature WiMAX is presently beginning deployment. However, due to the current economy the WiMAX production numbers have diminished somewhat from their previous predictions. In our opinion, because of the economy and relatively high unemployment, the development of LTE networks in the United States will slow down.
Our lineup of miniature, low cost, surface-mount frequency synthesizers and phase-locked references can be custom-designed for point-to-multipoint / microwave links, modems, basestations and other backhaul / network applications. This will allow us to support the evolution of WiMAX and LTE now and in the future.

Q: What do you feel is the greatest opportunity for manufacturers in either the commercial or military sectors?

A: As I mentioned last year, achieving wider bandwidths with better specifications in smaller and less expensive packages continues to be very important for all microwave component companies. We continually push our existing and next generation of products for both commercial and military markets higher in frequency and smaller packages. For instance, we now offer our SLX and LX series SMT synthesizers with extremely low power requirements of 3V at 20 mA. Also, we now offer our LX Series with an optional internal reference and our PN Series SMT synthesizer up to 10 GHz with >30% bandwidths. We look forward to providing highly-sophisticated products that are smaller and continue to meet the stringent environmental requirements of hi-rel products. ♦

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