December 2012
VIEW FROM THE TOP

Sherry Hess
Vice President of Marketing, AWR Corporation

Q: The importance of sustaining and developing technology has reached a point where states and cities are more actively building relationships with universities and recruiting high-tech companies. Good examples are New York State’s “East Coast Silicon Valley” and several cities in Ohio. However, there continues to be a shortage of engineering graduates, especially those focusing on RF and microwave technology. What would your company do (or is doing) to help promote careers in microwave engineering?

A: The rapid advancement of wireless technology has really brought to the forefront the need for good engineers, especially in the microwave arena. Engineering students need to be able to hit the ground running when they graduate as competition in the wireless industry is far too fierce to allow for much time (if any) for on the job training as it pertains to EDA software. AWR recognizes the value of helping engineering university professors and students become familiar with the latest innovations in high frequency circuit design and get hands on experience using our software so they can be productive faster. We work with universities worldwide (many as a result of dialogues with future employers) to provide affordable licenses of our software and maintain an active University Program web portal. The AWR Graduate Gift Initiative gives graduating engineering students a career head start by providing complementary full one-year licenses of our software for on-going exposure and experience using AWR’s high-frequency design software. We have also, for the past three years, sponsored the IMS Student Design Contest, which encourages students to design real-world products and rewards them by providing fully functional, one-year licenses of our software to the winners. Our merger with National Instruments has enabled us to take advantage of NI’s best practices in the world of academics as well. We are particularly proud of a recently announced joint effort between NI and AWR at Texas Tech University where the university has used our Visual System Simulator™ system tool combined with NI’s LabVIEW for a lung cancer therapy application.

Q: For those of you serving the military market, what do you expect 2013 will bring in terms of opportunities in this sector?

A: Depending upon election results (these answers were supplied prior to November 6th), military spending/cuts will vary. But regardless, we are optimistic that the RF and microwave sector, which provides vital products for the safety and well-being of this country in terms of electronic warfare, cyberspace, and public safety, will continue to have broad support in the political spectrum. Microwave systems rely on software design tools, from high-frequency tools such as AWR’s Microwave Office™ to system-level analysis tools such as Visual System Simulator, that allow designers of military communications systems and radar systems to create subsystem architectures and optimize for best performance.

Q: If your company serves the commercial markets, are you encouraged by any particular emerging application or technology?

A: Looking back at VFTT responses in 2011, LTE and Internet everything as well as gallium nitride (GaN) were topics mentioned. With the proliferation of wireless devices as well as the adoption of GaN, these technologies will continue to be strong drivers in the commercial space. But perhaps more generally, the always daunting mantra of “smaller, lighter, faster, more power-efficient” (aka Green) products will continue to drive interdependencies across domains in order to bring next-generation technologies and products to market. For example, the design of high-performing, broadband, high-power RF amplifiers is requiring co-simulation of circuit, thermal, and system simulation. These previously disparate analyses are today being pulled into a cross-functional design approach. AWR’s software portfolio excels in achieving this level of synergy as witnessed by our AWR Connected™ program, which offers cross-functional design environments like electrical-thermal to name just one.

Q: Last year, we asked what impact the global economic crisis was having on the markets you serve and on how you run your business. What is your current perspective?

A: Stable but cautious is a catch phrase I’ve embraced recently. AWR’s long standing philosophy of focusing on our core expertise in microwave/RF design in the form of providing software solutions that are not only powerful but easy to use, keeps us growing even during times of global economic crisis. As we are able to demonstrate year after year and release after release, our software products help microwave/RF microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC), RF printed circuit board (PCB), module, and communications systems designers design and deliver high quality, cost effective products to market in a short design cycle time so that they remain relevant and competitive in the end markets they serve, both commercial and military.

Q: What countries or regions do you believe will provide the greatest growth potential for the wireless industry in 2013?

A: The Asia Pacific region has high growth potential not only for AWR in 2013 but our industry in general. In particular China and South Korea are actively involved in accelerating the wireless industry growth. We are all well aware of this region/countries’ dramatic play in our market and to that end, AWR’s merger with NI puts us in a good position to better access and serve this growing market and customer base in Asia. ♦