VFTT – TRM Microwave
by Shaun Moore, Chief Technology Officer / Applications Engineer, TRM Microwave
MPD: How is your company addressing the many constraints that the pandemic has placed on business operations?
SM:
TRM Microwave supplies critical components to the defense and aerospace industries and therefore has a unique and special responsibility to remain active during the current pandemic.
The industries we serve are a part of the Defense Industrial Base, which has been identified as a Critical Infrastructure Sector by the Department of Homeland Security. TRM takes the utmost pride in this responsibility and we remain open so we can maintain regular production of high-quality components to be delivered on time to our customers. TRM remains diligent in taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our employees and customers is our highest priority.
“We are dedicated to our passion for completing our customer’s ideas by providing custom solutions to their complex demands and challenges,” Owner/CEO Wendy Tirollo said. “This ability allows us to further advance our customer’s goals and enables us to continue to grow and thrive in any cultural or economic situation.”
MPD: The adoption of open architectures is accelerating in many markets, from wireless to defense. Do you feel your company and the RF and microwave industry as a whole benefit from this initiative?
SM:
Open architectures are typically designed using a modular approach. This allows the system to be quickly changed to meet new requirements as they arise without completely starting over. Fortunately, TRM Microwave products are often used as system interconnecting devices, and as signal distribution systems between major system modules. Because of this, TRM Microwave continues to see good demand for our passive microwave products as minor upgrades to existing systems. Often, this includes changes to the overall signal distribution needs.
MPD: Technologies such as direct RF sampling are reducing the number of analog components in receivers and, increasingly, transmitters as well. Do you feel that the “digitalization of RF” will have an impact on your business?
SM:
Yes, it is impacting our business. As receivers and signal processing go digital, we are seeing less need for IF signal processing applications components. TRM Microwave recognized this trend years ago and increased our sales focus on other parts of the system. By acting early, TRM has been successful in growing our content on other portions of the system, and that has more than offset our loss of IF components.
We have an increased focus on applications and components located closer to the antenna, such as beamformers, high power combining networks, signal distribution networks found near the local oscillators, frequency converters that are just before the A/D converters, and larger-scale signal distribution networks.
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