by Mike Jones, Systems Application Manager, Analog Devices Inc.
Analog Devices (www.analog.com) is bringing its wit and wisdom to the 2022 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2022) in Denver, CO this June in the forms of many demonstrations and presentations. The RF/microwave industry is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and one of the signs should be a strong showing of attendees at this year’s IMS. It is scheduled for June 19-24, 2022, and Analog Devices hopes to make it memorable with many contributions of innovative product introductions and helpful, educational technical presentations.
Visitors to booth 3050 can certainly learn more about the many integrated circuits (ICs) that have long made Analog Devices a household name in the RF/microwave industry. Company representatives will welcome visitors to the booth and try to offer product solutions best suited to their needs and applications. They will explain how existing and new analog, digital, and mixed-signal ICs can tackle gigabit digital speeds and mmWave analog frequencies when trying to connect this modern world, whether for commercial, industrial, or military markets. With high functional densities, many of the ICs can help pack performance into smaller packages and meet the strictest product miniaturization goals.
IMS 2022 exhibition visitors willing to spend a little time with Analog Devices can learn about advanced IC solutions and how they benefit different applications. For those working on 5G mmWave projects, a compact radio unit shows them how to add four transmit and four receive channels at 28 GHz. Radar designers will be more intrigued by the mixed-signal technologies in an X-band system platform that integrates antenna beamforming ICs, frequency upconverters/downconverters, and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) for a complete antenna-to-digital-bits platform. Additional system-level solutions on display include frequency-agile, software-defined-radio (SDR) transceivers for mission-critical communications requiring bandwidths as wide as 40 MHz from 30 MHz to 6 GHz.
High-speed-circuit designers at the booth will be able to learn about high-speed wireless data interconnections for factory automation and robotics. Those working on satcom systems will discover a full signal-chain solution and even a reference design to get them started. Representations from Analog Devices will be on hand to discuss many new components, including high-power silicon-on-insulator SOI) switches, GaN amplifiers, and various frequency synthesizers and how they can be used with the highest power efficiency possible.
For high-frequency device specifiers and circuit designers in need of practical microwave vector network analysis (VNA), Analog Devices will demonstrate a compact modular VNA with eight test ports and upper frequency limit of 20 GHz. It works under the control of a personal computer (PC) armed with test software and a straightforward, custom graphical user interface (GUI), in a benchtop housing the fraction of the size of a traditional rack-mount microwave VNA. Despite the small size, the compact VNA measures scattering parameters (S-parameters) as well as magnitude and phase responses for high-frequency packaged ICs mounted in appropriate test fixtures, with high resolution and accuracy. To aid with higher-frequency measurements, visitors to the Analog Devices’ booth can receive details on a mmWave signal chain with instrument-grade error-vector-magnitude (EVM) performance for 5G and W-Fi testing past 50 GHz. It is based on the firm’s wideband front-end components and MxFE® RF sampling data converters to translate downconverted mmWave signals to precise digital code.
Don’t Miss a Thing!
While the exhibition booth promises to be active with product previews and presentations, Analog Devices will also be present in several 2022 IMS MicroApps sessions, workshops, and even a keynote presentation. MicroApps speakers include Product Applications Engineer Kudret Unal addressing enhancements in fractional-N frequency synthesizers with his talk on Tuesday, June 21 (11:15 AM): “Is it Difficult to Synchronize Fractional PLLs? Not Anymore!” Also, Product Applications Engineer Kieran Barrett delves into phase-locking voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) on Wednesday, June 22 (12:45 PM) in his “Fast Switching, High Performance PLL and Quadband VCO Frequency Synthesizer” and Kudret Unal returns on Thursday, June 23 (10:45 AM) to combat jitter in his MicroApp “Need Sub-10-fs RMS Jitter Signal Generation: Translation Loops.”
Workshops include VP of Aerospace and Defense, Bryan Goldstein, covering the basics of RF design in his “RF Boot Camp” on Monday, June 20, and Senior Director of Engineering, John Cowles, focusing on different-altitude satellites with his workshop, “Advances in SATCOM Phased-Arrays and Constellations for LEO, MEO, and GEO Systems,” also for Monday, June 20.
The keynote, “Calibrating RF/Microwave Front Ends in Multichannel Receiver and Transmitter Systems,” by Systems Application Manager Mike Jones, provides experimental results on the use of hard digital-signal-processing (DSP) blocks, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) integrated within a single IC and how such integration can simplify transmit/receive system layouts. By reducing the number of soft function blocks traditionally implemented by field-programmable gates arrays (FPGAs), system efficiency can be increased, and channel-to-channel amplitude and phase calibration simplified. This keynote is scheduled for Thursday morning, June 23, 2022, from 8:00 am to 8:20 am (Denver, CO time).
After years slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RF/microwave industry anticipates a healthy showing at the 2022 IEEE IMS. And for those in Denver this June, there may be no better way to start the show than with Analog Devices.
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