The new Amplifier Research A Series amplifiers are at least half the size of previous models >Story

Spectrum Control Receives $2 Million in Orders

Spectrum Control, Inc. of Fairview, Pennsylvania, a leading designer and manufacturer of custom electronic products and systems, says that it has received $2 million in orders for microwave and EMI products used in Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices (RCIED) jammer systems. In accordance with the customer order requirements, product deliveries are expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2009.

Dick Southworth, Spectrum Control's president and CEO, said, "These orders demonstrate our recognition in the marketplace for designing and manufacturing complex products, utilizing vertical manufacturing capabilities and flexible factories for short production cycles. We are very proud of our ongoing support of these RCIED Jammers, as these systems are used worldwide to help protect our men and women in the military."

Emrise Announces Military SATCOM Deal

Emrise Corp. of Eatontown, North Carolina has received a contract to deliver its radio frequency switching technology to support the U.S. military's satellite communications operations.

Emrise says its Advanced Control Components Inc. subsidiary has been awarded a follow-on $1.1 million production order from an undisclosed communication systems integrator.

Under the deal ACC will support the U.S. military's satellite communications ground stations with the delivery of its RF switching subsystem technologies.

"This contract win is yet another for high-value, RF subsystems secured by ACC over the last few years," said Carmine Oliva, Emrise chairman and CEO.

"Being selected for these programs has been due in large part to the efforts of ACC's highly skilled engineering organization."

RFI Corporation Opens West Coast Office

RFI Corp. of Bay Shore, New York has opened a West Coast Technical Development and Support Center to cover its increasing business base in California, Oregon, Washington and adjacent states.

The satellite office will be staffed by product development engineers and support personnel to provide a higher level of service to the region's customers. High voltage magnetics system design and pulse power research and development will be performed out of both the Bay Shore, New York and the Santa Cruz, California locations. Production expansion is planned for the West Coast Support Center in the future.

"Over the course of the last year, RFI has experienced significant growth in the region and we have identified a need to expand operations to support this increasing customer and business base," said V.P and G.M. of RFI, Roy Torzullo. "The newly created support center will establish a regional base for customer support, technical product development and sales functions to provide a higher level of service to all customers on the west coast."

CMD Names New Board Chairman

Ross

California Micro Devices of Milpitas, California reports that Dr. Edward C. Ross has been elected chairman of its board of directors, succeeding Wade F. Meyercord, who had served as chairman since 1994. Ross has served on the CMD Board since June 2002 and has been a member of its compensation and nominating and corporate governance committees for several years.

Ross served as president and president emeritus of TSMC North America, the multi-billion dollar U.S. subsidiary of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., a Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer. Previously, he held senior management positions with Synopsys, Inc. and Cirrus Logic, Inc. He was also CEO and subsequently chairman of Power Integrations, Inc. Ross has been a director of Volterra Semiconductor, Inc., since May 2004, and Atmel Corporation since April 2008. He holds a B.S.E.E. from Drexel University and a M.S.E.E., M.A., and Ph.D. in solid state electronics from Princeton University.

IEEE Selects Moshe Kam 2010 President-Elect

Kam

Moshe Kam, department head and Robert Quinn Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been voted as 2010 IEEE president-elect. Pending acceptance of the Teller's Committee report by the IEEE Board of Directors, Kam will begin serving as IEEE president on January 1, 2011. He will succeed 2010 IEEE President Pedro Ray, president, Ray Engineers, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The other candidates for 2010 IEEE President-Elect were J. Roberto Boisson de Marca, professor, Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Joseph V. Lillie, AT&T (retired) Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. All of the candidates were nominated by the IEEE board.

Of the members who voted, 15,690 selected Kam, 14,903 selected Lillie, and 12,704 selected de Marca.

Gallagher Becomes 14th NIST Director

Gallagher

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Dr. Patrick D. Gallagher by unanimous consent as the 14th director of the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Gallagher has worked at NIST since 1993 as a scientist and as a laboratory director. He has carried out the functions of the director in his current position as deputy director since September 2008. Gallagher, 46, was nominated to his new post on September 10.

He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh. and B.A. in physics and philosophy from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. A native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Gallagher lives with his wife and three sons in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Harris Corp. Technology Used During G-20 Summit

Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida, an international communications and information technology company, reports its VIDA® network and OpenSky® technology were used successfully as the communications backbone for the recent G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's STARNet system allowed federal agencies, state and local police — along with Allegheny County, the city of Pittsburgh and emergency medical personnel — to work together, using a single communications tool.

Charlie Brennan, deputy secretary for the Pennsylvania Office of Public Safety Radio Services, said: "The G-20 Summit was the kind of event where the PA-STARNet system provided the critical ability for federal, state and local officials to communicate in order to maintain public safety. PA-STARNet is a robust statewide network and our G-20 experience demonstrated the system's tremendous capability."

The PA-STARNet system processed more than 100,000 calls during the Summit.

Chinese Scientists Create Artificial Black Hole

Researchers for the first time have created an artificial electromagnetic black hole based on theories published earlier this year. The device created by two Chinese scientists works at microwave frequencies and has the ability to suck in surrounding light.

Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana proposed their plans for a table-top black hole to trap light in a 2009 paper. Their theoretical design included mimicking the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Scientists Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, recently used Narimanov and Kildishev's theories and transformed them into reality. They built a black hole for microwave frequencies.

The device consists of 60 layers of circuit board arranged in concentric rings. The layers are coated in copper and etched with intricate patterns that interact with light waves at microwave frequency. According to published reports scientists have used these meta-materials and strips in the past to make invisibility cloaks.

Researchers hope that this novel device will soon graduate to actually trapping visible light, shedding light on an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

Editors Note: In the middle 60's QST magazine published an April Fool's article about a power sucker. Guess it wasn't as far off as we thought then.

World's First 3G CMOS RF Power Amplifier

Black Sand Technologies, Inc. of Austin, Texas has produced the world's first 3G CMOS RF Power Amplifier (PA). Black Sand's proprietary CMOS PA architecture offers a breakthrough in combined performance, cost, battery life, and reliability for mobile devices such as mobile phones and datacards.

Mobile phones and wireless products today use power amplifiers based on Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor technology. Replacing GaAs with CMOS silicon technology improves manufacturing yield, performance, cost, battery life and call quality.

Over time CMOS has replaced GaAs technology in many other applications, from audio chips to DVD decoders. However, CMOS does not lend itself easily to use in power amplifiers, so a revolutionary architecture was required.

"By leveraging our breakthrough PA architecture, Black Sand, as the first company to deliver 3G PAs in CMOS, is ready to capitalize on the historic shift from GaAs to CMOS, and benefit from the explosion in demand for new 3G devices appearing on the market today," said John Diehl, CEO of Black Sand Technologies.

Agilent Wins Mousetrap Award for Best Product

Agilent Technologies Inc. of Santa Clara, California reports that its U2700A series USB modular instruments family has won Design News' 2009 Golden Mousetrap Award for best products.

Design News has recognized engineering innovation and creativity in product design for more than two decades. This year, Golden Mousetrap Awards were given in four major categories: electronics, motion control/automation, hardware/software, materials/fastening/joining/assembly and 20 subcategories. Design News editors selected the 23 winners using their expertise in each technology area to determine the best of. Agilent was one of two winners in the test and measurement sub-category for electronics.

The U2700A family includes oscilloscopes, a function generator, a digital multimeter, a source measure unit and a switch matrix. Launched over the past 12 months, the U2700A series boasts portability, flexibility with stand-alone or modular capability, simple set-up, and ease of use.

Bone Conduction Microphone Bypasses EM Risks

Nippon MMI Technology Inc. has developed a bone conduction microphone that does not emit electromagnetic waves, eliminating concerns over their effects on the body.

The Nikkei reports that the microphone converts vibrations into electrical signals and presents the difficulty that if the vibrations are not picked up well, the speaker's voice characteristics are lost when the sound is reproduced.

Nippon MMI overcame this by making a detailed analysis of frequency characteristics in the human voice and regulating the frequency of vibrations using an amplifier. The new product uses piezoelectric ceramics, rather than coils and magnets, to convert bone vibrations into electrical signals when a person speaks.

The microphone was to be released as early as September, likely as part of earphones incorporating the company's bone conduction speakers. The earphones will cost ¥2,500, around the same as models that use coils and magnets. Nippon MMI expects sales of 50,000 units this fiscal year and foresees demand from call centers.

Nissan's Plug-Free Electric Car

Nissan has developed a plug-free technology that will make charging electric cars easier and faster, reports guardian.co.uk. The wireless charging system is based on the concept of inductive charging, the same electromagnetic field technology used to charge an electric toothbrush. Nissan has scaled it up for use in their zero emission vehicle, which can charge in a compatible parking bay without the need for wires. Today's electric car owners, by contrast, have to carry a mains plug aboard to recharge.

Nissan hopes to scale the technology up even further as a series of plates laid into the surface of designated electric vehicle lanes on roads and motorways, theoretically enabling motorists to charge as they drive.

The company's consumer research revealed that 61% of potential electric car customers were most worried about the inconvenience of recharging. As well as inductive charging, its technological solutions include developing fast-charging facilities, which they hope to see in place in shopping car parks and motorway service stations.

Tektronix Acquires Part of Sypris Solutions, Inc.

Tektronix, Inc. of Beaverton, Oregon, a leading supplier of test, measurement, and monitoring products and solutions, completed the acquisition of the Test & Measurement business from Sypris Solutions, Inc. for $39.0 million.

Sypris Test & Measurement, Inc. is a leading provider of calibration services, testing and component sourcing services, and specialty products. The company serves customers in a variety of markets, including military, aerospace, avionics, telecommunications, automotive, semiconductor, medical and more.

Expanding multiple vendor service offerings to support customers through the entire product life cycle is a key strategic initiative for Tektronix. Sypris Test & Measurement brings a strong U.S. footprint of locations to provide rapid turn-around to customers across a wide range of parameters through on-site, mobile, or service offerings to current and future Tektronix customers.

TÜV Launches New Solar Thermal Services

TÜV Rheinland PTL, LLC, North America's largest + photovoltaic testing center, unveiled its Solar Thermal and Combined Heating Power (CHP) Systems services, including domestic and international testing and certification, at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.

The Solar Thermal Service includes inspection and quality assurance for the manufacture, fabrication, installation and in-service examination of solar thermal collectors and associated subsystems. TÜV Rheinland PTL can test and certify systems slated to be sold in the European Union or North American markets.

Testing services using the latest in innovative solar testing technologies assures Solar Thermal, PV, CPC, Sterling and CSP Systems comply with electrical, mechanical and environmental requirements. To help companies achieve available incentives and subsidies, TÜV Rheinland PTL also provides third-party verification of long-band, short-term performance data.