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Electronically-scanned phased array radar system. See story below.

RFMD and SELEX Galileo Expand Collaboration

SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica Company of Edinburgh, U.K. and a world-leading defense electronics manufacturer, and RFMD, Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance radio frequency components and compound semiconductor technologies are developing a high frequency GaAs MMIC radar focused on SELEX Galileo's next generation of electronically-scanned phased array radar systems. The two companies have collaborated in GaAs MMICs since May 2008.

In a related announcement, RFMD has commenced production shipments to SELEX Galileo of GaAs MMIC chipsets for insertion into SELEX Galileo's surveillance and fire control radar systems. RFMD manufactures its high frequency GaAs MMIC process for SELEX Galileo on six-inch substrates at RFMD's high-volume GaAs wafer fab in Durham, U.K.

Henry Ott's Book Earns Award for Publisher

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has won the 2009 Publishers Association Award for Engineering and Technology for Excellence in Publishing for Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering by Henry Ott.

Microsoft and IEEE Join Forces

Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Washington and the IEEE report a collaboration to empower students to reach their professional aspirations. The goal of the collaboration is to increase the number of students engaged in technical pursuits with the long-term benefit of strengthening business and society through the use of technology.

IEEE is the world's largest professional association with more than 395,000 members in 160 countries. Its aim is to advance innovation and technological excellence for the betterment of the global community. The collaboration will equip IEEE members with access to Microsoft student programs and technology and expose the benefits of IEEE membership more broadly to science, technology and engineering students who are currently using Microsoft software and solutions.

Areas of focus will include competitions, access to Microsoft software, local engagement, internships and continuing education.

Approach Could Produce Multifunction Nanodevices

Chang-Beom_Eom

A team led by Chang-Beom Eom, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a new approach for creating powerful nanodevices. The team includes UW-Madison graduate students and research associates as well as collaborators from Penn State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley.

Particular metal-oxide materials (including some ferrites) have a unique magneto-electric property that allows the material to switch its magnetic field when its polarization is switched by an electric field and vice versa.

Eom and his team have developed a road map to help researchers couple a material's electric and magnetic mechanisms. As they run a current through a magneto-electric device, electric signals follow the electric field like a path. The signals' ultimate destination could be a memory bank operated by a magnetic field. When the researchers switch the electric field, the signals encounter a fork in the path. Though both prongs of the fork head in a similar direction, one path is the correct one and will prompt the magnetic field to switch. This will allow the information carried by the signals to be stored in the bank. If the signals take the incorrect path, the magnetic state won't switch, the bank remains inaccessible, and the information is lost as soon as the electric field turns off.

In addition to determining the proper path for the electric signals, the team developed a matrix that ensures the cross-coupling effect is stable to allow long-term data storage. "This work will allow us to make nonvolatile magneto-electric devices at the nanoscale, meaning we can store the information even after the power is turned off," says Eom.

Editor's Note: How much field does it take and will the nano device respond to Radio Moscow?

Adrian Dillon to Leave Agilent

Dillon

Agilent Technologies Inc. reports that Adrian T. Dillon will resign his position as executive V.P., finance and administration, and CFO, effective April 1. Dillon will become chief financial and administration officer at Skype, based in Luxembourg. Skype is a provider of software that enables voice and video calls.

Didier Hirsch, Agilent's V.P., corporate controllership and tax, will be appointed acting CFO, effective April 1. He is currently responsible for Agilent's accounting and reporting functions, tax, credit and collections, vendor payments, etc.

"Adrian's leadership has played a key role in transforming Agilent into a company known not only for the world's best measurement technology, but also for its superb financial operating model and rigorous financial discipline," said Bill Sullivan, Agilent president and CEO. "Moving forward with Didier as interim CFO, we are assigning a proven veteran performer to this key position while we complete our search for Adrian's replacement."

Rainear Becomes Regional Manager at AR

Rainear

AR RF/Microwave Instrumentation of Souderton, Pennsylvania, has appointed Timothy J. Rainear to the post of regional manager, North America.

Rainear comes to AR with over 20 years of experience in the sales and marketing of technology solutions. Most recently he was consulting as the V.P. of business development at an early stage start-up company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His extensive technical background enabled him to investigate and penetrate several key commercial markets for this DARPA-backed, analog signal processing company. Rainear successfully engaged with key decision-makers in such diverse industries as medical ultrasound, base station power amplifier linearization and CMOS and CCD image sensors. He also positioned the company for a significant licensing agreement with a major military prime contractor.

Prior to his work at this stealth-mode start-up, Rainear was director of sales for northeastern U.S. and Canada for Mathstar Inc, a high performance reprogrammable logic company, and director-level sales roles for TriQuint Semiconductor (RF and optoelectronics components) and LightSpeed Semiconductor (structured ASIC start-up).

Panasonic Technology Part of IEEE P1901 Draft 2.0

Panasonic Corp. and Panasonic System Networks Co., Ltd., both of Japan, report that a wavelet-based broadband-over-powerline (BPL) technology jointly proposed by the two companies has been accepted as part of Draft 2.0 by the IEEE P1901 working group. The technology had been approved as a baseline in December 2008 by the WG. It was proposed jointly by the two companies and Consumer Electronics Powerline Communication Alliance (CEPCA). These approvals by the IEEE have brought Panasonic's BPL technology closer to becoming a worldwide standard.

Panasonic's proprietary Wavelet OFDM technology is used in products that conform to the HD-PLC's broadband-over-powerline specification. This enables highly efficient data transmission, achieving environmentally-friendly, low energy consumption.

Panasonic and Panasonic System Networks expect this technology to become a global standard for high-speed powerline communications and lead to a significant contribution to the development of environmentally responsible IT technologies such as smart grids.

EMS Technologies Wins Antenna Contract

EMS Technologies, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia reports that L-3 Communications Systems — West has named EMS its antenna supplier for the U.S. Navy CDL Hawklink program.

The EMS Ku-band Common Data Link (CDL) antenna system for the MH-60R is suitable for a variety of platforms, providing extended range, high data rates and high reliability. The AN/ARQ-59 System, which includes EMS's antenna, will increase the Hawklink's current data rates for the Navy MH-60R to 22mb/s at over 100 nautical miles, supporting a range of surveillance, warfare and recovery missions. The system is designed for airborne platforms and features a slot-array antenna using light-weight composites.

The initial production contract, awarded to EMS's Defense and Space Division, is valued at more than $6.3 million. Initial antenna deliveries are set to begin in the third quarter of 2010.

The EMS antenna award follows the U.S. Navy Air Systems Command's selection of L-3 Communications Systems — West last year for full-rate production.

Micronetics Receives an Order Valued at $2M

Micronetics, Inc. of Hudson, New Hampshire has been awarded a contract valued at about $2 million from a leading defense contractor for high performance microwave isolators. These will be used in a radar system designed to help protect naval ships worldwide.

Deliveries on this contract will commence in Q1 FY2011 and continue for 18 months.

David Robbins, CEO of Micronetics, says, "This program is part of a larger readiness and cost containment initiative that has been put in place by the Navy. The goal is to reduce the cost of ownership on key naval defense and security systems by upgrading and extending service life, while at the same time, keeping the existing legacy systems operationally ready and equipped with the most advanced microwave component technologies available."

Micronetics manufactures microwave and RF components and integrated subassemblies used in a variety of defense, aerospace and commercial applications. It also manufactures and designs equipment and components that test the strength, durability and integrity of communication signals in communications equipment.

Comtech Receives $20.6M Order

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. of Melville, New York says that its Maryland-based subsidiary, Comtech Mobile Datacom Corp., received a $20.6 million order under its existing $243.5 million BFT contract with the U.S. Army Communications Electronics Command.

The order is for support of the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below — Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2-BFT) program, a U.S. Army battle command real-time situational awareness and control system, and allows Comtech to continue to provide support of all existing deployed BFT satellite channels for six months. Also one new channel will be added for a nine-month period. The order also supports testing of a new version of BFT software, Version 6.5, that would enable current BFT users to operate at higher data rates.

Fred Kornberg, president and CEO of Comtech Telecommunications Corp., said, "We believe this order demonstrates the value to the Army of the more than 100,000 deployed first generation Comtech-designed BFT satellite transceivers."

Black Sand

Black Sand Technologies, Inc. of Austin, Texas, a specialist in advanced power amplifier technology for wireless applications, has acquired a patent portfolio related to CMOS power amplifiers (PAs) from Silicon Laboratories, also of Austin.

The lab sent a number of issued and pending patents to Black Sand. The U.S. and international patents include claims and methods related to power amplifier architectures and implementations that can be used in CMOS.

Black Sand's RF PA products are targeted at mobile phones and other 3G wireless devices, such as datacards and netbooks. Mobile phones and wireless products today use power amplifiers based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor technology. Replacing GaAs with CMOS improves manufacturing yield, performance, cost, battery life, and call quality.

Test TETRA Data from EADS

EADS Defense & Security of the Netherlands have joined forces with State Security Networks Ltd., operator of the Finnish VIRVE network, to start testing the TETRA Enhanced Data Service (TEDS) in May. The work will be conducted on a test network with the same characteristics as the live VIRVE authority network, apart from the TEDS-capable software.

TEDS is the high-speed data evolution of the TETRA radio communication standard. A TEDS-capable TETRA network will provide significantly faster data services than today's TETRA networks without compromising any of the technology's high security or coverage capabilities. TEDS is the most cost-effective way to introduce wide area high-speed capability for TETRA users.

EADS Defense & Security was the first vendor to demonstrate TEDS in June 2007 and has continued to develop the software in order to run the system on existing EADS TETRA hardware as well as developing TEDS-capable TETRA radios. System elements and trial terminals for the VIRVE test network will be delivered by May 2010.

ETS-Lindgren Optimizes MRI Services at N.Y. Hospital

ETS-Lindgren of Cedar Park, Texas successfully completed installation of its Magnetic Active Compensation System (MACS™ ) at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. The MACS provides a maintenance-free, dynamic method for shielding MRI systems from low frequency environmental AC/DC magnetic interferences.

At Beth Israel Medical Center, the interference to their MRI system was due to subways located under the hospital site. This adversely affected the quality of the images produced in the MRI suite and limited the doctors' ability to accurately diagnose patients.

ETS-Lindgren's MACS product line results in a site environment that allows full use of all the functions available on an MRI system. In a big-city environment, there are many potential sources of interference that may cause an adverse effect on an MRI system, such as the subways near the Beth Israel Medical Center, or transformers, elevators and moving vehicles. The MACS protects the system from these sources of interference.

Simulator Supports Magnet for Cancer Treatment

The Opera electromagnetic simulator has played an important role in the design of the particle beam steering magnet currently being commissioned at Italy's new hadron therapy center in Milan — the Centro Nazionale di Adroterapia Oncologica (CNAO).

Weighing in at 70 tons, the 1.81 Tesla dipole magnet is believed to be the largest ever produced for medical applications, and is positioned at the end of a particle acceleration line. It turns the particle beam through 90 degrees to direct it down onto a patient treatment table.

The magnet was produced by Sigmaphi, a company specializing in custom magnetic systems and beam transport lines for particle accelerators. The CNAO specification called for a very large magnetic field region of 20 x 20cm, combined with exceptional field homogeneity.

Since post-design modifications would have had a dramatic effect on construction time and costs, Sigmaphi made extensive use of simulation using the Opera finite element analysis tool from Cobham Technical Services.

The speed of simulation was aided by Opera's ability to use Biot-Savart calculations for computing coil fields, greatly reducing the need for complex finite element meshing of the model — with its impact on computation time. The simulation helped to optimize the size and shape of field clamps on the magnet that are used to improve field homogeneity, and similar modifications to an iron collar that help enhance the fidelity of beam steering.

Solar EnerTech Receives UL Certification

Solar EnerTech Corp. of Mountain View, California has received its Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) certification for its crystalline power modules.

Underwriters Laboratories is a global leader in energy product testing and certification. The focus of the UL standards is in providing requirements for materials, construction and the evaluation of the potential electrical shock and fire safety hazards. The market access requirements for photovoltaic equipment are segmented in two main areas — safety and performance — that are integral to each other in the overall construction. UL's ability to combine technical and regulatory expertise enables manufacturers like Solar EnerTech to complete the certification process in a predictable and effective manner.

UL certification ensures that Solar EnerTech's PV products such as solar cells and solar cell assembly, polymeric materials, junction boxes, connectors and connecting cables will fully comply with all safety, environmental and other performance requirements established by UL.

Harris Receives $78 Million HF Radio Order

Harris Corp. of Rochester, New York, has received an order valued at $78 million to provide additional Falcon II® AN/VRC-104 high-frequency tactical radio systems for use in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicles (M-ATVs). This order was placed by the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command on behalf of the DoD's Joint MRAP program.

"Harris continues to provide the most reliable and secure beyond line-of-sight radio technology to this critically important program," said Steve Marschilok, president, Department of Defense business, Harris RF Communications. "Our radios deliver life-saving communication capabilities in the most dangerous of missions for all types of MRAP vehicles."

The AN/VRC-104 is a vehicular transceiver/amplifier that includes the AN/PRC-150(C), a Type-1 high-frequency manpack radio. Harris HF radios are in widespread use by all branches of the U.S. DoD and allies around the world.