 Friday 21
Thursday 20
Wednesday 19
Tuesday 18
 As the old saying goes, "The more things change, the more things stay the same." Incredibly,
back in 1931 people were complaining about
shrinking office cubicle sizes. To wit: "At
'Broadcasting House' rooms measuring 8ft. x 6ft. are being coveted by the many people
who will be condemned to labour in cubicles 7ft. x 5ft. The Civil Engineer himself, who
helped to design and erect the building, works in a compartment in which, as the American
said, 'You couldn't cuss a cat without getting hair on your teeth.'" ...and whoa!,
dig this statement
by the author regarding the demise of "local oscillators" in the UK (a reference to
unauthorized broadcasts?): "Steps might be taken to ensure the survival of a few specimens, perhaps
by the founding of a national reservation similar to those which accommodate the Red
Indians in America. The few remaining squealers and their ..."
 PCB Directory is the largest directory of Printed
Circuit Board (PCB) Manufacturers, Assembly houses, and Design Services on the Internet.
We have listed the leading printed circuit board manufacturers around the world and made
them searchable by their capabilities - Number of laminates used, Board thicknesses supported,
Number of layers supported, Types of substrates (e.g., material, flexible, rigid), Geographical
location, and more ...
 "Billions of tiny transistors supply the processing
power in modern smartphones, controlling the flow of electrons with rapid on-and-off
switching. But continual progress in packing more
transistors into smaller devices is pushing toward the physical limits
of conventional materials. Common inefficiencies in transistor materials cause energy
loss that results in heat buildup and shorter battery life, so researchers are in hot
pursuit of alternative materials that allow devices to operate more efficiently at lower
power. Now, an experiment conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory has demonstrated, for the first time, electronic switching in an
exotic, ultrathin material that can carry a charge with nearly zero loss at room temperature ..."
Monday 17
 Yesterday was the 71st anniversary of the announcement
of the transistor's invention by Drs. Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain at Bell Labs, but
it was a Sunday so not as many RF Cafe visitors saw the commemorative title graphic I
used. Their transistor was a current-controlled signal amplifying device as opposed to
the
field-effect transistor (FET) which is a voltage-controlled signal amplifying device
- as is the vacuum tube. I never thought about it before, but maybe that had something
to do with the electronics world's hesitancy to adopt the transistor as a replacement
for the tube. Early in the transistor's history, practical applications were limited
due to low reliability, low power handling, low frequency, lack of ruggedness in harsh
operating conditions, and other shortcomings compared to established and much refined
vacuum tubes was reason enough to shun the newfangled technology, but that current-controlled
thing ...
 "Spray-applied MXene antennas could open the door for new applications
in smart technology, wearables, and IoT devices. This method sprays invisibly thin antennas
- made from a type of two-dimensional metallic material called MXene - that perform as
well as those being used in mobile devices, wireless routers, and portable transducers.
MXene titanium carbide can be dissolved in water to create an ink or paint. The exceptional
conductivity of the material enables it to transmit and direct radio waves, even when
it's applied in a very thin coating. Even transparent antennas with thicknesses of tens
of nanometers are able to communicate efficiently. The thinnest antenna was 62 nanometers ..."
 Most people who were around in the 1970s remember
the sitcom "Laverne &
Shirley." It was popular as a part of the whole 1950s renaissance that was happening
with shows like "Happy Days," "Grease," "American Graffiti," et al, that captured the
attention of the parents of we teenagers as well as weselves [sic]. I was being
held against my will at Southern Senior High School at the time, and many of the kids
adopted a "greaser" lifestyle that included cigarette packs rolled up in t-shirt sleeves
and Brylcreem in the hair (mainly just the guys), leather jackets and Keds high-top sneakers
(guys and gals), and poodle skirts and saddle Oxford shoes (mainly just the gals). Two
weirdo characters, Lenny and Squiggy, made cameo ...
 You've heard of the World's Fairs, the most familiar
probably being the 1933 Chicago World's Fair where the theme was "A Century of Progress."
World's Fairs have been held in various cities worldwide since the late 1790s. In 1929,
the World's Fair was held in the United Kingdom, but the "Radio
World's Fair," which began its annual run in 1924 (click on
stamps thumbnail), was held in New York City. Surprisingly little exists on the
Internet about the events. It was more of a trade show to introduce new products than
it was a fair, as can be seen from the photos. Radios with decorative wooden cabinets
were becoming popular as the number of commercial broadcast stations was growing rapidly.
Remote control in the day meant a handheld unit with a cable attached to the main system.
Crosley introduced its first gendered radio model - the Monotrad ...
 Empower RF Systems is a global leader in power
amplifier solutions. Empower RF Systems is an established and technologically superior
supplier of high power solid state RF & microwave amplifiers. Our offerings include
modules, intelligent rack-mount amplifiers, and multi-function RF Power Amplifier solutions
to 6 GHz in broadband and band specific designs. Output power combinations range
from tens of watts to multi-kilowatts. Unprecedented size, weight and power reduction
of our amplifiers is superior to anything in the market at similar frequencies and power
levels ...
 "Vubiq Networks has filed its fourth millimeter
wave RFID patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The application
is entitled System and Method for High-Bit Density Millimeter Wave Chipless RFID and
has been assigned the application number 62775479. The patent application defines advanced,
high-bit density chipless RFID technology using the company's polarimetric synthetic
aperture radar (SAR) technique that incorporates polarization and phase detection. The
technology will provide orders of magnitude higher bit density for RFID tags as compared
to 'prior art' or other competitive approaches. The application, which is the fourth
RFID patent ..."
Sunday 16
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created lexicon
related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. You
will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or
plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, see someone or something
in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to this puzzle's theme, such as
Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll, respectively. This week's crossword contains a shameless
plug for my custom software products - they're inexpensive and will save you a lot of
time ...
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 Triad RF Systems designs and manufactures
RF power amplifiers and systems. Triad
RF Systems comprises three partners (hence 'Triad') with
over 40 years of accumulated knowledge of what is required to design, manufacture, market,
sell and service RF/Microwave amplifiers and amplifier systems. PA, LNA, bi-directional,
and frequency translating amplifiers are available, in formats including tower mount,
benchtop, rack mount, and chassis mount. "We view Triad more as a technology partner
than a vendor for our line-of-sight communications product line." Please check to see
how we can help your project ... Please
check to see how they can help your project ...
 "This invention is an
on-chip immune system against hot-carrier stress, bias temperature
instability, and total ionizing dose degradation. Ames Research Center, Moffett Field,
California Heat treatment, also known as annealing, is a common step in the semiconductor
fabrication process. A buildup of radiation-induced localized charge within the semiconductor
and insulator alters local field distribution, threshold voltage, and leakage current.
NASA's patent-pending technology implements an annealing process on a system level directly
on a chip for annealing defects and improving device performance with heating done in
the laboratory. The annealing may be performed inside an oven or upon a hotplate ..."
 Radio & Wireless Week (RWW) 2019 runs January
20-23, at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando, Florida. The venue is located in one of the
world's most visited tourist destinations. RWW consists of five related conferences that
focus on the intersection between wireless communication theory, systems, circuits, and
device technologies. This creates a unique forum for engineers to discuss various technologies
for state-of-the-art wireless systems and their end-use applications. ARFTG also joins
RWW2019 as a co-located conference. Authors are invited to submit papers for presentation
at RWW2019. All papers accepted ...
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 "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology
have devised a method for using an
origami-based structure to create radio frequency filters that have
adjustable dimensions, enabling the devices to change which signals they block throughout
a large range of frequencies. The new approach to creating these tunable filters could
have a variety of uses, from antenna systems capable of adapting in real-time to ambient
conditions to the next generation of electromagnetic cloaking systems that could be reconfigured
on the fly to reflect or absorb different frequencies. The team focused on one particular
pattern of origami, called Miura-Ori, which has the ability to expand and contract like
an accordion ..."
 "Over the last decade, there has been much excitement
about the discovery, recognized by the Nobel Prize in Physics only two years ago, that
there are two types of insulators: normal insulators which don't conduct electricity,
and topological insulators - newly discovered materials that conduct electricity only
on their edges. Now, FLEET researchers at Monash University, Australia, have for the
first time successfully 'switched' a material between these two states of matter via
application of an electric-field. This is the first step in creating a functioning
topological transistor - a proposed new generation of ultra-low energy
electronic devices. Ultra-low energy electronics such as topological transistors would
allow computing to continue to grow, without being limited by available energy as we
near the end of achievable improvements in traditional ..."
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