On April 14, 1999, the IEEE NJ Section Electron Devices, and Circuits and Systems Chapters together with the New Jersey Institute of Technology will host a talk on "Low Voltage Microwave Electronics."  The speaker will be Dr. Mike Golio.

About the Talk

The presentation provides an overview of the low voltage/low power
electronics developments and issues for portable wireless applications. Issues related to the development of low voltage products that will be discussed include: semiconductor material choice, device technology choice, device modeling, circuit approaches, and system architectures.  Finally, key issues that will determine the lower limits that can be achieved in DC power and voltage reductions are discussed.  The basic components required for wireless applications (both commercial and military) are undergoing a revolutionary change in terms of their DC power consumption.  Key drivers for this change include longer battery lifetime and reduced weight and size. In order to increase battery lifetime, the power consumption of the individual components must be reduced.  At present, the single largest volume and weight component in most portable electronics products is the battery.  Therefore, a major impact on the mass and volume can be made by reducing the supply voltage (number of battery cells required) while simultaneously reducing power consumption (battery cell volume and weight).

The constraints implied by the low voltage imperative can be examined as they apply to every aspect of RF/microwave component development.  The presentation discusses each of the following in detail:

1. Materials Technology (GaAs vs Si, epi vs implant, heterojuctions)
2. Device Technology (BJT, HBT, MESFET, MOSFET, HEMT)
3. Modeling Requirements (key challenges to modeling low voltage/low current operation)
4. Circuit Technology (topology challenges for low voltage)
5. System Design Issues (architecture trends and low voltage)

Since the reduction of battery size and weight is the key to the success of low voltage/low power electronics strategies, it is important to examine some fundamental issues related to batteries and the RF circuitry powered by them. The issues that limit the DC power requirements for RF circuits are fundamentally different than those that limit the DC power requirements for associated digital circuits in hand held products.  Digital circuitry is required to store and analyze information -- information that is encoded in a binary manner.  This can be accomplished theoretically by the presence or absence of a single electron.  Although practical considerations make the single electron memory improbable, and movement of that electron into and out of storage still requires energy, it is clear that binary data can be manipulated with extremely small amounts of energy.  The system architecture does not impose arbitrary power requirements on the strength of the digital signal.  In contrast, the RF portion of hand held radios is required to transmit or receive signals over a distance.  Because that distance can be large, and because power is lost in the radiation process, these functions must be able to handle power levels that are determined by the propagation media and transmitter-to-receiver separation.  Thus, for RF circuitry, a reduction in voltage must be accompanied by increased efficiency and/or increased current.  The implications of this increased current requirement on battery operated parts imposes a limit to low voltage operation that will be discussed.

About the Speaker

Michael Golio is the Technical Director of MMIC Design at Rockwell Collins. His work focuses on technical planning and direction of the development of MMICs for commercial and military avionics, GPS, and wireless applications.

Dr. Golio received his BSEE degree from the University of Illinois in 1976. He worked for two years in the Microwave Tunable Devices Organization at Watkins-Johnson before returning to school to complete his MSEE and PhD degrees at North Carolina State University in 1980 and 1983 respectively. His graduate research focused on microwave devices, non-linear models and carrier transport.  Upon completion of his graduate work, he served as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University before joining Motorola Government Electronics Group in 1986.  There he directed research on characterization, parameter extraction and modeling of non-linear microwave devices.  This research resulted in several publications including the book "Microwave MESFETs and HEMTs" and a large signal parameter extraction software package, "GASMAP".  In 1991, he moved to Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector to develop a GaAs fabrication facility to address commercial products including chips for cellular phones, digital pagers and wireless LANs.

Mike has served the MTT-Society in several roles: as Chapter Activities Coordinator, member of MTT-S Adcom, organizer for several MTT Symposium workshops and panel sessions, Liaison to IEEE Press, member of the Technical Program Committee on non-linear modeling, and co-chair of the MTT Technical Committees.  He is a regular contributor of columns for the MTT-S Newsletter and he was elected Fellow of the IEEE in 1996.  He is currently serving as the Distinguished Microwave Lecturer for the IEEE MTT Society.

All Welcome!

You do not have to be a member of the IEEE to attend.

Time:  7:00 PM, Wednesday, April 14, 1999.  Free buffet will be starting at 6:15 PM.
Place:  NJIT, Room 202, ECE Building, Newark, NJ.
Information:  Dr. Richard Snyder (973) 492-1207 (RS Microwave), Dr. Dirga Misra (973) 596-5739 ( dmisra@megahertz.njit.edu ) or Dr. Edip Niver (973) 596-3542 (NJIT).

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