Topics

• New associated members

Events

• 3rd TARGET Winter School - Call for participation
• International Workshop on ‘Technology of Multimode-Multiband Transceivers’
• TARGET meets IET
• TARGET at IMS2006
• TARGET at EuMW2006
• TARGET DAYS 2006 (tutorials)
• TARGET at WAMICON2006

TOPICS

A voting was conducted in October 2006 for University of Calgary (Canada) and IHP - Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics (Germany) which turned out in favour. Thus, in its third year, the number of associated members of TARGET now adds up to the impressive number of 21. We would like to welcome our new associated members!

Sue Ivan

back to top

EVENTS

3rd TARGET WINTER SCHOOL: "CAD Implementation of Non-Linear Device Models and Advanced Measurements"

This winter school is mainly intended for PhD students and researchers that are new to or have a limited knowledge of this special topic. The basics as well as advanced methods for device characterisation and model implementation in commercial CAD tools will be presented by well known experts in the field.

Practical computer work/tutorials will be offered as a direct extension of the formal presentations. The Winter School is open to the public.

Main topics of the School:

• Overview on Electrical Equivalent Circuit and Data-Based Models
• ADS SDD modelling facilities
• AWR Model Wizard philosophy (compiled models)
• ADS User Defined Models (compiled models)
• VERILOG-A Model Language
• XML Data Base description for device modelling
• Model-Oriented CAD test bench
• Advanced Model-Oriented measurement setups

Flyer
Draft Programme
Registration Form
How to reach Santander
Hotels

Angel Mediavilla

back to top

Please mark this high-level event in your diary, more information will follow in due time:

Abstract:

Extending the scenario to already experienced 3G voice/data systems, users of the emerging wireless technologies may be moving while simultaneously operating in a broadband data access or multimedia streaming session. The need to support low latency and low packet loss handovers of data streams as users move from one access point to another is clearly a challenging task, which may require the concurrent use of more than one frequency band at the time.

For full-mobile data services, no user interaction will be required to adapt their service expectations because of environmental limitations that are technically challenging but not directly relevant to the user (such as being stationary or moving). For these reasons, the air interface must be able to anticipate the user expectations and deliver accordingly. This is very close to the new paradigm of the communication technology also known as cognitive radio. The above-described scenario is a dramatic source of specification constraints for the RF transceiver and channel interface that are more difficult to achieve with respect to conventional applications.

This workshop deals with the most relevant challenges including the technological and modelling aspects of the semiconductor devices fabrication and optimization, which are asked to provide high power with low noise features, and also including design methodologies of new system architectures.

Alessandro Cidronali

back to top

On May 23 the UK based Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, former IEE) organised in cooperation with TARGET a one-day seminar on „High Efficiency Power Amplifier Design for Next Generation Wireless Applications” at Cambridge University. Under the chairmanship of Wolfgang Bösch the event was opened by a talk on “Trends in Linear Power Amplification for Communications Systems” presented by Richard Ranson, Chief Engineer of Filtronic Integrated Product. In the following contributions an overview of TARGET activities was presented ranging from materials for RF power transistors to the verification of system level specifications. Our presenters were Frank Schwierz, Markus Mayer, Dominique Schreurs, Paolo Colantonio, Máirtín O'Droma, Albert Cesari, and Konstantinos Vryssas. We met a highly motivated audience from all over the UK and we could raise great interest in TARGET and in its activities.

Being already in Cambridge Sue and I thought it would be a sin not to visit the famous Cavendish Labs. Unfortunately, the historic material was moved to a modern building which takes away much of the atmosphere of history and heritage. Our guide Dr. Gordon Squires, however, turned out to be equally knowledgeable and absolutely charming. Under his guidance the giants of science like Maxwell, Thomson, Rutherford and Chadwick came alive. Unforgettable!

Gottfried Magerl

back to top

During this year's IMS in Los Angeles TARGET partners were strongly involved in the organisation of workshops. On Sunday, June 11, a workshop on “Measurement Basics for Nonlinear HF Components” was organised by Yves Rolain (VUB) and Marc Vanden Bossche (NMDG). On the same day a second workshop on “Memory Effects in Power Amplifiers” was co-chaired by Nuno Borges Carvalho (University of Aveiro), Kate A. Remley (NIST) and Dominique Schreurs (KUL). At this workshop contributions were presented by Nuno Borges Carvalho and José Carlos Pedro (both from the University of Aveiro), by Jan Verspecht , by Tom Brazil and Anding Zhu, both from UCD, and by Dominique Schreurs (KUL). Finally, Dominique co-organised a workshop on “New Advances in Oscillator Design” with Dietmar Koether (IMST) being co-author of one of the contributions.

On Thursday, June 15, the 67th ARFTG Conference was organised with Dominique Schreurs being responsible for the workshop programme. Yves Rolain, Wendy Van Moer, Johan Schoukens and Rik Pintelon from VUB presented a contribution on “Tracking the Waveform of Microwave Oscillators” giving acknowledgement to TARGET.

Gottfried Magerl

back to top

Since its first year TARGET has been deeply involved in contributing to the European Microwave Week. This year was record-breaking in any aspect: Manchester saw 4 TARGET workshops on September 10, a TARGET focused session on September 12, and the NVNA users' forum – co-organised with ARFTG – on September 14.

Wolfgang Richter from FSU in Jena arranged a half-day workshop on “RF Materials and Devices”. The first two presentations of this workshop provided important background information on semiconductor materials including heterostructures and on modern transistor concepts for high frequency, high power applications. Based on this information, the other presentations discussed the status and prospects of two advanced and promising high-performance RF transistor/MMIC technologies.

Dominique Schreurs from KUL organised a full-day workshop on “RF Device Modelling” with the intention to give the attendees an overview on the wide spectrum of methods to model RF semiconductor devices. It went from the most detailed physical (or transparent-box) models to the behavioural (or black-box) models, passing through the hybrid approach of equivalent-circuit modelling.

Máirtín O'Droma and Tony Goacher from the University of Limerick were organisers of a half-day workshop on “Circuit Level Linearisation Techniques”. This workshop addressed circuit linearization of microwave transmitter power amplifiers. Besides general design paths, topics reviewed included feedback schemes and the role of modern control theory, diode presdistortion techniques, antenna array circuitry integration, and electrothermal and memory effects.

The fourth workshop of this series was organised by Alessandro Cidronali from MiDRA. The topic of this half-day event was “Modelling for TX System Level Analysis”. This workshop disseminated basic knowledge on behavioural modelling suitable for system-level analysis. The emphasis was given on power amplifiers modelling derived in the envelope domain, as well as on modelling of VCO and mixer. The major modelling challenges facing the digitally predistorted transmitters were discussed along with an example of system-level analysis of a dual-band digitally predistorted transmitter.

In the TARGET focused session with the title “ Characterisation and Modelling of Microwave Power Amplifiers within TARGET” the following five contributions were presented:

• "Neural Network Characterization of GaN-HEMT Device Dynamic Behaviour" by G. Orengo, P. Colantonio, F. Giannini, M. Pirola, and V. Camarchia,
• "A Frequency Domain Extraction Procedure of Low-Pass Equivalent Behavioural Models of Microwave PAs" by C. Siviero, P. M. Lavrador and J. C. Pedro,
• “A distributed approach for millimetre-wave electron device modelling” by D. Resca, A. Santarelli, A. Raffo, R. Cignani, G. Vannini, F. Filicori, and A. Cidronali,
• "Systematic Evaluation of Non-Linear Microwave Device and Amplifier Models" by D. Schreurs, and
• "RF-Power Amplifier Modelling and Predistortion based on Modular Approach" by P.L. Gilabert, D.D. Silveira, G. Montoro, and G. Magerl.

Finally, the NVNA users' forum was held in its traditionally informal atmosphere; it attracted 19 participants to discuss the following topics:

• “Figures of Merit (FOM) for behavioural model comparison” led by Michael Gadringer and Daniel Silveira,
• “Increasing the dynamic range in high power RF measurements using step attenuators” presented by Nilaped Russamee,
• “High power RF load-pull measurements” by John Wood,
• “Comparison between Phaser-Quattro and LSNA from a modeller's point of view” by Alessandro Cidronali, and as a hot discussion topic
• “THE Name” led by Dominique Schreurs to decide about the appropriate name: Is it NNA (Nonlinear Network Analyzer), or LSNA (Large-Signal Network Analyzer), or NVNA (Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzer)?

Gottfried Magerl

back to top

From 16-18 October 2006 the TARGET DAYS 2006 were held in wonderful Villa Mondragone in Monte Porzio Catone, Italy. These TARGET DAYS were created to discuss the technical achievements of the TARGET network and to identify future requirements and trends in mobile communication systems. Wireless industry responded with a huge number of presentations, exhibition booths and by sponsoring the event, thus showing large interest in microwave power amplifier research and in the work of the TARGET Network of Excellence. In total 4 invited presentations and 32 reviewed oral presentations from academia and industry were given, reflecting the wide range of TARGET research topics. With 106 attendees the TARGET DAYS were a very successful, interesting and fruitful event for the microwave community.

Markus Mayer

back to top

An Invited Talk on the TARGET project was announced in advance as a highlight of the 2006 IEEE Wireless and Microwave Conference (WAMICON) held at Clearwater Florida, USA, from Dec. 4th - 5th, 2006. The talk was entitled: "Achievements of European Research Cooperation on Microwave Amplifiers in the TARGET Network" , the authors being Gottfried Magerl and Tom Brazil. The talk was given by Tom Brazil on the first day of the conference, which attracted 155 registered delegates, including 3 former Presidents of the IEEE MTT Society. The conference had quite a large industrial exhibition and delegates included a high proportion of industrial delegates. Most attendees were from the USA/Canada although there were a significant number from Asia and also some from Europe. The talk was well received and prompted several questions, particularly on the training activities and doctoral student exchange programmes. In informal conversations afterwards several US-based participants expressed themselves as highly impressed with the concept underlying TARGET and on its achievements to date.

Tom Brazil

back to top

PLEASE NOTE
To receive target news regularly, please subscribe on http://www.target-net.org/press/newsletter/subscription. You can also unsubscribe from this service at any time.

IMPRINT
published by: ftw. Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien Betriebs-GmbH, Donau-City-Straße 1, 1220 Vienna, Austria, Phone +43/1/5052830-0

responsible for content: Prof. Dr. Gottfried Magerl, Mag. Sue Ivan