Topics

• Exchange
• New TARGET associated member
• Linearisation Evaluation Map: report
• Technology Evaluation Maps: new tutorials
• Transmitter modelling for broadband wireless: new analysis methods
• First Target Summer School
• Call for Papers

Events

• The 7th European Microwave Week
• Tutorials

TOPICS

Exchange

The Exchange web site has now been integrated in the TARGET NoE home page. To visit TARGET EXCHANGE please log into the intranet under www.target-net.org. So far 24 vacancies have been offered and 13 exchanges took place. Considering that  the goal is a mobility of 15 people for the first 18 months being and that the project is currently still in the middle of the reporting period, the WP 1.5 Steering Committee is optimistic regarding the fulfilment of this goal. The exchange statistics are as follows:

• Number of vacancies offered by hosting institution:
  • 5 institutions offered 1 vacancy each
  • 3 institutions offered 2 separate vacancies each
  • 4 institutions offered 3 separate vacancies each
  • K.U. Leuven offered one vacancy which was shared by 3 people
• Geographical dispersion:
  16 vacancies were offered in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Portugal) and 8 vacancies in Central and Western Europe (Austria, Belgium, France and Ireland).
• The duration of stay varies between 2 weeks and 3 months.

Once again we would like to thank you all for your interest in the Exchange program and to encourage you to continue to participate and to help us in fulfilling our goals. Finally, all hosting institutions that have not yet sent their provisional budget for their vacancies are kindly requested to do so as soon as possible.

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New TARGET associated member

A. G. Franz Associates, LLC
5 Stanton Court
Plainsboro, NJ 08536
USA

A.G. Franz Associates, LLC is a management and marketing consulting firm established in 2002 in New Jersey. The company is assisting its customers in developing new markets and increasing sales in the areas of wireless and satellite communications, cable and broadcast systems, aerospace and information technologies.
In 2003, A.G. Franz Associates added sales representation services to its portfolio to help its clients implement their marketing and sales strategies. Leveraging the strategic market information of its consulting business A.G. Franz Associates is representing a growing number of products and manufacturers in the US.  Dr. Gerhard Franz, owner and president of the company, has over twenty years experience in the telecommunications, aerospace and electronics industries and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

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Linearisation Evaluation Map: report

The objectives of WP2.2.E.1 "Linearisation Evaluation Map" are to produce a comprehensive overview of linearisation techniques from existing literature, to evaluate the various amplifier linearisation concepts as applied to present and future communication systems so as to identify areas for ongoing research, and to seek to establish/propose evaluation criteria and standards. The main output of the workpackage is the ‘Linearisation Evaluation Report’, which will provide a reference source covering all aspects of amplifier linearisation. To produce this report the work has been broken into a number of sub-tasks within three strands - Linearity Techniques Data, Evaluation Criteria and Application to Systems. A number of partners (typically 3 – 7) are allocated to each sub-task under a Task Leader. The collection and compilation of Linearity Techniques Data is well under way and due to be completed at the end of November 2004.  Work allocation in the Evaluation Criteria section is complete and work on the Applications to Systems section will commence in October 2004. The Evaluation Report is due to be completed by June 2005. Part of the workpackage objective is to identify areas for ongoing research so that, through cooperation, partners would be able to position themselves to make joint applications for funding through the IP and STREP programmes and from other sources.  These opportunities will be identified in a Joint Research Programme report to be produced by July 2005.

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Technology Evaluation Maps: new tutorials

The partners in work package 2.2.A.1 "CLASSIC – A: Technology Evaluation Maps" have prepared a series of five tutorials on the following topics:

• Si-based devices
• GaAs and InP based RF devices
• Wide band gap microwave devices
• Possible post CMOS devices

These were presented at the First TARGET Summer School in Crete. In the next step the tutorials will be refined for the final version and published as Power Point presentations on the TARGET website before the end of 2004.

Furthermore within this reporting period the partners will prepare technology evaluation maps on

• Si-based devices
• GaAs and InP based RF devices
• and wide band gap microwave devices

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Transmitter modelling for broadband wireless: new analysis methods

As well known, the development of new telecommunication standards and equipments is a process involving iterative system level analysis. The process is driven by a search for the optimum trade-off between the purpose of the communication system and the technical feasibility of the building blocks. This trade-off must rely on an accurate behavioural description of such blocks where the accuracy, the complexity and the parameters identification procedure determine the figure of merit of the model. The work package on ‘Transmitter modelling for broadband wireless access’ has the above described goal: improve the system level analysis technique and subsystem behavioural description for a more effective and accurate description of communication system. The Task Force considers the IEEE 802.11a WLAN and has a test bench to validate the methodologies and the new analysis strategy, in order to move in a second phase onto a more challenging standard like the ultrawide band IEEE 802.15. New analysis methods are presently under development which enables the insight view of a system when operating in a complex  environment; and some sample of physical circuits like PA, mixer and VCO are currently under test to understand the best way to model it.

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First Target Summer School

The First TARGET Summer School entitled “Microwave Transistors: Materials and Devices” took place last week from September 13 to 17 in the hotel Europa Beach, Analipsi, Crete, Greece. The local organisation has been carried out in an excellent manner by Dr. George Konstandinidis, FORTH/Crete and the organisation in content has been done most successfully by Prof. Wolfgang Richter, FSU Jena/Germany. There were 25 participants, most of them Ph.D. students coming from partners within the TARGET network. 11 highly experienced researchers gave 16 lectures about the topics: basics of RF devices, semiconductor materials, materials characterization, epitaxy, silicon RF devices, HBT’s, unipolar devices, and RF diodes. In spite of the attractive location and nice environs the very interesting lectures were well attended - not only from students but also from senior participants and teachers. Many thanks to all lecturers and especially to the two organisers who made the First TARGET Summer School a very successful TARGET event.

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Call for Papers

International Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-Aided Engineering

SPECIAL ISSUE ON MICROWAVE POWER AMPLIFIER MODELING AND DESIGN

The special issue is devoted to all aspects of computer aided modelling and design of microwave power amplifiers and of their constituents. This includes semiconductor materials, active and passive devices, amplifiers, and transmitters. Therefore, topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Modelling of semiconductor technologies
• DC and large signal modelling of semiconductor power devices
• Design and modelling of microwave power amplifiers
• Linearisation
• Transmitter modelling

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EVENTS

The 7th European Microwave Week

The second SPECIAL EVENT of TARGET NoE, organised by Prof. Gottfried Magerl, will be a focused session on TARGET within the GAAS 2004 symposium (Amsterdam, 11-12 October 2004, during the European Microwave Week). The focused session will have the following title: "TARGET: Coordinated Microwave Amplifier Research in Europe" and it will consist of five contributions from distinguished invited speakers.

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Tutorials

Tutorials build a forum for discussion of scientific work, problems, and of preliminary results on TARGET related research.
The following tutorials will be held within the next months:

• Device characterisation
  Amsterdam, October 2004, European Microwave Conference
• Device modelling
  Amsterdam, October 2004, European Microwave Conference
• Amplifier design
  Rome, November 2004, INMMIC Conference
• Linearization
  Rome, November 2004, INMMIC Conference

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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, Dr. Eleftherios Iliopoulos