Test Equipment for WWII Radar Counter-Measures (CXFD)

This World War II era test equipment was for use with radar counter-measures (CXFD) and designed to substitute for a radar system for testing CXFD equipment, radar jammers, beacon systems and similar devices. and to monitor the pulse-modulated output of radar counter-measures equipment. This device was developed by Ralph Deutsch at the National Bureau of Standards and built by Columbia Broadcasting System for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships. Declassified in 1954. “Source National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Collections, Gaithersburg, MD 20899  Accession Number 1998.0138.002″

How Thermal Engineers can Save Money on World Class Test Equipment for Thermal Analysis

Thermal engineers increasingly hold the keys to making today’s high performance, small form factor, telecommunications equipment and blade servers work at their optimal level. The growing trend in this kind of equipment is to smaller form factors. An equal trend is higher density of components in such systems. The dual trends of smaller systems with more components increases the thermal stress in a system. As a result, thermal management is often the key enabler to these products functioning properly. In the midst of this, tight research and development budgets mean thermal engineers often have difficulty affording the necessary equipment to do their most basic research to guide their development of a thermal management system.

Gone are the days when a simple heat sink, applied with thermal tape and coupled with a larger fan, are adequate for cooling electronic systems. Instead, complex air flows in systems have to be detected, temperature gradients must be identified, and hot spots accounted for in a system wide thermal analysis. This data is then used to create a system level thermal management solution to manage chip junction temperatures. But, data must be collected first to create such a solution.

ATS’s eATVS-4, coupled with its omnidirectional Candlestick sensors, and fully automated stageVIEW data acquisition and reporting software, are the perfect, low cost, tools for data acquisition and thermal analysis. The eATVS-4 automatic temperature and velocity scanner features include: portable hot wire anemometer, fully automated to save time and increase accuracy of data acquisition, with the capability to measure both air temperature and air velocity with one sensor; both fluid and solid temperatures may be measured.

The eATVS-4 gives thermal management professionals a research-grade instrument at a price that will not bust an engineering department’s capital budget. Additional capabilities of this instrument include: 4 channels of simultaneous measurement of air temperature and air velocity, ability to measure a temperature range from -30C to 150C, capability to measure air velocity from 0 to 50 m/s (10,000 ft/min) +/- 2% at velocity and measurement storage limited only by your computer’s storage.

ATS’s 9mm high candlestick sensors, included in the base system, are rugged, omnidirectional sensors that measure both air temperature and air velocity to eliminate errors that can occur when airflow is non-isothermal. The plastic design prevents shorting of electronics and creates a more durable sensor. Double-sided adhesive makes the sensors easy to mount on any surface.

The final part of this system is the stageVIEW Operating Software. stageVIEW is a graphic-driven program that enables the user of the eATVS-4 to set various parameters to automatically acquire the necessary thermal data from an experiment. The data acquisition is comprised of cycles. The number of cycles and the duration of each cycle are dictated by the user as an experiment is set up. Each cycle consists of a selected number of temperature measurements, followed by a selected number of velocity measurements. The cycles will continue until the overall time elapsed is greater than the duration of a single cycle. The user can check the availability of the sensors set up in an experiment, and select specific sensors for collecting data. Data is stored on an attached computer and is accessible by Excel.

The eATVS-4 Automatic Temperature & Velocity Scanner is a portable, 4-channel hot wire anemometer system.

Click here for more information on the economical and accurate eATVS-4 Temperature & Velocity Scanner

Frost & Sullivan Hosts Gigabit Ethernet Test Equipment Webinar: Evolving End-User Technologies: Gold Mine or Challenge for the Gigabit Ethernet Test Equipment Vendors?

Gigabit Ethernet Test Equipment Market: Riding the Wave of Change

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA- Dec. 8, 2011

When: Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 at 1 p.m. EST
Location: Online, with free registration
Speakers: Prathima Bommakanti, Industry Analyst, Measurement & Instrumentation, Frost & Sullivan | Tim Jefferson, General Manager, Network and Applications Division, Spirent Communications

A significant number of new technologies have recently been developed and introduced within the communications industry, such as voice over internet protocol (VoIP), triple play (voice, video, and data), video-on-demand, and wireless. With the end user shift towards these technologies, there has been increase in network upgrades and rise in demand for the gigabit Ethernet test equipment market. End users have become more aware of such occurrences, and they aim to purchase only those test products that address all the aforementioned technologies. This creates a challenge for test vendors, as they strive to satisfy all the needs of their customers.

Why You Should Attend:

• Learn about the growth of the gigabit Ethernet test equipment market
• Identify the drivers and restraints
• Learn more about the revenues corresponding to the 1,10,40/100 gigabit Ethernet market.
• Identifying the key market participants

This briefing will benefit service providers, network equipment manufacturers, enterprises, test vendors, and distributors by discussing emerging market trends and providing revenue projections for the next five years.

Supporting Quotes
“Constant introduction of new technologies is the name of the game in the communications industry, while it offers significant market opportunities to scale up to the advanced technologies,” said Prathima Bommakanti, Industry Analyst for Frost & Sullivan’s Measurement & Instrumentation practice. “This does pose considerable technological challenges to the test vendors. Offering increased density along with increased performance features in a single solution challenges the gigabit Ethernet test equipment vendors.”

“The Mobile Internet, driven by the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets, is increasing the size of data centers and forcing service providers to expand access and backhaul networks,” said Tim Jefferson, General Manager, Network and Applications Division for Spirent Communications. “The migration to 10/40/100G Ethernet in the data center and the carrier network presents tremendous opportunities as well as significant technical challenges. It is no surprise that equipment vendors and network operators alike are clamoring for a high performance, high scale testing and monitoring solution to validate subscriber Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE).”

Supporting Resources
For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Measurement & Instrumentation practice, please visit: www.frost.com/M&I

Registration

• To attend the briefing, email sarah.saatzer@frost.com your full name, job title, company name, company telephone number, company email address and web site, city, state and country.
• Receive a recorded version of the briefing anytime by submitting the aforementioned contact details.

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company’s Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO’s Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit www.frost.com.

In today’s marketplace, Ethernet and Fibre Channel (SAN) services are the focus of metropolitan area network data offerings. Fibre Channel networking technology is used to link storage systems and servers, and the storage industry is experiencing significant growth. By enabling Ethernet and Fibre Channel testing (both 1.0625 and 2.125 Gpbs) on the FST-2802, service providers are able to turnup and verify both set of services from the same test instrument, using the existing workforce with minimal training. In addition, the enhanced BER testing capability enables technician to stress test the layer 1 (physical layer) and layer 2 using a wide range of stress test patterns.Moreover, the dual port feature enables service providers to simultaneously stress two circuits with the full line rate traffic, and perform bi-directional monitoring of Ethernet and Fibre Channel circuits to verify that the network can support reliable communications.

Reconditioned JDSU FST-2802 with FST-2000 on Sale Now

Network Monitoring and Management Solutions Market Gears Up to Meet the Challenges of Migration

Network vendors in the performance monitoring and management solutions market are often daunted by the vast complexity of interprocess communications (IPC) and the need to scale with large network environments, running several applications simultaneously. Vendors with multiple management tools and data servers, and a separate solution for wireless performance of their networks will be hard pressed to focus on a unified holistic solution to manage the network services and applications proactively.

To best this challenge, vendors need to understand the interrelationship, inter-dependencies and interrelated impact of the performances of each of these applications and services.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, World Network Performance Monitoring and Management Solutions Market for Enterprises, finds that the market earned revenues of $1.49 billion by the end of 2010. It market is expected to reach $3.37 billion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 percent from 2010 to 2017. (www.testandmeasurement.frost.com)

If you are interested in a virtual brochure for this study, please send an e-mail to Sarah Saatzer, sarah.saatzer@frost.com, with your full name, company name, job title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country.

“Market participants have to provide an integrated network performance solution on a unified base to monitor and analyze network data and traffic in all the seven layers of the open system interconnection (OSI) model,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Mariano Kimbara.

Leading participants in this market are offering unified knowledge, unified ability and an integrated framework with other existing management solutions to manage applications and services more effectively. The continuous trend towards integration of network monitoring solutions with common data and other management tools has given a huge boost to the network monitoring market. This unified perspective is likely to not only accelerate the growth of the market but also influence product development.

“Most companies now talk of adding cloud capabilities to their product and service offerings, and several of them now claim to be cloud-based,” notes Kimbara. “There is a trend to store data not only internally but also externally and this is changing the nature of networking.”

Meanwhile, the rapid growth in network volume has spawned a need for network storage to gauge the way a network will perform in the future. The higher network volume has also led to greater complexity in monitoring the performance of networks and providing detailed information. With the introduction of next-generation services, bandwidth-intensive applications have placed huge demands on networks for transporting higher amounts of data traffic.

As the industry migrates from 10 Gbps to 40 and 100 Gbps network speeds, vendors will have to overcome migration-related issues before they can meet the escalating demands for data and bandwidth.

“Today, with the possibility of analyzing the data by looking at historical information and with extra storage room, simulation of the same issue is no longer necessary,” observes Kimbara. “This saves time in analyzing the network issues.”

World Network Performance Monitoring and Management Solutions Market for Enterprises is part of the Test & Measurement Growth Partnership Services program, which also includes research in the following markets: World Wireless Protocol Analyzers and Network Monitoring Systems Market. World Service Assurance Markets. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

WanXL-AsyncCom is an essential test tool for data communication product developers, network integrators, network troubleshooters and field service technicians.

Request a Quotation

Massachusetts Launches EV Infrastructure Initiative

The Patrick-Murray Administration Awards Electric Vehicle Charging Stations to 25 Cities and Towns at Lexington Battle Green marking a new milestone in Commonwealth’s clean energy revolution; public-private partnership supplies 105 charging stations for communities from Cape Cod to the Berkshires.

LEXINGTON — As part of the Patrick-Murray Administration’s nation-leading commitment to clean energy, Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Secretary Richard K. Sullivan Jr. today took the Commonwealth’s clean energy revolution to Lexington’s Battle Green to announce the award of 105 electric vehicle charging stations for 25 cities and towns across the state.

“Placing these state-of-the-art charging stations in cities and towns across Massachusetts supports the Administration’s clean energy agenda – augmenting our nation-leading efforts in the areas of green jobs, Green Communities, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray. “Our Administration is pleased to partner with the Obama Administration and Coulomb Technologies on this initiative, and we look forward to seeing this innovative resource support municipalities as they embrace new clean transportation options.”

The following communities are receiving charging stations, which will be sited on downtown streets, parking garages, shopping malls, schools and colleges, and commercial, medical and industrial parks: Athol, Barnstable, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelmsford, Falmouth, Greenfield, Hanover, Holyoke, Hopkinton, Kingston, Lancaster, Lenox, Lexington, Lowell, Nantucket, New Bedford, New Salem, Newton, Northampton, Orange, Salem, Tyngsboro, and Worcester.

The Commonwealth will also be installing additional charging stations, separate from these municipal installations, at Logan Airport garages, Logan Express parking lots and at MBTA commuter parking locations.

“Investing in vehicle charging stations is an important first step in moving toward a mass market in electric vehicles that will help reduce harmful emissions while fostering the development of green technologies,” said Congressman Stephen F. Lynch. “I am pleased to see that Governor Deval Patrick is putting in place the infrastructure needed to make electric cars a viable option here in Massachusetts.”

EEA’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER) invited cities and towns to apply for electric vehicle charging equipment grants, funded with approximately $280,000 made available through a settlement obtained by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office in 2007 for alleged pollution control equipment violations by an Ohio-based power plant. That funding was subsequently augmented through a public-private partnership with Coulomb Technologies of California, which received a U.S. Department of Energy American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to provide installation of electric charging equipment and re-granted awards in the form of charging stations to Massachusetts cities and towns through the company’s ChargePoint America program.

““Electric vehicle technology is a significant way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand our clean energy economy,” said Secretary Sullivan. “Our communities have come forward in partnership with local business, colleges and employers to find highly visible, well-utilized locations where owners of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles can charge their vehicles. Through these public-private partnerships, we are ensuring that ‘green’ transportation options will be a reality in cities and towns throughout the state.”

The program announced today will create jobs for Massachusetts electricians, and is an important step in helping communities, residents and business across the state transition to cleaner driving as Massachusetts prepares for the entry of new electric vehicle models to the Massachusetts market as early as this year.

By reducing Massachusetts’ reliance on petroleum-based transportation, the additional electric vehicle infrastructure announced today supports the goals of several recently-passed state laws – including the Green Communities Act, Green Jobs Act, and the Global Warming Solutions Act, under which the Patrick-Murray Administration last December set a target to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and adopted the Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020 setting out a suite of programs and policies to achieve that target.

“With transportation responsible for 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions produced in Massachusetts, it is prudent for the Commonwealth to take a multi-faceted approach to improving the way we drive and the vehicles that we buy – including investments to expand the use of electric vehicles,” said DOER Commissioner Mark Sylvia.

“Electric cars or electric hybrid cars are becoming more mainstream, and by providing these charging stations in convenient locations more drivers will be encouraged to opt for electric vehicles,” said Representative John Keenan, chairman of the House Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. “I am grateful to the Patrick-Murray Administration and to Secretary Sullivan for these grants that will help us move closer to our renewable energy goals.”

“Massachusetts is a national leader in clean energy policy,” said Senator Benjamin B. Downing, chairman of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy. “Investing in electric vehicle charging stations will help us turn that policy into real change on the ground in our communities, giving our residents the opportunity to be less dependent on foreign fossil fuels.”

“I am very pleased to see Lexington continue on the path towards cleaner, more renewable sources of energy for our transportation needs,” said Representative Jay Kaufman. “Electrically-powered automobiles are becoming more prevalent in the marketplace and the Patrick-Murray Administration’s plan to provide 25 communities with this equipment will only help to grow widespread consumer support for these ‘green’ initiatives.”

Today’s announcement is the latest in a continuum of steps Massachusetts is taking to ensure its place as a national leader in electric vehicle technology, which produces zero emissions at the tailpipe. Other steps include a partnership between DOER and Nissan North America, Inc., through which DOER and the auto maker are working together to examine roadblocks to and opportunities for promoting the use of electric vehicles in Massachusetts in advance of sales here of Nissan’s all-electric LEAF. EEA is also in discussions with other electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle manufacturers regarding pilot testing pre-commercial vehicles, including trucks and small vans and all-electric concept cars.

“The Governor and Lieutenant Governor have recognized the chicken-and-egg dilemma – that if individuals are to be comfortable purchasing electric vehicles, they must also be assured that there are available charging stations for these vehicles,” said Hank Manz, chairman of the Lexington Board of Selectmen. “Lexington, with the thousands of high-tech employees who work in our business parks and the significant number of tourists who visit our historic sites year-round, is a natural location for electric vehicle charging stations. We are thrilled to partner with the state on this important initiative and look forward to being a leader in the next revolution to energy sustainability.”

U.S. Air Force Approves Production of Northrop Grumman’s Deployable Digital Wireless System for Remote Warfighters

ORLANDO, Fla., – The U.S. Air Force has approved Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Theater Deployable Communications (TDC) Wireless Distribution Module (WDM) for production.

TDC WDM provides a line-of-sight extension of a local area network and a radio-frequency link extension of local Internet Protocol-based traffic to rapidly distribute network capability to tactical warfighters in remote areas.

A total of 140 WDM suites are entering production for the Air Force Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. The approval to start production follows environmental and operational testing. The operational test demonstrated the WDM in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint modes of operation at distances and rates not previously achieved.

“The successful completion of first article testing brings the next-generation of wireless networking one step closer to the warfighter,” said Claude Hashem, vice president and general manager of the company’s Network Communications Systems business at Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector. “WDM extends expeditionary communications and information to remote users over greater distances, with more bandwidth, and in a smaller and lighter package, enabling the Air Force to be more effective in achieving its mission.”

WDM is a new component of the Air Force’s TDC, a ground-to-ground communications infrastructure that transmits and receives voice, data and video communications securely, to or from wireless, satellite or hard-wired sources. It is designed to communicate information rapidly and securely to achieve interoperability between Air Force, joint and coalition elements throughout the theater and “reach-back” command and control centers via Defense Information Systems Network core services, Defense Switched Network, Non-secure Internet Protocol Network and Secure Internet Protocol Network. The TDC system is mobile and modular. The equipment is packaged in kits and modules that are installed, transported and operated from transit cases and can be tailored to meet specific mission needs.

WDM is the next evolution of wireless IP networking, consisting of a single radio that operates in both the commercial and NATO frequency bands. A single radio reduces lifecycle and training costs and decreases the logistics footprint. The WDM system is undergoing Information Assurance certification, and the radio is a FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) 140-2 device providing an AES-256 encrypted radio frequency link.

WDM uses dynamic data-rate selection and automated frequency selection across multiple channels to overcome jamming and high-noise environments. The system is designed to be deployed by a two-person team.

In addition to WDM, Northrop Grumman has designed and delivered several other TDC systems since 2004, including the Initial Communications Element, Network Control Center–Deployed, and Crypto Module Refresh. The Radio over IP Gateway Module is currently under development and scheduled for fielding later this year.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information. (source www.ngc.com)

Zinc-Oxide NanoWires Could Mean Better DVDs, Virus Killers

A breakthrough in semiconductor laser technology could potentially lead to a new way to kill viruses and increase the storage capacity of DVDs.

Researchers from the University of California at Riverside in collaboration with a team from the University of Central Florida have figured out a way to increase the use of ultraviolet semiconductor diode lasers. These tiny lasers, less than the width of a hair strand, are already widely used in data processing, information storage and biology.

Their applications have been limited, however, by size, cost and power. The current generation of ultraviolet lasers is based on a material called gallium nitride. UC Riverside’s Jianlin Liu, a professor of electrical engineering, and his colleagues have made a breakthrough in zinc oxide nanowire waveguide lasers, which can offer smaller sizes, lower costs, higher powers and shorter wavelengths.

Leonid Chernyak, a UCF professor of physics and Yuqing Lin, a graduate student at UCF, are collaborators on the research, which is published in this month’s issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Until now, zinc oxide nanowires couldn’t be used in real-world light emission applications because of the lack of p-type, or positive type, material needed by all semiconductors. Liu solved that problem by doping the zinc oxide nanowires with antimony, a metalloid element, to create the p-type material.

The UCF researchers conducted experiments to verify that the zinc oxide nanowires in the study had the necessary properties for conductivity. Chernyak and Lin used UCF’s unique Scanning Electron Microscope probe station for the work. Chernyak designed and built the state-of-the-art station.

“We are so excited about this new development,” Chernyak said. “This research is most promising. While more research is needed, this may give us more options to explore, which could have some significant impacts on our daily lives from how we store our data to medical therapies that could help treat disease.”

For information storage, the zinc oxide nanowire lasers could be used to read and process much denser data on storage media. For example, a DVD that would store two hours of music could store four or six hours using the new type of laser.

For medical therapies, the ultra-small light beam from a nanowire laser can penetrate a living cell, or excite or change its function from a bad cell to a good cell. The light could also be used to purify drinking water.

For photonics, a field in which researchers study and create high-powered lasers for many applications, including medical and military, the ultraviolet light could provide even faster data processing and transmission. Reliable small ultraviolet semiconductor diode lasers may help develop ultraviolet wireless communication technology, which is potentially better than state-of-the-art infrared communication technologies used in various electronic information systems.

This is a giant move forward, but more work needs to be done with the stability and reliability of the p-type material, Liu said.

“People in the zinc oxide research community throughout the world have been trying hard to achieve this for the past decade,” Liu said. “This discovery is likely to stimulate the whole field to push the technology further.”

The work on the ZnO device was in part supported by Army Research Office Young Investigator Program and the National Science Foundation. The work on p-type ZnO was supported by the Department of Energy.

Co-authors of the study are: Sheng Chu, Guoping Wang, Jieying Kong, Lin Li and Jingjian Ren, all graduate students at UC Riverside; Weihang Zhou, a student at Fudan University in China; Jianze Zhao, a visiting student from Dalian University of Technology in China and the UCF professor and student. (source news.ucf.edu)

UCF Stands For Opportunity: The University of Central Florida is a metropolitan research university that ranks as the second largest in the nation with more than 56,000 students. UCF’s first classes were offered in 1968. The university offers impressive academic and research environments that power the region’s economic development. UCF’s culture of opportunity is driven by our diversity, Orlando environment, history of entrepreneurship and our youth, relevance and energy. For more information visit http://news.ucf.edu.

The New Leaptronix IWT-5000A Impulse Winding Tester

The Leaptronix IWT-5000A winding tester is a coil (such as voltage transformer, inductance, motor) testing instrument that tests self-insulating property of the coil. The influences of winding materials, magnetic materials, and framework, also extra fabrication decreases the insulating property of coil layers along with the jumpers and jacks. The IWT-5000A adopts the technology of high-speed sampling rate to store the sample waveform of the standard (master) coil in the instrument. By comparing the waveform results of the test coil to the master, the defect in the DUT can be found easily. Moreover, the IWT-5000A judges the quality of the testing coil according to the parameter set by the user.

Leaptronix IWT-5000A Impulse Winding Tester Features:

● 200V~5000V programmable impulse voltage, it is capable of low-energy testing, without damaging the coil.
● High-speed sampling rate of 100MHz, which enhances the testing ability for partial discharges.
● 320 x 240 color LCD display clearly for the user to view waveform and test results.
● User-friendly operation interface.
● Low inductance during impulse testing, minimum to 0.2uH.
● 4 kinds of detection modes: AreaSize Comparison, DiffZone Comparison, Corona Amount Comparison, and Corona Number Comparison.
● The comparative result shows Pass/Fail directly, informing operators the detect test result within a short period of time.
● Offer measurement functions for voltages, timing and frequencies, which provide user a carry-out analysis in detail.
● Able to save 360 sets of standard waveform result of the coil for users to download and implement into testing.
● RS-232 to PC connection. Just using standard text command, you can write control program and data for communication easily. It’s the best way to set up the testing system for mass production.
● USB 2.0 interface to connect with PC for users to upload or download the parameters of waveforms results.
● Control function for external I/O, such as the Handler adopts standard D SUB 9-pin connector for connecting with automatic or semi-auto testing system.
● Self-calibration function

Leaptronix IWT-5000A Impulse Winding Tester

Leaptronix IWT-5000 Impulse Winding Component Tester

IBM Research scientists announced that they have achieved a milestone in creating a building block for the future of wireless devices.

Yorktown Heights, NY – 10 Jun 2011: Today, IBM Research scientists announced that they have achieved a milestone in creating a building block for the future of wireless devices. In a paper published yesterday in the magazine Science, IBM researchers announced the first integrated circuit fabricated from wafer-size graphene, and demonstrated a broadband frequency mixer operating at frequencies up to 10 gigahertz (10 billion cycles/second).

Designed for wireless communications, this graphene-based analog integrated circuit could improve today’s wireless devices and points to the potential for a new set of appli-cations. At today’s conventional frequencies, cell phone and transceiver signals could be improved, potentially allowing phones to work where they can’t today while, at much higher frequencies, military and medical personnel could see concealed weapons or conduct medical imaging without the same radiation dangers of X-rays.

Graphene, the thinnest electronic material consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms packed in a honeycomb structure, possesses outstanding electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties that could make it less expensive and use less energy inside portable electronics like smart phones.

Despite significant scientific progress in the understanding of this novel material and the demonstration of high-performance graphene-based devices, the challenge of integrat-ing graphene transistors with other components on a single chip had not been realized until now, mostly due to poor adhesion of graphene with metals and oxides and the lack of reliable fabrication schemes to yield reproducible devices and circuits.

This new integrated circuit, consisting of a graphene transistor and a pair of inductors compactly integrated on a silicon carbide (SiC) wafer, overcomes these design hurdles by developing wafer-scale fabrication procedures that maintain the quality of graphene and, at the same time, allow for its integration to other components in a complex cir-cuitry.

“Just a few days before IBM commemorates its 100th anniversary, our scientists have achieved a nanotechnology milestone which continues the company’s century-long pur-suit of innovation and technology leadership,” said T.C. Chen, vice president, Science and Technology, IBM Research. “This research breakthrough has the potential to in-crease the performance of communication devices that enable people to interact with greater efficiency.”

The breakthrough is also a major milestone for the Carbon Electronics for RF Applica-tions (CERA) program, funded by DARPA.

How it Works
In this demonstration, graphene is synthesized by thermal annealing of SiC wafers to form uniform graphene layers on the surface of SiC. The fabrication of graphene circuits involves four layers of metal and two layers of oxide to form top-gated graphene transis-tor, on-chip inductors and interconnects.

The circuit operates as a broadband frequency mixer, which produces output signals with mixed frequencies (sum and difference) of the input signals. Mixers are fundamental components of many electronic communication systems. Frequency mixing up to 10 GHz and excellent thermal stability up to 125°C has been demonstrated with the graphene integrated circuit.

The fabrication scheme developed can also be applied to other types of graphene mate-rials, including chemical vapor deposited (CVD) graphene films synthesized on metal films, and are also compatible with optical lithography for reduced cost and throughput.

Previously, the team has demonstrated standalone graphene transistors with a cut-off frequency as high as 100 GHz and 155 GHz for epitaxial and CVD graphene, for a gate length of 240 and 40 nm, respectively.

IBM and Nanotechnology Leadership
In the company’s 100 year history, IBM has invested in scientific research to shape the future of computing. Today’s announcement is a demonstration of the results garnered by IBM’s world-leading scientists and the company’s continual investment in and focus on exploratory research.

Nanotechnology is an enabling technology that is expected to spark advances in various fields. These include advanced functional materials, sensing, tools, healthcare, bio-analytics, water purification, energy technology, and more. IBM scientists apply their nanoscience expertise to problems outside of nanoelectronics and help tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time, such as more efficient use of solar energy, and new ways of purifying or desalinating water.

IBM also recently opened the Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center – a facility for world-class nanoscale research recently opened on the campus of IBM Research – Zu-rich. The building is the centerpiece of a 10-year strategic partnership in nanoscience between IBM and ETH Zurich, one of Europe’s premier technical universities, where sci-entists will research novel nanoscale structures and devices to advance energy and in-formation technologies. (source www.ibm.com)

What is GPS?

A. GPS consists of three segments – the satellite constellation, ground control network, and user equipment.

The satellite constellation comprises satellites in low earth orbit that provide the ranging signals and navigation data messages to the user equipment. The ground control network tracks and maintains the satellite constellation by monitoring satellite health and signal integrity and maintaining the satellite orbital configuration. Furthermore, the ground control network also updates the satellite clock corrections and ephemerides as well as numerous other parameters essential to determining user position, velocity and time (PVT). The user equipment receives signals from the satellite constellation and computes user PVT. More details on each of the aforementioned GPS segments are provided below.

Video Audio Design UEB400DXP-GPS – Receiver, Recorder and Analyzer for DAB signals The UEB 400 DXP allows the user to receive DAB signals according to ETSI EN300 401

GPS Satellite Constellation:
The baseline satellite constellation consists of 24 satellites positioned in six earth-centered orbital planes with four operation satellites and a spare satellite slot in each orbital plane. The system can support a constellation of up to thirty satellites in orbit. The orbital period of a GPS satellite is one-half of a sidereal day or 11 hours 58 minutes. The orbits are nearly circular and equally spaced about the equator at a 60-degree separation with an inclination of 55 degrees relative to the equator. The orbital radius (i.e. distance from the center of mass of the earth to the satellite) is approximately 26,600 km.

With the baseline satellite constellation, users with a clear view of the sky have a minimum of four satellites in view. It’s more likely that a user would see six to eight satellites. The satellites broadcast ranging signals and navigation data allowing users to measure their pseudoranges in order to estimate their position, velocity and time, in a passive, listen-only mode.

Pendulum Instruments GPS-12RG Rubidium Frequency Standard – GPS-disciplined Rubidium clock for near-Cesium stability Internal battery for increased oscillator stability

Ground Control Network:
At the heart of the Ground Control Network is the Master Control Station (MCS) located at the Schriever (formerly named Falcon) Air Force Base near Colorado Springs , Colorado . The MCS operates the system and provides command and control functions for the satellite constellation.

Aeroflex-IFR GPSG-1000 – GPS/Galileo Portable Positional Simulator. Time-saving portable test set.

The satellites in orbit are continuously tracked from six USAF monitor stations spread around the globe in longitude: Ascension Island , Diego Garcia, Kwajalein , Hawaii , Cape Canaveral and Colorado Springs . The monitor stations form the data collection component of the control network. A monitor station continuously makes pseudorange measurements to each satellite in view. There are two cesium clocks referenced to GPS system time in each monitor station. Pseudorange measurements made to each satellite in view by the monitor station receiver are used to update the master control station’s precise estimate of each satellite’s position in orbit.

User Equipment:
The user equipment, often referred to as “GPS receivers”, captures and processes L-band signals from the satellites in view for the computation of user position, velocity and time. (www.faa.gov)