Workshop Title: RF Front End Architectures and Technologies for 5G Mobile Applications

Room: Melati 4011

Date: 10 December 2019                                                                                                                                                                                 Time: 1330hrs - 1730hrs 
 

Instructor(s):
Florinel Balteanu
Skyworks Solutions, Inc., Irvine, CA, USA
Luis Andia
SOITEC Microelectronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Singapore

Abstract
The demand for higher data rates in 4G and future 5G determines a great focus on the development of user equipment (UE) radios and RF front-end (RFFE) architectures for future 5G mobile applications. The workshop presents the current status of 4G/5G LTE RFFEs and the techniques to deliver an over 1Gbps required for 5G such as Carrier Aggregation, MIMO as well Wider Modulation Bandwidth for LTE under 6GHz and mm-Wave spectrum. This workshop will present also the RF circuits, technology and system requirements for RFFEs used to implement 4G and future 5G in mobile devices. Substrates and foundry technologies are also discussed as they have a major impact on RF FE performance.​

Workshop Title: Recent Developments in Negative Group Delay (NGD) Devices and Applications to RF/Microwave Communication System

Room: Melati 4111

Date: 10 December 2019                                                                                                                                                                               Time: 1330hrs - 1730hrs 

Instructor(s):
Girdhari Chaudhary and Yongchae Jeong
Chonbuk National University, Republic of Korea
Blaise Ravelo
NUIST, China

Abstract
Propagation of electromagnetic waves in dispersive media can be characterized by phenomena including abnormal phase, group delays, and velocities. In a specific frequency band of anomalous dispersion, the abnormal group delay velocity is observed to be greater than the speed of light in a vacuum or even negative value. This phenomenon is defined as superluminal group velocity or negative group delay (NGD). The NGD and negative group delay velocity imply each other, and they mean that the peak of a pulse envelope emerges from the medium at an instant before the peak of the pulse enters the medium. Such a seemingly anti-causal phenomenon does not, in fact, violate the principle of causality since turn-on and -off points of the wave packet propagate with a positive delay in agreement with the causality requirements. Theoretical and experimental investigations in the field of electronic and microwave engineering confirmed that different active and passive circuit topologies can generate the NGD phenomenon. Moreover, researchers have been trying to find the find applications of NGD or the superluminal effect to various electronics circuits.

This workshop will review the recent developments of different topologies of active and passive NGD circuits based on different techniques such as coupling matrix approach, lumped element approach, distributed transmission line, microwave transversal and recursive filters approach, signal interference concept and so on. This workshop will also review the recent applications of NGD in areas of RF/microwave communication system including:

• efficiency enhancement of feedforward amplifiers,
• bandwidth enhancement of analog feedback amplifier,
• efficiency enhancement of cross cancellation power amplifier (CCPA),
• realization of non-Foster elements,
• improvement of phase shifters accuracy and bandwidth,
• equalization of electrical interconnect effects for the microwave/mixed-signal integrity (SI) improvement,
• and minimizing beam-squint in series-fed antenna arrays and so on.​

Workshop Title: 
Trends in Maritime Broadband Communication System:
Maritime Communication in General, VHF Data Exchange (VDE) System, Future Broadband Maritime Communication System (LTE/5G), Maritime Navigation, Maritime Propagation Channel

Room: Orchid 4211

Date: 10 December 2019                                                                                                                                                                               Time: 1330hrs - 1730hrs 

Instructor(s):
Wei Wang
Chang’an University, P.R. China
Ronald Raulefs
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Abstract
The first attempt towards the digitalization of maritime transportation was the introduction of the Automatic Identification System (AIS), with the main goal of enabling a type of broadcast communication. AIS is nowadays widely used for navigation, search and rescue, and fleet monitoring applications. However, using of AIS has been growing in a significant way such that in crowded waters the system is heavily overloaded. This fact causes dangers to safety-related missions. To fulfill the increasing demand on maritime communications systems, development of future broadband communication system have drawn significant attentions beyond the evolution of AIS. The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) and many other maritime authorities initiated the work on development and deployment of VHF Data Exchange System (VDES). Further, there are numerous researches on future broadband communication systems for maritime application, focusing on adopting current LTE and upcoming 5G communication systems into maritime applications. Due to the special radio propagation environment in maritime applications, it is important to evaluate the difference in the physical layer between maritime and land where LTE and 5G systems are originally focused on, and therefore develop suitable transmitter and receiver design. Furthermore, using current maritime communication systems (e.g., AIS, VDES) for navigation purpose as a backup solution to global navigation satellite systems has attracted significant interests. How to fuse the navigation functionality within the maritime communication systems becomes a challenge in the system design.

Therefore, this workshop focuses on the theoretical and practical views on the trend of maritime broadband communication systems to enhance and extend the applications of existing systems and to fulfill the increasing demands on the communications systems from emerging maritime applications. The topic of interests include, but not limited to:

• Evolution of AIS in various applications like communication and navigation
• Theoretical and practical research on VEDS
• Applicability of LTE/5G broadband communication system for maritime applications
• Theoretical frameworks for future maritime communication systems at higher frequency bands
• Channel measurement and modeling for ship-ship/ship-land/satellite-ship communication links
• Interference mitigation for ships in crowded waters
• Standardization progress
•  

Workshop Title: State-of-the-art Measurement Techniques for Microwave and Millimeter-wave Applications

Room: Orchid 4212

Date: 10 December 2019                                                                                                                                                                               Time: 1330hrs - 1730hrs 

Instructor(s):
Choon Beng Sia
FormFactor Inc., Singapore
Masahiro Horibe
National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan

Abstract
Emerging applications such as 5G, IoT, autonomous vehicles require an accurate and reliable microwave and millimeter measurements for device, circuit, wafer-level tests as well as material characterization. Although test instruments have made tremendous improvements over the years, measurement traceability, especially for frequencies beyond 110 GHz, is still of strong interest to both the scientific and industrial communities. This workshop aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current research areas and address future directions in the field of microwave and millimeter-wave measurements