We present low-cost millimeter-wave (MMW) photonic techniques for implementing gigabit/s wireless links. A passive mode-locked laser consisting of a Fabry-Perot laser and a single-mode fiber is used to generate 120-GHz optical MMW signals. We modulated these MMW signals by controlling the bias voltage of the photodiode. The MMW generation and modulation methods do not need expensive photonic components or high-power drivers. A link employing these low-cost photonic techniques achieved 1.25-Gbit/s wireless data transmission.

We experimentally demonstrated a remote antenna system based on a millimeter-wave (MMW) over fiber scheme for 622-Mbps broadband fixed wireless access systems. In this system, the format of the RF signal is based on a four-carrier signal in which each carrier is modulated by using 64-QAM, to reduce the complexity of the RF system in comparison with the single-carrier QAM system using many more signal-points than 64. The remote antenna system based on the IF-over-fiber scheme was also experimentally demonstrated, as well as the MMW over fiber scheme for comparison. From the experimental results, we found that the remote antenna system based on the MMW over fiber scheme is effective not only from the viewpoints of miniaturization of the remote antenna station and ability to provide a stable millimeter-wave frequency, but also from the viewpoint of link performances such as allowable dynamic range and power penalty, even though the scheme's E/O and O/E devices have a higher cost.

Full-duplex transmission of 60.0 GHz and 59.6 GHz millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals of 155.52-Mbit/s differential phase shift keying (DPSK) data, radio-on-fiber (ROF) signals over 25-km-long standard single-mode fibers (SMFs) is experimentally demonstrated for the first time using a single 2-RF-port electroabsorption transceiver (EAT). The simplification of base stations (BSs) is strongly required to realize cost-effective and high-reliability mm-wave wireless access. This single EAT detects a C-band ROF signal modulated by a mm-wave downlink signal and simultaneously modulates the L-band optical carrier by a mm-wave uplink signal. The BS mainly consists of the EAT, leading to a simple and low-cost BS. Optical pilot tones and optical bandpass filters are used for photonic downconversion and photonic upconversion, to convert frequencies between mm-wave signals and intermediate frequency (IF) signals in the optical domain. With the use of optical conversions, these signals have no significant fading problems. The simultaneous transmission of both up- and downlinks has been achieved with the BER of less than 10^-9. Also the fading problems due to the fiber dispersion of photonic conversions are analyzed mathematically in this paper. The single-EAT BS will become a promising candidate for a ROF access system.

The dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technique is very attractive for effectively increasing the channel capability, even for access networks. Some DWDM radio-on-fiber (ROF) systems have been studied recently. In those systems, fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) or arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) were used to demultiplex DWDM ROF signals. In this report, an alternative channel-selection scheme of DWDM millimeter-wave-band ROF signals by optical heterodyne detection with dual-mode local light is newly proposed. Error-free demultiplexing and transmission over a 25-km-long SMF of the DWDM signal, which consists of two 60-GHz-band, 155-Mb/s-DPSK ROF signals, are demonstrated.

Radio on fiber transmission technique using a conventional intermediate frequency (IF)-band Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filter has been proposed in order to satisfy the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specification for International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) cellular systems. For the 3GPP specification, a key issue is to expand the dynamic range limited by clipping distortion of laser diode. In order to expand the dynamic range, for the down link, a narrow bandpass SAW filter is introduced after optical transmission, because the SAW filter can suppress the distortion caused by clipping of laser diode and improve the performance of adjacent channel leakage power ratio. For the up link, an optical modulation index (OMI) of a laser diode is optimized to improve the noise figure (NF) performance by controlling the gain of an amplifier between the antenna and the laser diode. As a result, both power control dynamic range of more than 44 dB in the down link and dynamic range of more than 97 dB in the up link were achieved in 6 km optical transmission. Other important parameters, such as Error Vector Magnitude, Reference Sensitivity Level, and so on in the 3GPP specification, were also satisfied.

This paper describes the experimental approach of the Direct Optical Switching (DOS) CDM Radio-on-Fiber (RoF) system. Improved carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) performance by using an Optical Polarity Reversing Correlator (OPRC) in comparison to using a single switch decoder is experimentally obtained. In addition, CIR performance deterioration due to degradation of the extinction ratio of the optical switch decoder is clarified from the theoretical and experimental viewpoints. Finally, we confirmed that CIR performance is improved more by using an M-sequence whose weight is even numbered than by using an odd numbered one.

An optical FM system using an optical FM LD (laser diode) and an optical frequency discriminator (OFD), in which a nonlinear compensation scheme based on the interaction between its nonlinearities can minimize intermodulation distortion. This paper theoretically investigates the minimization influence for 3rd plus 5th order intermodulation distortion power for an optical FM radio-on-fiber system. The carrier to noise-plus-distortion power ratio (CNDR) is theoretically analyzed in employing the OFD whose transmission characteristic is controlled by a phase shifter. The results show that the designed receiver can achieve higher CNDR in the application of multicarrier transmission.

Radio access networks (RANs) for new generation mobile communication systems are required to construct economical high capacity networks. An optical wireless link is expected as a solution to the linking method in the construction of these networks. The optical wireless link provides high bit-rate transmission and allows for easy installation. However, optical-waves are severely attenuated in free-space transmission due to weather conditions and cannot provide a high level of link availability in long-distance communications. This paper describes the applicability of an optical wireless link to the RAN based on obtained atmosphere propagation properties from experiments on an 800-nm band optical wireless link from the viewpoint of link availability. The experimental results show that the BER performance of the optical wireless link exhibits a sufficiently low power penalty of less than 1 dB compared to that of the optical fiber link. Moreover, the results confirm that atmosphere attenuation of an 800-nm band optical wave due to fog and rainfall can be estimated by using a simple estimation equation. The optical wireless link could be used for RAN approach links with the range of less than 350 m to achieve the link outage rate of 0.004% from the viewpoint of the link budget design.

We investigate the capacity limitations of a WDM ring fiber-radio backbone incorporating wavelength interleaving where each base station drives a sectorized antenna interface. We also investigate the issues related to the merging of such networks with standard WDM infrastructures. The investigations show that re-allocating the interleaved WDM channels to fit within a 100 GHz block enables the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) fiber-radio system with sectorized antenna interfaces to integrate easily with WDM systems. The performance of a variety of channel allocations for the merged fiber-radio network is examined and simulation studies of the transmission of multiple channels are carried out. The overall network capacity of the merged mm-wave fiber-radio network is improved with the proposed channel allocation schemes.

The fiber-optic sectorized remote antenna system by using the radio frequency (RF) optical transmission technique was promising for increasing the number of subscribers in the millimeter-wave broadband wireless access (MMW BWA) networks. To realize the cost-effectiveness of the fiber-optic sectorized remote antenna system covering four areas, we reached the conclusion that the best multiplexing schemes were the sub-carrier division multiplexing (SCM) of the intermediate frequency (IF) signals of 2 GHz for the down link, the coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) with the IF signals optical transmission for the up link and 1.3/1.55 µm-WDM for multiplexing the down link and the up link. In addition, the target specifications of this SCM-CWDM system were described, and the designs of the carrier to noise ratio (CNR) and the third order intermodulation distortion (IM3) were examined.

This paper proposes an ROF ubiquitous antenna architecture for the wireless CDMA system. The proposed system separates each component of independent signals passing through the multipath in radio and optical links, which are gathered at passive double star link, by using RAKE reception and the macrodiversity effect is obtained. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed system improves BER performance by 22 dB and reduces the transmission power and its control range by 19 dB.

Binary and ternary 5-bit programmable dispersion matrix, based on fiber Bragg reflectors, is built to control a two-channel receive/transmit beamformer at 1550 nm. RF phase measurements for the 32/31 delay configurations are presented. The programmable dispersion matrix is fully demonstrated and characterized for RF signals from 0.2 to 1 GHz.

In this paper, an optical signal processing beam forming network (BFN) for two-dimensional (2-D) beam steering is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Two lightwaves, called the signal and reference, are both Fourier transformed, combined, and then down-converted into RF signals using an optical heterodyne technique. A simple combination of orthogonal one-dimensional position scannings of the signal and reference lightwaves generates RF signals with phase distributions for 2-D beam steering. The system operation and optical losses are theoretically analyzed. Using graded index fiber (GIF) lensed single mode fibers (SMFs), total optical loss of the sampling fiber array is evaluated to be 4.5 dB from the fiber to fiber loss measurements. Using an experimental optical signal processing BFN at 25 GHz, 2-D beam steering is demonstrated at 0, 10, 20, and 30through the measured amplitudes and phases of RF signals for 16 position sets of the signal and reference fibers. The proposed method has the potential to provide ultra-fast beam scanning by utilizing optical switching technologies.

We report on several photoconductive (PC) geometries for the generation of both guided-wave and free-space terahertz (THz) waveforms. It is found that guided-wave THz electrical waveforms can be produced through both PC self-switching and frozen wave generation--eliminating the need for an ultrashort carrier lifetime in the semiconductor substrate. The concept of PC switching is also applied to the generation of free-space THz waveforms, and various ZnSe detectors are investigated as potential electro-optic THz sensors.

The system uses spectral shaping of a supercontinuum source followed by wavelength-to-time mapping to generate ultra wideband RF waveforms with arbitrary modulation. It employs an adaptive computer control to mitigate the non-ideal features inherent in the optical source and in the spectrum modulation process. As proof of concept, ultra-wideband frequency hopped CDMA waveforms are demonstrated.

We investigated a tunable delay-line using an optical single-sideband modulator and an optical fiber loop. The single-sideband modulator consists of four optical modulators and an RF electric signal source. The fiber loop has a fiber Bragg grating and a couple of optical circulators. The number of times light circulates in the loop depends on the frequency of the rf-signal fed to the modulators. By using numerical simulations, we discussed the deformation of the waveform in the delay-line due to the fiber Bragg gratings, the modulators and the optical amplifiers put in the loop.

A new technique for optical generation of high-purity millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals--namely, by synthesizing the outputs from cascadingly phase-locked multiple semiconductor lasers--was developed. Firstly, a high-spectral-purity mm-wave signal was optically generated by heterodyning the outputs from two phase-locked external-cavity semiconductor lasers. The beat signal was detected by a p-i-n photodiode whose output was directly coupled to a coax-waveguide converter followed by a W-band harmonic mixer. By constructing an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL), a high-spectral-purity mm-wave signal with an electrical power of 2.3 µW was successfully generated at 110 GHz with an rms phase fluctuation of 57 mrad. Secondly, the frequency of the mm-wave signal was extended by use of three cascadingly phase-locked semiconductor lasers. This technique uses a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) to generate four-wave-mixing (FWM) signals as well as to amplify the input signals. When the three lasers were appropriately tuned, two pairs of FWM signals were nearly degenerated. By phase-locking the offset frequency in one of the nearly degenerated pairs, the frequency separations among the three lasers were kept at a ratio of 1:2. Thus, we successfully generated high-purity millimeter-wave optical-beat signals at frequencies at 330.566 GHz with an rms phase fluctuation of 0.38 rad. A detailed analysis of the phase fluctuations was carried out on the basis of measured power spectral densities. The possibility of extending the mm-wave frequency up to 1 THz by using four cascadingly phase-locked lasers was also discussed.

A novel optical modulation scheme is proposed for synthesizing a pair of dual-mode optical BPSK signals with an orthogonal phase relationship via a LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) with dual RF signal inputs and a carrier suppression feature, which enables the generation of a crosstalk-free QPSK signal at the photodetection stage. With this method, one can compensate the drawback, that is bandwidth broadening, in our previously proposed method where a dual-mode optical QPSK signal is generated on the basis of narrow-angle modulated QPSK signal injection into a double-sideband suppressed carrier MZM device. We have carried out experiments for 60 GHz performance demonstration of this QPSK signal generation mechanism, and the results indicate the effectiveness of the present scheme.

In this paper, we propose a new configuration to implement transversal filters with negligible temperature sensitivity and low cost. These microwave filters are based on uniform fibre Bragg gratings as slicing elements of a broadband optical source. By using a tapered fibre Bragg grating as a delay line, we show that the temperature effects are the same over each component of the RF-filter. Therefore, it is possible a total cancellation of the thermal effects. The performance of these filters is compared to previous techniques, such as a laser array approach.

In this paper, a novel flexible photonic microwave filter architecture based on the use of laser arrays and the periodicity of N N arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) optical response is proposed. Independent filter response coarse and fine tuning as well as reshaping of each transversal filter response have been experimentally demonstrated showing an excellent agreement with theory.

Efficient mixing of microwave signals is an important issue for new radio over fiber telecommunications systems. In this paper, we propose a novel device based on two cascaded semiconductor optical amplifiers working in a non-linear regime and a loss section in between Results show potential performance improvement as compared to other technological approaches for photonic microwave mixers.

We present theoretical and experimental results for a microwave photonic oscillator (MPO) that provides a microwave signal and a modulated optical wave simultaneously. Among the different techniques currently in use for optically generating a microwave signal, we have chosen a ring configuration based on an electro-optical Mach-Zehnder modulator (EOM) driven by a 1.55 µm DFB laser diode. An accurate modelling of EOM and the contributions from all noise sources in the oscillation loop allows us to predict performances of our designated MPO in a very good agreement with the measured oscillation power (up to 22 dBm, depending on the DC bias voltage) and phase noise spectral density (-130 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz away from the carrier). We propose this hybrid microwave photonic source to be used as a local oscillator for a coherent laser radar operating at 1550 nm. A good compromise between a very high tunability range (1-8 GHz) and a high spectral purity (> -120 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz) is obtained through a dual-loop configuration for the MPO.

We report on the first demonstration of single sideband (SSB) modulated time stretch system. In addition, we present an analytical model relating the system performance to the phase and amplitude mismatches in the SSB modulator. The results show that, fortuitously, the system is tolerant to such mismatches. In particular, using commercially available components,the dispersion induced power penalty can be kept below 2.5 dB over 4-20 GHz bandwidth for any stretch factor. The experiments demonstrate 120 Gsample/s real-time capture of a 20 GHz SSB-modulated microwave signal.

We have designed and fabricated air-bridged modulators with bandwidths exceeding 10 GHz, the highest yet realised to date for InGaAsP/InGaAsP multiple-quantum-well (MQW) asymmetric Fabry-Perot modulators (AFPMs). Microwave modulation, measurements of intermodulation between the photodetected downlink and modulated uplink signals, and bi-directional broadband data over fibre transmission experiments have been performed to verify the potential of the AFPM as a single electrical/optical transceiver. We also report the first direct integration of this AFPM with a microstrip patch antenna and present results of a preliminary microwave signal transmission experiment over a distance of 1.4 m in free-space at 5.2 GHz with the integrated AFPM as a photodetector.

This paper discusses direct optical injection locking of a millimeter-wave oscillator using an InP/InGaAs heterojunction phototransistor (HPT) and its applications. Previously reported optically injection-locked oscillators (OILOs) are reviewed first. In particular, the features of a direct OILO (DOILO), where synchronization can be achieved by illuminating the active oscillator device itself, are discussed in comparison with the indirect OILO. DOILOs with excellent characteristics require high-performance transistors having both a high maximum oscillation frequency and fast photoresponse. We have developed high-performance opto-microwave-compatible InP/InGaAs HPTs whose layer and fabrication process are fully compatible with ultrahigh-speed heterojunction bipolar transistors. The paper discusses the photocoupling structure, and it is shown that the back-illuminated structure with the aid of InP subcollector enables one to achieve a 100-GHz-class DOILO. The configuration and performance of the 100-GHz-class DOILO are then presented; in particular, injection locking from optical signals with a modulation or beat frequency of around the fundamental (96 GHz) or second harmonic (192 GHz) is successfully demonstrated. To our knowledge, 96 GHz is the highest optically injection-locked frequency and 192 GHz is the highest inputmodulation frequency reported for OILOs. The HPT oscillator IC promises compact, low-power-consumption remote local oscillators for 100-GHz-class wireless systems and 100-Gbit/s-class optoelectronic clock recovery circuits. In addition, when the HPT oscillator is used as a modulator, we can attain cost-effective millimeter-wave systems compatible with conventional optical fiber networks transmitting digitally modulated baseband signals.

In this paper, we describe the design, optimization and fabrication of high-speed InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar phototransistors (photo-HBTs) with both optical cut-off frequency (F_c) and optical gain (G_opt) higher than 100 GHz and 30 dB, respectively. Small- and large-signal models of the photo-HBT have been developed in order to design optoelectronic monolithically integrated circuits (OEIC) using this device. Integrated circuits such as optoelectronic narrow-band amplifiers at 28 GHz with a transimpedance gain of 50 dBΩ and optoelectronic upconverting mixers at 28 and 42 GHz with a mixer conversion gain of 17.8 dB and 9.2 dB respectively, were fabricated. The performances of the mixer circuits were superior to those of individual photo-HBT mixer. These optoelectronic integrated circuits based on InP photo-HBTs are attractive building blocks for realizing compact and cost-effective photoreceivers for millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber links.

We developed compact high-power photonic millimeter-wave emitter (PME) modules for 60-GHz fiber radio links. The PME chip is a monolithic integration of a uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) and an antenna. One module was fabricated by attaching the chip and a plastic housing to a metal substrate, and the equivalent-isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of over 8 dBm was obtained with weak directivity of the radiated pattern. This module is suitable for point-to-multi-point communication. It is very compact, 29 24 6 mm. A module whose antenna gain was increased by attaching a dielectric lens to it was also fabricated, and the estimated EIRP of 18 dBm was obtained. This type of module is suitable for point-to-point communication and it too is compact, 29 24 17.5 mm. We achieved high-speed error-free data transmission of 1.25- and 2.5-Gbit/s phase-shift keyed (PSK) signal. The maximum distances of free-space propagation were estimated to be 18.2 and 8.9 m at bit rates of 1.25 and 2.5 Gbit/s, respectively.

This paper presents a novel mm-wave and THz device concept, with a detailed physical modeling and quantitative performance evaluation, called as CW HTS (high temperature superconductive) photomixer/antenna. Optical heterodyne photomixing in the DC-biased HTS strip has been employed to create mm-wave and THz signal, and the size of strip on the grounded dielectric substrate is designed to have an efficient broadside radiation. Incorporating the HTS microstrip configuration as both photomixing media and radiation element at the same time not only increases the CW photocurrent but also the radiation power, while it reduces the radiation loss associated with the patch antenna. Two possible configurations called as longitudinal and transversal will be introduced and their photomixing efficiency and output radiation power will be compared. The detailed analysis along with the optimum design of the geometrical parameters of the microstrip structure shows that the transversal scheme exhibits higher radiation power. The typical nW output power can be obtained by mW laser pump power for frequencies up to the gap frequency of the HTS material. The output power of the proposed device is theoretically higher than the experimentally available data from a Low-Temperature-Grown (LTG) GaAs photomixer integrated with dipole or bow-tie antenna reported in the literature.

This review paper addresses an emerging aspect of the relationship between optics and microwave electronics: the application of short pulses of laser light to the sensing and measurement of continuous-wave microwave fields. In particular, very short duration optical pulses can take on the role of ultrafast sampling gates within the framework of the electro-optic sampling technique in order to realize unprecedented temporal resolution, measurement bandwidth, and probing flexibility. As a result, in numerous instances electro-optic sampling has been demonstrated, primarily within the research laboratory, to be an effective tool in the field of diagnostic testing and the determination of the electrical characteristics of microwave components. Recently, with the emergence of new applications such as microwave electric-field mapping in wireless and radar environments, and as the ultrafast time domain has gained in importance for the area of optical telecommunications, added attention has been directed to electro-optic sampling. Herein, an abbreviated historical perspective of the history of electro-optic field mapping is presented, along with the fundamental concepts that are utilized in the technique. The effectiveness of an optical-fiber-mounted electro-optic probe in a scanning electric-field-mapping system is highlighted in several diagnostic measurements on microwave and millimeter-wave antenna arrays, and a combined electric-field and thermal-imaging capability is also introduced.

In this paper, we describe our study on a novel high-frequency magnetic field probe based both on the BiRIG rotation magnetization (RM) phenomenon and the third-generation optical probing scheme. First, we explain our experimental investigation on RF sensitivity and frequency response of the RM-based Faraday effect in a commercially available Bi-substituted rare-earth iron garnet plate. Second, we report on the implementation of fiber-optic magneto-optic (MO) probe heads with bandwidths of 10 GHz or broader, which have been brought about by careful arrangement of the magnetization axis of a single-domain crystal and the highly sensitive fiber-edge optical probing scheme. Third, we describe a few RF magnetic field distribution measurements carried out successfully over GHz-band microstrip line circuits. The results of the study imply the substantial potential of the present MO probe head for the RF current visualization.

To perform a high-speed measurement of a two-dimensional electric-field distribution, we developed an electric-field scanning system using a large-aperture electro-optic crystal and a laser-beam scanner. In the system, a two-dimensional electric-field image projected onto the crystal is read off using beam scanning through an electro-optic effect. With the imaging system, only 20 to 40 seconds are needed to obtain both millimeter-wave amplitude and phase images of a 20 30 mm area with a pixel spacing of 0.5 mm. We measured radiation patterns of a 10-GHz dipole antenna and compared them with simulation results to investigate a disturbance of the patterns inside the crystal. Profiles of a 120-GHz millimeter-wave beam were also measured to determine the effects of a dielectric lens used to focus the beam. Furthermore, we applied the system to imaging several objects with 180-GHz millimeter waves and experimentally showed that it is a valid means for a non-destructive inspection of hidden objects.

We present a new method called the slope nucleation method (SNM) for the growth of high-quality organic 4-dimethylamino-N-methyl-4-stilbazolium tosylate (DAST) crystals. The SNM features the ability to control the nucleation position and the growth orientation of DAST crystals in spontaneous nucleated growth. X-ray diffraction (XRD) rocking curve measurements indicate that the SNM is effective for obtaining high-quality DAST crystals as compared to conventional spontaneous nucleation methods. We evaluated the electro-optic (EO) properties of DAST crystals by an external EO probing technique because DAST crystals are expected to be used in transverse-field probing. DAST crystals exhibits nearly five-times EO sensitivity enhancement as compared to inorganic KTiOPO₄ (KTP) crystals at 90 kHz. The larger EO signal power obtained from the DAST crystal was almost constant at low frequencies (30 Hz to 90 kHz), whereas the KTP crystal could not respond below 180 Hz. We also observed excellent signals at all measured points due to the improved crystallinity of the crystal grown by the SNM.

In the paper, we propose a new method for chromatic dispersion measurement of WDM components in both transmission and reflection, employing photonic microwave technology. The dispersion can be determined by measuring the frequency spectrum range change of the microwave notch filter. The method features the advantages of low-cost and simplicity. Experimental results demonstrate that our setup is capable of measuring relative group delay with better than 1 ps time resolution and the measurement results show a good agreement with that measured by the conventional phase-shift technique.

Detection efficiency and dark count of a Geiger mode single photon detection avalanche photodiode was studied by a numerical simulation. The ionization process triggered by a single hole injection was simulated at a bias voltage slightly greater than the avalanche breakdown voltage for calculation of the detection efficiency. Tunneling effect in the multiplication layer was taken into account for the dark count simulation. In the gated-mode operation, the avalanche build-up time also affects on the signal to noise ratio. The multiplication layer thickness is a key parameter for the device performances.

We demonstrate polarization-independent and highly-efficient optical fiber wavelength converters in a 10 Gb/s NRZ transmission system. They are based on synchronous phase or frequency modulations of the two orthogonally polarized pump lights, and can suppress not only the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) but also the spread of the converted spectrum without modulating the signal light.

A low power MPEG-4 video codec LSI with the capability for core profile decoding is presented. A 16-b DSP with a vector pipeline architecture and a 32-b arithmetic unit, eight dedicated hardware engines to accelerate MPEG-4 SP@L1 codec, CP@L1 decoding and post video processing, 20-Mb embedded DRAM, and three peripheral blocks are integrated together on a single chip. MPEG-4 SP@L1 codec, CP@L1 decoding and post video processing are realized with a hybrid architecture consisting of a programmable DSP and dedicated hardware engines at low operating frequency. In order to reduce the power consumption, clock gating technique is fully adopted in each hardware block and embedded DRAM is employed. The chip is implemented using 0.18-µm quad-metal CMOS technology, and its die area is 8.8 mm 8.6 mm. The power consumption is 90 mW at a SP@L1 codec and 110 mW at a CP@L1 decoding.

The design of the analog part of a mixed analog-digital IC for a commercial wireless burglar alarm system is presented as an example of a very low-power VLSI design for battery-operated systems. The main constraint is battery life, which must be at least five years (with standard camera-battery). An operational amplifier, a power supply monitor and an oscillator are the core of the design. The operational amplifier absorbs 1.5 µA while the entire analog part absorbs 4 µA. Measures on each single part show compliance with specification. Test on working environment show its full functionality. Even though the example is application specific, the design solutions and each single element can also be utilized in many other battery-operated low-frequency devices (e.g. environmental parameter monitoring).

A Cyclotron Wave Converter, having decreased magnetic intensity is discussed. Two microwave cavities with uniform and quadruple (or six-pole) electric field in the gap of interaction are used to transform microwave power into the kinetic power of the electron beam fast cyclotron wave. As a result of it, magnetic flux density occurs in two (or three) times lower. The latter is very important to create a compact, powerful and efficient microwave/DC power converters operating at different frequencies including short centimetric and long millimetric wavebands.

A frequency-tuning method in the microwave region, which maintains a high unloaded Q-factor, was demonstrated using a double-sapphire-loaded cavity which operates on the Whispering Gallery mode, WGH_9,1,0. Two adjacent nominally identical sapphire cylinders were positioned in a copper cavity and tuned by changing their relative coupling. A frequency tuning range of 85 MHz and a maximum unloaded Q-factor of 1.3 10⁵ was experimentally measured at room temperature. This is only 13% less than the single resonator Q-factor, which is a small compromise to pay for the increased tuning capacity.