Anatech Electronics Newsletter - August 2013

Anatech Electronics has published its August 2013 newsletter. As always, it includes both company news and some tidbits about relevant industry events, regulations, and standards. This month Sam Benzacar offers his takes on the subjects of toxic waster waste in Silicon Valley, legacy filters, LTE in residences and Audi vehicles, channels guard bands, and believe it or not, fruit flies.

WHAT’S NEWS

What's That Smell?

An excellent article in The Atlantic discusses a topic in direct contrast to the typical sheen of Silicon Valley: Toxic waste. It tells the story of the development of the fabled area from the perspective of what at least in early years was left behind, including six Superfund sites in Santa Clara County – more than in any other county in the country. The entire state of Illinois has only 13. Highly recommended reading.

An RF Solution for the Fruit Fly Problem

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) has invented machines that use microwave energy to kill insects and pests inside fresh fruit and vegetables, replacing the need for farmers to use toxic chemicals and insecticides on produce after it has been harvested. Australia’s industry and government spent more than $128 million managing fruit flies, one of the most devastating pests, between 2003 and 2008. The group’s invention uses microwave energy to kill insects and their eggs inside crops such as apples, avocadoes, capsicums and zucchinis. Fruit or vegetables were exposed to the radiation as they moved through the machine on a conveyor belt, killing 100% of the pests. It may even prolong the shelf life of the produce. They place the machines on a semi-trailer, roll up to a packing shed and allow the product to flow from the sorting tray and into the machine.

Audi First To Bring LTE to the Car

Audi is poised to be the first automaker to bring LTE service to cars. It’s already in the S3 Sportback (in Europe) and will be added to other A3 models later this year. The U.S. will get it when the new A3 sedan arrives in 2015. BMW is reportedly integrating LTE via its ConnectedDrive and by the end of 2015 most General Motors products will have it too. Drivers insert an LTE-enabled SIM card into the car’s navigation, making the car a Wi-Fi hotspot that can deliver HD content from the cloud to the cockpit, and making Google Earth, Facebook and Twitter, e-mail, and streaming internet radio possible as well.

AT&T Unveils Residential LTE

AT&T has just deployed an LTE service aimed at home users called AT&T Wireless Home Phone and Internet. Like Verizon's Home Fusion service, AT&T's Wireless Home Phone and Internet service is aimed at rural users without any fixed-line options and in fact all DSL markets, as both carriers want to dispense with DSL for good. The AT&T option reportedly provides unlimited nationwide phone calls for $20 a month, and $60 a month for 10 Gbytes of data, $90 a month for 20 Gbytes, and $120 a month for 30 Gbytes.

A Message from Sam Benzacar
Sam Benzacaar of Anatech Electronics - RF Cafe

Super Wi-Fi: The Name Game Continues

By Sam Benzacar

The wireless industry is infamous for renaming various technologies for various purposes. For example, LTE is not a fourth-generation standard but third generation as defined by the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Neither is HSPA+ (and other HSPA variants) that are also marketed as 4G. However, to be appealing to consumers, LTE couldn’t be 3.5G so 4G it had to be …and consumers don’t care anyway.

Then there is the continuing saga of small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS). As DAS has been around awhile and isn’t “all-inclusive”, the DAS Forum decided to change its name to the HetNet Forum, referring to heterogeneous networks, a name that only an engineer could come up with. The marketing people obviously weren’t consulted.

And now we have “Super Wi-Fi” or “white space technology” championed by the Wireless Innovation Alliance. It isn’t actually "real” Wi-Fi as it didn’t originate and has nothing to do with the Wi-Fi Alliance, which holds the Wi-Fi trademark. As Wi-Fi Alliance marketing director Kelly Davis-Felner puts it: “Wi-Fi is a trademark, there is no such thing as 'Super Wi-Fi,' and white spaces is not Wi-Fi." That hasn’t stopped the initial deployment of so-called Super Wi-Fi in several cities.

The white spaces concept uses empty UHF TV channels for data communications, which are considered unlicensed frequencies. Traditional Wi-Fi operates at 2400 MHz over short distances but white space systems operate at UHF so they can cover much longer distances with minimal base stations. “Super Wi-Fi” systems are related to the IEEE 802.22 standard and are “regional area networks”. They currently serve only fixed applications like cellular backhaul and providing rural coverage, as they cannot interfere with nearby TV channels, although a mobile-capable version may come later. The next offering that can truly be called Wi-Fi will be IEEE 802.11ac, which operates at 5 GHz (like IEEE 802.11a) and will increase throughput to at least 500 Mb/s and perhaps 1 Gb/s over the same distances as the latest Wi-Fi variant, IEEE 802.11n.

The only two things Super Wi-Fi shares with “real” Wi-Fi is that both operate in unlicensed spectrum – and have a big need for filters. Keeping interference under control will be paramount in both systems, and Anatech Electronics offers the most comprehensive custom filter technology in the industry.

So if you’re working on either one of these systems, please contact us at (973) 772-4242 or by e-mail at
sales@anatechelectronics.com

Can’t Find That “Legacy” Filter?

In the last 22 years, Anatech has designed and manufactured thousands of different filters, most with unique specifications, which lets us draw from this library to “recreate” filters used in defense (and other) systems that other manufacturers can’t (or won’t) deliver. Give us a call or send us an e-mail with your requirements. It’s very likely we can deliver what you need – without big tooling charges.

Anatech Takes on the
(Lack of) Guard Bands

If you’re one of the many designers who’s trying to find a way to deal with tight channel spacing and minimal guard bands, it’s going to take more than just clean amplifiers and digital pre-distortion. It takes filters with extremely high rejection. That’s one of our key strengths, so please call us with your requirements

Download Our 2013 Catalog

Technical Questions?

Download Our Technical Resources

[borders/inc-300x250.htm]About Anatech Electronics;
Anatech Electronics, Inc. (AEI) specializes in the design and manufacture of standard and custom RF and microwave filters and other passive components and subsystems employed in commercial, industrial, and aerospace and applications. Products are available from an operating frequency range of 10 kHz to 30 GHz and include cavity, ceramic, crystal, LC, and surface acoustic wave (SAW), as well as power combiners/dividers, duplexers and diplexers, directional couplers, terminations, attenuators, circulators, EMI filters, and lightning arrestors. The company’s custom products and capabilities are available at www.anatechelectronics.com and standard products are available for purchase at the Anatech Electronics Web store, AMCrf.com.

Contact:

Anatech Electronics, Inc.
70 Outwater Lane
Garfield, NJ 07026
(201) 772-4242
sales@anatechelectronics.com

Posted 5/17/2013

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