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In this paper, a novel integrated receiver front-end at 5.8 GHz using a high-order subharmonic balanced self-oscillating mixer (SOM) with a high conversion gain of 11.1 dB is presented, to the authors' knowledge, for the first time. SOMs are excellent choices for a low-cost receiver design as both the oscillating source and the mixer are combined in one single device. Moreover, the presented structure is of high interest for high-end millimeter-wave systems, as subharmonic operation reduces local oscillator (LO) frequency requirements. The balanced concept of the shown circuit offers inherent RF-LO isolation, lower AM noise, and easy suppression of harmonics. In this paper, the design and performance results of the complete receiver structure are presented both with simulation and measured results and a circuit design model is also developed. Index Terms--Balanced structure, harmonics, millimeter wave, oscillator, receiver, sell-oscillating mixer (SOM).

One of the most major trends in modern microwave signals is the shift toward wider bandwidths. Analog wideband receiver designs can provide accommodation of the technology-stressing bandwidths, but come up to a cost of reduced flexibility. Digital approaches, alternatively, provide flexibility in receiver signal processing, but they are limited by analog-to-digital converter resolution and power consumption. In this paper, design and implementation of a 1-GHz signal bandwidth digital receiver, which uses the Kaiser window function and compensation technique, is presented. The Kaiser window reduces the spectral leakage by eliminating the discontinuities at the time window edges and the compensation uncovers the weak signal for extension of the two-signal spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of the receiver. The combination of both techniques extends the two-signal SFDR of the receiver to 24 dB. A novel hardware implementation of the Kaiser window and the compensation method is presented. Index Terms--Compensation, digital receiver, false alarm, instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) receiver, Kaiser window, microwave receiver, monobit receiver, normalization, receiver-on-a-chip (ROC), super-resolution, spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR).

Microwave discharge ion engines '[micro]10' are dedicated to the main propulsion on the HAYABUSA asteroid explorer. In a development program, various tests and assessments were conducted on the ion engines and the spacecraft. They include endurance tests, an electromagnetic interference susceptibility test, an interference test between the plasma and communication microwave, a beam exhaust test on the spacecraft, assessments on the plasma interference with a solar array, and so on. The spacecraft was launched in deep space by the M-V rocket in May 2003. After vacuum exposure and several runs of baking for reduction of residual gas, the ion engine system established continuous acceleration of the spacecraft toward the asteroid ITOKAWA. The spacecraft passed through a perihelion of 0.86 astronomical unit (AU) in February 2004 and an aphelion of 1.7 AU in February 2005, becoming the first solar electric propulsion system to travel this far toward and away from the Sun. The HAYABUSA succeeded in rendezvousing with the target asteroid in September 2005. Index Terms--Deep space maneuver, ion engines, microwave discharge, plasma interactions.

This paper will review the manner in which electronic packaging will be driven by the high-level performance requirements of next-generation mixed-signal systems, and by the evolving characteristics of next-generation integrated circuits. Present performance and fabrication limitations of the multichip module (MCM) technology will be discussed, as well as possible approaches to remove or minimize these constraints. Areas fruitful for research by the simulation community will be noted. This review is intended to provide a broad applications-oriented framework for the theoretical and simulation-directed papers in this special issue on interconnect and packaging. Index Terms - AID converters, digital receivers, digital-signal processors, electromagnetic modeling, multichip modules, S-parameters.

We describe a multi-antenna microwave receiver system that monitors an unmodulated beacon transmission from a geosynchronous satellite. The system interferometrically measures temporal fluctuations in tropospheric differential path length, which include fluctuations in precipitable water vapor, over 100- to 400-meter baseline lengths. Over 300 s, the system root mean square error (rms) noise is 0.01 radian. These observations will facilitate studies of air parcel motion as the means by which the causative, phase-corrupting atmospheric inhomogeneities drift over the array. The resulting data will be useful for studies of convective boundary layer turbulence, a region difficult to fully access.