Alessandra Costanzo, Paolo Colantonio, Pierfrancesco Lombardo
The 25th European Microwave Week (EuMW 2022) took place fully in person in Milan, Italy, on 25–30 September 2022 at the new Milano Convention Center in the City Life District. Luca Perregrini was the general chair, Luciano Tarricone was the general cochair and treasurer, and Maurizio Bozzi was the TPC general chair, who, together with the entire steering committee (Figure 1), dedicated more than a year putting together a full and engaging Microwave Week. The event was hosted at the Milano Convention Center in the heart of the City Life District, with an amazing view of the area, and it was strongly supported by a fantastic international group of young volunteers (Figure 2) whose tireless activity and enthusiasm were fundamental for the success of EuMW 2022.
Figure 1. The EuMW 2022 Organizing Committee team.
Figure 2. The EuMW 2022 student volunteers, with the City Life district of Milan in the background.
The week offered three colocated conferences, the European Microwave Conference (EuMC), the European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC), and the European Radar Conference (EuRAD), to provide a 360° view of technologies, circuits, and systems exploiting microwaves. A large international exhibition (Figure 3), with more than 300 exhibitors from around the globe, lasted for three full days during the week.
Figure 3. The exhibition hall.
Keysight Technologies was the platinum sponsor of EuMW 2022, and many other sponsors supported the week’s activities, including Aresys, Copper Mountain, Dassault Systems, Huawei, Mician, Rohde & Schwarz, and Thales Alenia Space. JMA Wireess sponsored the EuMC Best Paper Award. In addition to 75 regular technical sessions, seven focus sessions, five poster sessions, and 30 workshops, the week was enriched by many other scientific and social events, including the following:
Figure 4. The 3MT® award ceremony.
Figure 5. The WIM session in Pinacoteca Ambrosiana.
The EuMC was held for the 50th time in 2022 and was organized by Alessandra Costanzo (Alma Mater Studiorum–Università di Bologna, conference chair), Luca D’Antonio (JMA Wireless conference cochair), and Marco Pasian (University of Pavia, TPC chair). The formal opening session was attended by more than 600 people, with a plenary talk on the emerging topic “Quantum Technology: Where Maxwell Meets Schrodinger,” with several visionary examples describing where microwave engineering impacts quantum application (Figure 6). The EuMC attendees almost exceeded 800 with 45 parallel sessions, five of which were either joint EuMIC or EuRAD sessions, with most of them starting with an invited industrial talk. The technical program was completed with four focused sessions and five special sessions together with 22 workshops.
Figure 6. The EuMC opening session.
In the closing session, two keynote speakers started the session, offering a deep view of two different and highly relevant topics. The first keynote was given by Prof. Andrea Massa, from the University of Trento, and was titled “New Trends and Advances in Wireless Communications—The Paradigm of the Smart Electromagnetic Environment.” The second keynote talk was given by Frederic Gianesello, ST Microelectronics, and was titled “Meeting the Challenges of Connectivity Technologies for Today and Tomorrow.”
Prizes were awarded to the best conference paper and to the three best Young Engineer conference papers, with the ceremony chaired by Giuseppe Macchiarella. The first Young Engineer Prize was awarded to Andre Engelmann for the paper “Meta-Gaps for Mechanically Reconfigurable Phased Arrays,” the second Young Engineer Prize was awarded to Han Zhou for the paper “Wideband Sequential Circulator Load Modulated Amplifier With Back-off Efficiency Enhancement,” and finally, the Microwave Prize was awarded to the paper authored by E. Bekker, A. Bhutani, L. Giroto de Oliveira, T. Antes, and T. Zwick, titled “Differential Split-Ring Resonator-Based Antenna at 140 GHz in Embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array Technology.”
We look forward to seeing you at EuMC 2023 in Berlin, Germany, which will provide you with the latest updates and new technologies in the field of microwaves.
The EuMIC was held for the 17th time in 2022, and after 20 years, it returned to Milan with a fully in-person event. This year’s conference was organized by Paolo Colantonio (the University of Rome Tor Vergata, conference chair); Francesco Barletta (Thales Alenia Space Italy, conference cochair); Alessandro Cidronali (University of Florence, TPC chair); and Rocco Giofrè (the University of Rome Tor Vergata, TPC cochair) (Figure 7). The conference was jointly organized by the European Microwave Association (EuMA) and the Gallium Arsenide Application Symposium Association (GAAS).
Figure 7. The EuMIC team.
Although this was the first conference of the week, starting at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning, a surprising number of people started gathering in the corridors. More than 70 high-quality papers were presented without a single no-show. The 2022 EuMIC conference was enhanced by the four workshops, three of which were in collaboration with EuMC, as well as the traditional and expected short course on power amplifier design.
Two focused sessions were organized to give more exposure to current hot topics in research. The focused sessions ranged from transistor-level [gallium nitride (GaN) device modeling] to emerging systems, addressing technology trends for millimeter-wave applications (“Beyond Millimeter-Wave Integrated Technologies for Wireless Communications”). This year, it was also confirmed that the topic “Power Amplifier Integrated Circuits” was the one that registered the most submissions, followed by the topics “Millimetre-Wave (Beyond 100 GHz) and THz Integrated Circuits” and “RF, Microwave, and Millimetre-Wave Integrated Circuits up to 100 GHz.”
The formal opening was attended by more than 400 people, and in the plenary talks, two prominent keynote speakers presented interesting visions of the state of the art and future perspectives in their respective areas (Figure 8). The first plenary talk was presented by Massimo C. Comparini (CEO of Thales Alenia Space), titled “New Space Race: Architectures and Technologies for Space Economy Exploration,” giving an overview of emerging architecture enabled by technology evolution and at the same time giving a kind of breakthrough vision on how technology evolution will potentially feed revolutionary architectures in orbit for space applications (Figure 9). The second plenary talk was presented by Sergio U. De Ceglie (CTO and head of technology, Thales Alenia Space), titled “A Strategic Perspective of Technology for Defense,” giving a counterpart overview of the exploitation and application of technology in the ground segment for defense and security applications in general (Figure 10).
Figure 8. The EuMIC opening session.
Figure 9. Massimo Comparini (center), keynote speaker of the EuMIC opening session, with Paolo Colantonio and Alessandro Cidronali.
Figure 10. Sergio U. De Ceglie (center), keynote speaker of the EuMIC opening session, with Paolo Colantonio, and Alessandro Cidronali.
As many as 23 technical sessions (of which four were held in conjunction with EuMC) were scheduled, with five papers each, opened by invited keynote speakers selected from outstanding scientists from industry and academia. They delivered introductory and review presentations, which enriched the technical program and provided an opportunity to listen to high-quality and well-known speakers, which is an enriching experience, especially for students and young professionals. Among those 19 technical sessions, the Foundry Sessions shared the point of view and road map of the silicon and III-V compound semiconductor technologies industries.
On Monday night, there was the traditional and convivial “get-together,” which was a good opportunity to relax at the end of the first day of the conference and enjoy a dinner with speakers and colleagues (Figure 11). This year, the event was sponsored by GAAS and TAS-I and was organized at Eastend Studios (www.eastendstudios.it). It was a magnificent evening, with an exciting video that retraced the various stages over the years.
Figure 11. The EuMIC get-together event.
In the closing session (Figure 12), European Space Agency keynote speaker, Natanael Ayllon, with a talk titled “Overview of MMIC Developments and Trends for Spaceborne Telecom Active Antennas at the European Space Agency,” launched the traditional foundry roundtable, under the supervision of Andrea Suriani and Marc Rocchi. Several worldwide foundries participated and outlined important trends for microwave semiconductors. A lively discussion arose, with animated participation by the audience, although not all controversies were resolved on stage!
Figure 12. The EuMIC closing session.
Prizes were awarded to the best conference paper and the best young engineer conference paper, and the ceremony was chaired by Giuseppe Macchiarella (Figure 13). The Young Engineer Prize was awarded to Andre Engelmann for the paper “Design of Two Low dc-Power High-Efficiency D-Band Power Amplifiers in 22 nm FD-SOI.” The combination of very high-frequency operation with an innovative silicon-based technology band highlights new and interesting frontiers of microwave electronics. The EuMIC Best Paper Award was presented to Luis C. Nunes, João L. Gomes, Filipe M. Barradas, and José Carlos Pedro for their paper “A Simple Thermally Activated Trapping Model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs.” The paper showed a high-power device modeling strategy for integrated power amplifiers.
Figure 13. The EuMIC award ceremony.
We look back to a very successful EuMIC 2022 (Figure 14) and look forward to an event in Berlin that is equally stimulating and refreshing. We look forward to EuMIC2023!
Figure 14. The EuMIC team at the closing session.
The 19th edition of EuRAD was held in Milan, Italy, on 28–30 September 2022, framed by the EuMW. EuRAD is the major European event reporting on the present status and future trends in the fields of radar research, technology, system design, and applications. This conference brings together the European network of researchers and practitioners, active in academia as well as in the industries and institutes, working on topics related to radar subsystems and phenomenology, radar signal and data processing, radar architecture and systems, and radar applications.
In the context of Microwave Week, EuRAD is focused on the applications of microwave technologies in military and civil radar. These also include many specific topics, such as waveform generators, signal processing, antenna systems, imaging and object classification, diversity techniques, various types of radars, active/passive radar networks, and radar technology, systems, and applications. This year’s edition was organized by a joint academic/industrial team that saw the Sapienza University of Rome (Pierfrancesco Lombardo, conference chair, and Debora Pastina and Fabiola Colone, TPC chairs) and Leonardo Company (Marco De Fazio, conference cochair) working side by side. After the online event during the dark times of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence of the long-postponed 2021 edition, the 2022 event returned to show a pleasant growth trend, exceeding 500 attendees.
The conference opening session on Wednesday was chaired by Pierfrancesco Lombardo and Marco De Fazio (conference chair and cochair) and included two well-attended plenary talks (Figures 15 and 16). The first talk was presented by Marco De Fazio (Managing Director Defense Systems Business Unit – Electronics Division Leonardo), who provided a global perspective of the present and future evolution in radar systems for land, naval, and airborne surveillance based on the 70-year-long heritage of Leonardo Company and in consideration of the new challenges (Figure 17).
Figure 15. The EuRAD opening session.
Figure 16. Marco Frasca (left) Alfonso Farina (center), and Pierfrancesco Lombardo (right) receiving the Leonardo da Vinci book after their keynote talk at the EuRAD opening session.
Figure 17. The keynote talk of the EuRAD cochair, Marco De Fazio.
The second talk was presented by Alfonso Farina (Leonardo Company, consultant) and Marco Frasca (MBDA, system analyst), who gave a review of the types of hypersonic threats available from the open literature and discussed the possible ways ahead to face such threats and some approaches that build on multilayer sensors, waveform optimization, and neural networks. Some key players with enough know-how to counter hypersonic missiles were also pointed out.
This year, the opening session of the conference was followed by the Defense, Security and Space Forum organized by Alfonso Farina (Leonardo Company, consultant) and Danilo Orlando (Niccolò Cusano University), which was dedicated to “Modern Defense Systems: Key Technologies and Future Challenges.” The Automotive Forum ran in parallel with the conference. This year’s edition was organized by Benjamin Nuss (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Martin Kunert (Bosch), Frank Gruson (ZF Friedrichshafen AG), and Alessandro Cidronali (University of Florence) and was devoted to “Automotive Radar Innovations and Interference Challenges.” These events have grown significantly since their inception and provide really important engagement of their respective communities interlinked with the radar community.
The conference program was engaging through focused sessions and workshops addressing key areas of interest, with lectures chosen from hundreds of submissions. It included topics on radar techniques, phenomenology, systems, and subsystems as well as consolidated and emerging applications in both civilian and defense scenarios. The event went smoothly with its 19 EuRAD oral sessions, four sessions in conjunction with the other EuMW conferences, and a poster session. Each oral session opened with either an academic or an industrial keynote speech, provided by a leading expert within its field, which helped start all the sessions with a top-level edge. The EuRAD lunch offered a pleasant break from the sessions to spend a more relaxed time before the final sessions and the last technical events (Figure 18).
Figure 18. Friday’s EuRAD lunch event.
The conference closing session on Friday was chaired by the TPC chairs, Debora Pastina and Fabiola Colone (Figure 19). The plenary talk was given by Roberto Venturini (head of observation payloads, Thales Alenia Space Italia), who provided an excellent overview of the future evolution of satellite-based radar with special attention to the contributions of Italian industry (Figure 20). Together with the technological point of view, the talk showed the potential of space-based radar observations on society.
Figure 19. The TPC chairs (a) Debora Pastina and (b) Fabiola Colone chaired the EuRAD closing session.
Figure 20. Roberto Venturini receiving the Leonardo da Vinci book after his keynote talk at the EuRAD Closing Session.
Two Best Paper Awards were presented during the closing session by the European Microwave Award Team Prizes, and the ceremony was chaired by Giuseppe Macchiarella (Politecnico di Milano) (Figure 21). The Best Conference Paper Award, sponsored by Thales, The Netherlands, was presented by Mayazzurra Ruggiano to M. Brinkmann for the paper “Material Characterization Using High-Resolution Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Imaging Radars,” by M. Brinkmann, F. Gumbmann, G.F. Hamberger, and B. Simper. The Young Engineer Prize, sponsored by Hensoldt, was presented by Guy Kouemou to P. Schoeder for the paper “A Modulation-Based Radar Target Simulator and Its Hardware Nonidealities,” by P. Schoeder, A. Martin, B. Meinecke, D. Werbunat, and C. Waldschmidt (Figure 22).
Figure 21. The EuRAD Best Paper Prize ceremony.
Figure 22. The EuRAD Young Engineer Prize ceremony.
With a successful event held in Milan, we look forward to the next edition, EuRAD 2023 in Berlin, confident that the growth rate of the previous editions will be maintained and even exceeded.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3256395