TH4B Microwave History in Boston Area
George Jerinic, chair
Paradox ScientificThe history of the development of the microwave oven and of radar technologies will be recalled both during the presentations and the interactions between participants. Boston-area technologists from academia, government and industry organizations played key roles in this development. Their role will be the focus of the presentations. The several enclosed figures are examples of what will be presented. Refreshments will be provided to encourage the informal exchange of memories and of the interesting stories behind these developments.
“The development of the microwave oven is a wonderful accomplishment and has given a new meaning to the word microwave,” says Dr. John Osepchuk. He will discuss how the microwave oven was invented and address the questions of who designed and made the first one and who was the first one to market it for home use. He will also recall the radiation scare and the truthfulness of other legends. The current trends and future developments will also be addressed.
Dr. Eli Brookner’s presentation will focus on the history of radar development from the contributions of the MIT Radiation Laboratory during WWII until today. The past and on-going contributions of other organizations, i.e. MITRE, M/A-Com, Hanscom ESD, Sylvania, Sperry, Varian, Signatron, Radant, Ansoft, TASC and BAE will be discussed as well as Raytheon’s work. Dr. Brookner has played a key role in the development of Raytheon’s mechanically scanned and phased-array radars,which earned him the anecdotal title “Radars-are-us”.
David Laighton will further expand on Raytheon’s development of solid state phased array radar systems. His talk will span period from WWII magnetron production, PAVE PAWS, BMEWS until ground based radar (GBR) and airborne radar for the F-18. These latest radar systems were enabled by development of MMIC technologies (chip and module). David Laighton headed the engineering effort which developed GBR T/R module.
The last three decades of the 20th century saw the birth and rapid development of monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology which dramatically changed the microwave industry. Dr. Nicholas Kolias will review the pioneering work done at Raytheon. In 1978, Raytheon’s first single stage X-band power amplifier was demonstrated to be followed, in 1979, by two and four FET circuits. The parallel combining of FET “fingers” and FET unit cells was made possible by two Raytheon innovations: the air bridge and via hole technologies. The demonstrations of multi-stage amplifiers and the T/R switch in 1980 and travelling wave amplifier and phase shifter MMIC during 1981 followed. The same year, 1981, these components were used as building blocks of the first all-MMIC T/R module. Further work resulted in the realization, by 1986, of the highly integrated single chip T/R module. At this point in time, DARPA’s MIMIC program provided the invaluable technology “push” which enabled the realization of the ground based radar as well as a great number of other applications. The mobile phone industry is one of excellent examples of commercial applications enabled by this government investment. Highlights from this program as well as from other related development efforts will also be reviewed.
The second half of the 20th century was an exceptionally exciting period for the pioneers of microwave technology. Share in their legacy and participate in passing of their experience to the future pioneers of the 21st century.
