1. 64 IMS Special Issue May 2012
T
he 2011 Inter-
national Micro-
wave Symposium
(IMS2011) Student De-
sign Competitions were a
wonderful experience for
students from all over the
world to exercise their
design skills and com-
pete with one another.
The competitions held
at IMS2011 in Baltimore
consisted of six different
hardware designs, each
sponsored by one of the
IEEE Microwave Theory
and Technique Society’s
(MTT-S’s) technical com-
mittees. In addition, multiple compa-
nies were instrumental in supporting
the competitions by providing measure-
ment equipment as well as components
and software for the student teams.
Thesixdesigncompetitionsincluded
a power amplifier, low-noise amplifier,
packaged triplexer, wideband balun,
optical-to-microwave converter, and a
software-defined radio. Each of these
competitions required the students
to design and build a component or
system that was brought to Baltimore
and measured at the symposium. The
atmosphere of such a competition has
a definite excitement with the students
all gathering around to see how each
other’s designs perform.
The design goals of each of the six
competitions as well as the winning
students are provided here. While in
the cases of the amplifier designs and
the packaged triplexer, clear winners
emerged from the competition, the other
competitions proved to be more difficult
with only a few intrepid students even
daring to attempt the designs. Neverthe-
less, all of the students participating in
the competitions were recognized at the
Student Awards Luncheon at IMS2011,
and the winners received certificates
and prizes as determined by the MTT-S
technical committees.
Power Amplifier Design
The competitors were required to design,
construct, and measure a high-efficiency
power amplifier (PA). The contest rules
required the PA to operate at a frequency
greaterthan1GHzbutlessthan20GHzand
produce an output power of greater than
5 W but less than 100 W into a 50-V
load with an input drive
requirement less than +25
dBm. The winner was
judged on the design that
demonstrated the highest
power added efficiency
(PAE) weighted for fre-
quency of operation.
Junghwan Moon and
Junghwan Son, under
the guidance of Prof.
Bumman Kim from the
Pohang University of
Science and Technology
(POSTECH), Republic of
Korea, produced a GaN
HEMT power amplifier
operating at 3.48 GHz
that achieved a PAE of 80%.
Low-Noise Amplifier
Competitors were required to design,
construct, measure, and demonstrate a
high linearity (as measured by the out-
put third-order intercept point value)
low-noise amplifier (LNA) at 2.45 GHz.
The winner was judged considering an
LNA figure of merit determined from
the noise figure and the output third
order intercept (OTOI) point compared
to the dc power.
Stephan Werker and Christian
Stedler, under the guidance of Prof.
Rainer Kronberger from Fachhoch-
schule Koln University, delivered an
LNA with a noise figure of 0.86 dB and
an OTOI of 31 dBm with a dc power
consumption of 11.7 mW.
Packaged Triplexer
The objective of the competition was
to demonstrate effective filter design
IMS2011 Student
Design Competitions
N. Scott Barker
N. Scott Barker (nsb6t@virginia.edu)
is with the University of Virginia.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2012.2186097
Date of publication: 9 April 2012
Figure 1. Students gather around to see how the competition is shaping
up. (Photo by LylePhotos.com, Atlanta—used with permission.)

2. IMS Special Issue May 2012 65
techniques where the constraints of a
package impact the design. In this case,
the design was a triplexer (or channeliz-
ing filter). The triplexer was to divide the
common port input spectrum into three
channels: 3.3–3.8 GHz, 3.8–4.35 GHz,
and 4.35–5.0 GHz. The crossover points
between channels (3.80 and 4.35 GHz)
were to occur at the −3 dB points of each
channel. The designs were judged using
predefined criteria that included filter
performance and robustness.
The winner of the Triplexer Com-
petition was Jyun-Yi Wu from the
National Central University, Taiwan.
Wideband Balun
The competitors were required to
design, construct, and test a passive
wideband balun at a frequency band
starting from a minimum of 1 MHz
to as high as possible. The minimum
impedance ratio was 2:1 with a maxi-
mum VSWR of 2:1 and a maximum
insertion loss of 1 dB. The common
mode rejection ratio was to be greater
than 25 dB and the phase imbalance
less than 2.5°. This design proved to be
quite challenging with only one entry
even attempting to meet the design
requirements. Perhaps more students
will be inspired to step up to this chal-
lenge at IMS2012 in Montréal!
Software-Defined Radio
The competitors were required to sub-
mit a software-defined radio (SDR)
implementation on a breadboard or a
development board that contained one
or more programmable devices, front-
end analog RF circuitry, an analog to
digital converter, and some form of
analog output that could be either on
the board or within an accompanying
computer that included SDR software
producing an analog output from that
computer. This was an open-ended
design competition with the main cri-
teria for judging being innovation and
also the success of reaching the goals
set by the student team.
Two teams participated. Ismail
Bayram, Seyyid Dilek, Gülru Cam,
and Okan Emre Özen, a group of
undergraduate students from Istanbul
Technical University under the direc-
tion of Prof. Osman Ceylan, success-
fully demonstrated their
software-defined radio.
The other team, who
also successfully demon-
strating their SDR, was
composed of graduate
students Julien Henaut
and Thomas Beluch and
their advisor Prof. Daniela
Dragomirescu from the
University of Toulouse.
Optical-to-
Microwave Converter
The objective of the contest was to
demonstrate new and effective pho-
todiode power combining and power
extraction techniques for stringent
microwave photonics applications. Fol-
lowing the submis-
sion of a proposal
describing the poten-
tial solution, contes-
tants were provided
six predefined photo-
diodes. The ensuing
designs were judged
using predefined cri-
teria that included
converter efficiency,
maximum power
output, and linear-
ity. For IMS2011, nei-
ther of the participating teams were able
to meet the stringent requirements—
another opportunity for this year’s
students!
Figure 2. A student team tests their design at IMS2011. (Photo by LylePhotos.com,
Atlanta—used with permission.)
Figure 3. Accurate measurements are needed to determine the winners of each
competition. (Photo by LylePhotos.com, Atlanta—used with permission.)
This was an
open-ended design
competition with
the main criteria
for judging being
innovation and
also the success
of reaching the
goals set by the
student team.