Top products from r/rfelectronics

We found 33 product mentions on r/rfelectronics. We ranked the 53 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top comments that mention products on r/rfelectronics:

u/kawfey · 12 pointsr/rfelectronics

> I signed up for an amateur radio licensing course

That's actually very relevant. This is the best way to learn a few EE junior-level fundamentals before you even take classes on them, and a majority of EEs and RF engineers are hams. It's an excellent way to network in the industry.

RFwise, the default answer around here is Pozar's Microwave Engineering book for some excellent theory, as well as Experimental Methods in RF Design for practical examples and projects.

I would also find a way to get HFSS/CST/FEKO through your university, either by taking courses and look for opportunities for research or independent study. Practically, build some ham radio antennas, get an RTLSDR (see /r/RTLSDR) and play around, build some cheap transmitter and receiver kits like the Pixie, and get involved with a ham club.

The indistury is strongly moving towards SDR and FPGA-based radio designs, so it might be wise to learn a bit VHDL/Verilog/FPGA programming, which is something I need to do. The industry uses a ton of MATLAB too.

If you are looking for a good RF internship/coop, I would look at Radio Observatories like the Very Large Array. If you meet Paul Harden (ham call NA5N) and mention you want to learn about RF design, he will blow your mind.

u/moretorquethanyou · 5 pointsr/rfelectronics

That is a FANTASTIC reference book. Keep it forever because it will always be useful. IMHO, he doesn't even make an attempt to teach anything with that book, but it has earned a place on my bookshelf next to Paul, and Rhode&Schwartz's book on VNAs.

I'm loathed to recommend Balanis because I had so much trouble with that book, but it did cover waveguides reasonably well. Or at least, I think he covered waveguides better than he did boundary conditions and incident reflections.

In the end I wound up reading about 4 textbooks to get a good understanding during my first graduate EM course. I don't recall which they were anymore but I'm pretty sure all but Balanis were openly published and could be found again. I believe that I found one of the ones that I used under MIT's open courseware.

u/analogdude · 3 pointsr/rfelectronics

I second Pozar and also recommend an oldie: "Design of Amplifiers and Oscillators by the S-parameter Method," which is a good complement to Pozar. (It doesn't hurt that you can pick it up for ~$10 used on Amazon)

Also, [Gonzalez](Microwave Transistor Amplifiers: Analysis and Design ) is a good book for microwaves/RF.

You may also like Microwaves 101, a truly great website.

u/Tekn0maanCer · 2 pointsr/rfelectronics

Pozar's Microwave Engineering is a great book.

Microwaves 101 is a great website. It has information on how to self-educate on the subject as well (book suggestions, etc.)

Intro to Airbourne RADAR is another nice book with a RADAR focus.

The Agilent Impedance Measurement Handbook is required reading IMHO.

There are quite a bit of great papers published by the big companies, for example Rhode & Schwartz, Agilent, Analog Devices, and so on. Once you learn about what the names of the subfields of focus are you can look for papers on a particular technology or simulation/testing/analysis method.

u/mantrap2 · 4 pointsr/rfelectronics

Usually you can worry primarily about thermal noise in RF and subsume other noise sources into component specs as "noise figure".

Thermal noise dominates non-semiconductor noise at RF frequencies.

Semiconductors are all these other noise sources but in practice you subsume them into NF. NF is empirically measured for a given amplifier or component. So you pull it off of a data sheet most often.

There are some issues with that because many of these other noise sources are current or voltage dependent in magnitude so it's important to define/use a constant bias on the semiconductor when you measure NF.

The last issue, which does bite you in RF perversely is 1/f noise. 1/f noise only occurs in semiconductor devices at frequencies below 1 MHz and often only below 1 KHz. The characteristic on a Lin-Log spectrum is a straight line with -1 slope or f(^-1) or 1/f. There are other types of noise that have other exponents as well but 1/f is one of the dominant ones.

So how does a low frequency noise phenomena become an RF problem? Oscillators. Both fixed oscillators and especially VCOs as used in PLLs. Because 1/f is "low frequency DC", things like semiconductor bias point and VCO offset always have a 1/f noise component and that cause the RF frequency out of the oscillator to have a "skirt" that is known as "phase noise". Phase noise typically defines numerous RF design spec limitations from carrier accuracy to channel spacing to data rate.

Programs like SPICE do solve noise (using the .NOISE command) as primarily thermal noise (newer semiconductor models do shot and other noise types). SPICE does this for every resistor in the circuit, both user defined and linearized component defined (semiconductors) had a series a noise voltage source (making every resistor a Thevenin).

This done by solving the large signal bias point, solving the parameters of the hybrid pi models of all semiconductors and then setting user defined signal inputs to zero and only having voltage noise sources in the circuit and solving for noise voltages and currents through out.

This is NOT hand-calculation viable but only computer-only viable as circuit analysis. Your transistor SPICE models must support noise parameters as does your SPICE simulator (all do thermal noise but not all do other types - remember the voltage/current dependencies of many of these - it's a bookkeeping mess only a computer does well).

Usually you get SPICE models with noise parameters from the transistor vendor. The transistor vendor measures the noise empirically to generate the SPICE parameters. They do that by buying test systems like my company makes. It's not cheap - typically $100K-$500K worth of capital investment.

For hand solution you usually do NOT do transistor-level solutions but instead do a system flow diagram level of noise-by-stage in the signal path using Noise Figure which has all those kinds of noise bundled in.

If you are crazy like I am and want to dig deeper into the various types of noise seen in semiconductor:

http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~wilambm/pap/2011/K10147_C011.pdf

The general rule of thumb: noise comes from material boundaries and their imperfections. The specific physics due to that cause each type (or don't - it becomes semiconductor device design specific).

I don't have this book but it looks relevant to your question ($$$$$):

https://www.amazon.com/Noise-Theory-Linear-Nonlinear-Circuits/dp/047194825X

u/erasmus42 · 1 pointr/rfelectronics

I found Microstrip Lines and Slotlines by Gupta, Garg and Bahl to be an excellent reference and for learning about microstrip, and I trust the author's subsequent works.

The same authors wrote Microstrip Antenna Design Handbook although I haven't read it.

It looks like Pozar wrote a book on Microstrip Antennas which is worth a look (I haven't read this one either). His Microwave Engineering is an excellent textbook.

u/rfdave · 3 pointsr/rfelectronics

Bowick, RF Circuit Design is the book that every RF engineer at Motorola had.

http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-Second-Christopher-Bowick/dp/0750685182

I haven't seen the 2nd edition, but the first was a pretty good book.

u/jlbraun · 2 pointsr/rfelectronics

Ditto this.

The second edition is also available and cheaper.

Bowick has the best treatment of smith charts that I have ever read, even better than Pozar or Ludwig.

u/ispringer · 4 pointsr/rfelectronics

This one has been helpful. You should also learn to know and love smith charts. Very useful in matching impedances, and will make filter design ever so much easier.

u/Fraz0R_Raz0R · 6 pointsr/rfelectronics

RFIC design is the culmination of Analog IC Design, EM, Communication Theory and pretty much everything in EE. If you want a good introduction to the subject try reading Dr Tom Lee's book -

The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits


It is a bit old but its still the gold standard for RFIC design.


Regarding the relationship between Analog and RF design, its the parasitics and Transmission Line Theory. At very frequencies everything is a cap/inductor so modelling those and designing around them is what makes RFIC design challenging.

u/frozenbobo · 5 pointsr/rfelectronics

If you are interested in doing anything in the microwave spectrum (which includes most modern communication standards), then Pozar is the book which everyone seems to have for the basics. The first couple chapters are super math heavy in deriving stuff from electromagnetics, but if simply learn the basics of transmission lines either from there or from another source, the following chapters mostly contain algebra, if I recall correctly.

u/thetwaddler · 10 pointsr/rfelectronics

Pozar. Covers a good variety of the basics of RF.

u/BrohanFranzen · 2 pointsr/rfelectronics

If you're looking for more resources on RFID design I'd check this book out