What are Microwaves & mmWaves - a 101 primer

Microwaves and millimetre waves or mmWaves are being talked about increasingly for use with radar 5G mobile communications, Wi-Fi and many other radio frequency or RF applications
In this video we talk to several experts to find out what microwaves and mmWaves are, the bands they use and also find out what advantages they bring.
Microwaves and millimetre waves are located within the radio frequency spectrum: microwaves are technically defined to occupy frequencies between 300 MHz and 30 GHz although many people tend to think of them starting at around 1 GHz.
the millimetre wave portion of the spectrum starts at 30 GHz and extends up to 300 GHz. Signals on these frequencies gain the name mmWaves because the wavelength of the signals is measured in millimetres, i.e. between 10 and 1 millimetres.
Within the microwave and mmWave portion of the spectrum there are other band designations like L band, S band, C band, X band and the like. We investigate the meanings of them, but a more definitive explanation and listing can be found in this link: www.electronics-notes.com/art...
For many years people used to associate microwaves with radar and the use of large expensive waveguide feeders. While microwave technology has moved on significantly since those days, waveguides are still used, and the sector is dominated by new semiconductor technology which has enabled significant cost reductions. Compound semiconductors using gallium arsenide GaAs, Gallium Nitride GaN and others now enable much cheaper RF designs to be realised.
Find out more about microwaves and millimetre waves: www.electronics-notes.com/art...
Check out the Electronics Notes website: www.electronics-notes.com
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[@brianmonteclaro9865]

impressive how these experts convey their industry in a more direct point of view. hopefully microvave systems can attain more far beyond in its current applications. thanks for this great video.

[@ElectronicsNotes]

Glad you like the experts we interviewed. I also think they did a great job.

[@TheMadMagician87]

Used to use microwave for point-to-point links in data networking. Have been out of that for a while now, but would love to see more videos about mm wave technologies and how the designs are handled (as you touched on here noting that the wavelength is of similar size to the features of the circuit etc). Thanks for the video.

[@ElectronicsNotes]

Glad you liked the video. I'll have to see what else we can do. Thanks for the idea.

[@matambale]

To add to the confusion, the prefix "micro" represents a smaller unit than "milli", but not in this topic; it must be that "micro" was adopted as a general term to describe really short wavelengths, rather than as a strict unit of measure. One could have expected them to be called "cmWaves". Maybe.

[@ElectronicsNotes]

I confess it is a term I have always accepted and would need to look into the origins of it a bit more.

[@ElectronicsNotes]

The reason microwaves are so called is because the wavelength is short, I.e. small & micro means small.

[@matambale]

@@ElectronicsNotes That's what I thought; I just find it fascinating that as a result, "millimeter waves" are smaller than "microwaves".

[@ElectronicsNotes]

I think it is because when the term microwave was first introduced nobody really thought about mmWaves. Also the term micro was a term that tended to be used rather loosely: microbore pipes, micro bus, and so forth. I don’t think the term was done scientifically.

[@matambale]

@@ElectronicsNotes Understood and thank you.

[@PCBWay]

That's really informative

[@ElectronicsNotes]

Really glad you found it interesting & useful.

[@PCBWay]

@@ElectronicsNotes You are soooo good at this!

[@ElectronicsNotes]

@@PCBWay Thank you.

[@PCBWay]

We do have some collab ideas not sure if have the interest? If yes, could you pls email: [e-mail] for a detailed discussion?😀