In my opinion, the Antenna Theory two volume set edited by Robert E. Collin and Francis J. Zucker are the best books on the subject written so far. Only problem is that these two books are very hard to find even at college/university libraries. Part I of the volume is actually quite easy to find on eBay or on Amazon (from private sellers) and goes for around $200.00. Basic antenna theory is covered in Part I. Part II is the harder of the two to find and Part II covers in great detail exotic antenna topics such as surface wave antennas, leaky wave antennas, and microwave lenses. I have not seen Part II being offered online so far. I was lucky enough to find both books and now they are a part of my extensive microwave engineering book collection.

The 2007 International Microwave Symposium (IMS) orgainized by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) was held in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference was a six day event (June 3rd – June 8th) which included workshops, presentations, poster sessions, award banquets, and various exhibits.

The newest version of Ansoft HFSS v11 was officially released today at the 2007 IMS conference held in Honolulu Hawaii. The new version of HFSS provides better accuracy and performance than previous versions according to Ansoft. Some of the new features in HFSS v11 are

• Ability to simulate larger structures (multipe wavelengths) in a more efficient manner.
• Revised port solver which can simulate lower frequencies and has a lower noise floor.
• Genetic algorithm optimization as part of Optimetrics.

For all the newest features of Ansoft HFSS v11, please visit the HFSS website at http://ansoft.com/products/hf/hfss/.

“The new technology in HFSS v11 allows our customers to perform massive simulations of structures that were simply too large to solve previously,” said Dr. Zoltan Cendes, Ansoft’s chairman and chief technology officer. “Designers of high-frequency and high-speed components now have the ability to explore electromagnetic performance over a range of dimensions, orientations, material parameters and frequencies and hence to gain design insights that were not possible before.”

Ansoft is a leading developer of high-performance electronic design automation (EDA) software. Engineers use Ansoft software to design state-of-the-art electronic products, such as cellular phones, Internet-access devices, broadband networking components and systems, integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), automotive electronic systems and power electronics. Ansoft markets its products worldwide through its own direct sales force and has comprehensive customer-support and training offices throughout North America, Asia and Europe. For more information, please visit http://www.ansoft.com.

HFSS v11 is available on the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows XP Professional; Windows XP x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition; Red Hat Enterprise Linux v3 and v4; and Solaris 8, 9 and 10.

The one book any microwave engineer should have on their desk is Microwave Engineering by David M. Pozar. This book has it all from basic electromagnetic theory, transmission lines, S-parameters, passive and active microwave components to microwave systems. This is the number #1 microwave engineering book in my opinion.