EEWebPULSE_2012_i0049.pdf

EE Web

PULSE

EE Web.com

Issue 49

June 5, 2012

Ferenc Marki and

Christopher Marki

Marki Microwave

Electrical Engineering Community

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ferenc Marki and Christopher Marki

MARKI MICROWAVE

Interview with Ferenc Marki - President and Christopher Marki - Director of Operations

Featured Products

What is a PCB Array?

BY PETER BRISSETTE WITH BAY AREA CIRCUITS

An in-depth look at a new connected board assembly method that can expedite the manufacturing

process while reducing the costs.

Sensors, Smart Sensors, and Sensor

Control Electronics

BY TAMARA SCHMITZ WITH INTERSIL

A discussion of a variety of smart sensors and their impact on the robotics industry.

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic

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M arki

Ferenc Marki - President (left)

Christopher Marki - Director of Operations (right)

INTERVIEW

Ferenc and

Christopher

Marki Microwave

Can you tell us about your

work experience before

founding Marki Microwave?

FM: I’ve been working in the

microwave industry since 1971. I

started my career at Watkins Johnson

(WJ), where I started, almost from

day one, as a mixer designer. I

eventually moved on to Avantek,

and then Western Microwave

where I continued developing

new, advanced mixers, especially

most of the triple balanced mixers

on the market today. In 1991, I

started Marki Microwave with the

goal of becoming the premier high

performance mixer vendor in the

world.

CM: Because of my dad’s contacts,

I was able to take internships at both

Lucent and Anritsu while I was still

an undergrad at Duke. I decided

to avoid entering the real world

after college and instead went to

UC San Diego to pursue a PhD in

Photonics (high speed fiber optics,

actually). While at UCSD, I gained

some valuable experience working

on DOD projects and consulting for

a startup called Ziva Corporation.

After 5 years of chasing government

money, though, I realized that

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INTERVIEW

my dad had much more to share

about engineering and business

development than anyone I knew,

so the obvious choice was to learn

the family business.

brilliant experimental scientist I’ve

met. He taught me how to do good

science. Stojan always had the right

combination of blue sky dreaming

with a practical “just get it done”

engineering attitude. Beyond that,

I think both my father and myself

look at Dr. Richard Feynman as

the greatest role model for our

profession. We both devour any and

all Feynman literature…the man

was a down to earth genius.

weight in gold is the “Ecal” module

that performs fast calibration of the

PNA. I can calibrate the box while

I go for coffee…now that’s service.

What are your favorite

software tools that you use?

What have been some of your

inluences that have helped

you get to where you are

today?

FM: I don’t use any software tools,

just intuition. I don’t even have email.

CM: HFSS for 3D simulation work.

Microwave Office for schematic

work. MATLAB for theoretical work.

LabView for test setup automation.

FM: There a many talented

individuals who have helped me

throughout my career. From a mixer

designer perspective, two of the

most influential and brilliant minds

I was inspired by are Bob Maou

and Don Neuf (Miteq). Bob and

Don’s work always pushed me to

advance the art of mixer design.

Perhaps most importantly, however,

is the influence of my wife, and

Marki Microwave Vice President,

Christine Marki. In the early 90s,

Marki Microwave was very small

and there was no guarantee that our

company would survive. Christine’s

steady and organized approach

to the company finances and

procedures were as important to

our survival as my understanding of

high performance mixers.

What are your favorite

hardware tools that you use?

What is the hardest/trickiest

bug you have ever ixed?

FM: All of my test equipment. I

have boxes that still say “HP” (now

Agilent) and “Wiltron” (now Anritsu)

on the front. I am an empirical

FM: When I started working

on mixers, there was very little

literature explaining how mixers

actually worked, especially when

it came to describing effects like

intermodulation distortion, two-

tone, and the simple fact that all

mixers require a specific LO drive.

We had to develop our intuition

about the cause and effect in our

designs and work tirelessly at the

lab bench to achieve better and

better performance. People called

mixers “black magic” in those

days for good reason, they were

quite mysterious to even so-called

“experts”.

Don’t assume good

ideas have already

been tried, or simple

ideas are too obvious.

scientist, and experiments are

how I learn my trade. There is

no substitute for high quality test

equipment.

CM: Obviously, my dad. Beyond

that, though, are my two professors

from UCSD: Sadik Esener and

Stojan Radic. Sadik taught me

how to think about technology

development in a way that made

me self-reliant. That skill is often

under-developed in graduate

students because their professors

simply give them problems to

solve. Sadik made me fend for

myself to define my projects, which

is invaluable now that I am Director

of Operations at Marki Microwave.

Stojan Radic is perhaps the more

CM: I wrote an entire program

dedicated to designing ultra-

broadband directional couplers in

MATLAB. All you have to do is plug in

the number of sections, the coupling

value, and the coupling ripple, and

the program gives you a physical

circuit that I then send to the board

house for fabrication. During the

development, I had to figure out a

way perform a calculation involving

a nonlinear set of equations with

CM: The Agilent PNA-X vector

network analyzer changed my life.

Experiments that once took my dad

20 minutes to setup are now available

to me at the click of a mouse. We

now have a full measurement

suite saved in the PNA-X that can

measure almost any mixer metric

with great ease compared to the

“old school” way of doing it. Of

course, my dad refuses to use the

box. The other hardware worth its

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