Essentials of RF and Microwave Grounding (Artech House Microwave Library) [Hardcover]

Eric Holzman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1580539416 | ISBN-13: 978-1580539418

Grounding is a widespread and serious problem in microwave and RF engineering and, up until now, there hasn't been a practical, authoritative resource dedicated to the topic. This first-of-its-kind volume offers professionals a comprehensive understanding of the proper grounding techniques to use when working on varied microwave circuit and antenna design projects. Practitioners learn what problems can occur when grounding design is inadequate, and how to avoid them. The book covers a wide range of critical topics, from the fundamentals of low frequency circuit theory and the differences between DC and RF short circuits...to grounding in active microwave component design and grounding issues related to antennas.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Holzman is a consulting engineer in the Advanced RF Product Technology Department of Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems. Previously, he was a senior engineer at YDI Wireless. Dr Holzman is a Senior Member of the IEEE, former reviewer for the Transactions on Antennas and Propagation journal, and past Chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the IEEE. He earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles, all in electrical engineering.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Artech House Publishers (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580539416
• ISBN-13: 978-1580539418
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,087,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Holzman earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles, all in electrical engineering.

He has worked as a Senior Engineer for an East-Coast Defense Contractor since 2004. His work involves the design and analysis of antennas operating from UHF to millimeter-wave frequencies. From 1999 until 2004, he was a Senior Microwave Engineer at YDI Wireless where he designed antennas and transceiver circuits for a variety of commercial fixed wireless applications. From 1993 until 1999, he was a Principal Engineer and Manager at Lockheed Martin Government Electronic Systems where he was involved in the design of advanced, solid-state phased arrays. He began his career designing power oscillators, low noise amplifiers and antennas for Hughes Missile Systems Company.

Dr. Holzman is a Senior Member of the IEEE, reviewer for the Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques and past Chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the IEEE Antennas/Microwave societies. He was a member of the organizing committee for the Benjamin Franklin Symposium in 1995, 1996 and 1997. He is author of the texts Essentials of RF and Microwave Grounding (Artech House 2006) and Solid-State Microwave Power Oscillator Design (Artech House, 1992), author of about 35 publications and holder of seven patents in the microwave field. He was Lockheed Martin "Engineer of the Year" in 1997 for his work on antennas and transmit/receive modules. He is a former Howard Hughes Fellow, listed in Who's Who in Young America (1992) and a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to fill an important void in our field, March 31, 2006

By 

Lance Lascari "RFdude.com" (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essentials of RF and Microwave Grounding (Artech House Microwave Library) (Hardcover)

I thought this book was an excellent treatment of a variety of topics relating to RF/microwave grounding. It was very readable and didn't get too bogged down in the mathematical details in all cases -- though the background was there for those interested. In the first couple of chapters the author covers the basics and brings the reader up to speed relatively quickly using the key concepts without going into incredible detail (this is where I usually stop reading some technical books and just refer to them, in this case I read the book in the first two days I owned it).

It was particularly good to see examples of the concepts demonstrated through actual commercial circuit implementations. There are some very appropriate examples relating to the grounding of amplifiers and filters.

The chapter on transmission line transitions was particularly interesting, I've not seen as wide a treatment of this topic in one place before. The chapter on antennas seemed out of place at first but was quite good.

The book won't necessarily answer all of your questions but it may help to provide you with the background and inspiration you need to figure it out for yourself.

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique reference on real-life microwave design problems, November 2, 2008

By 

Constantine Kakoyiannis "the RF idiot" (Athens, Greece) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essentials of RF and Microwave Grounding (Artech House Microwave Library) (Hardcover)

In the past 8 years that I've been working as an electrical engineer I've read dozens of books on microwave/antenna theory & design. I can confidently say that Eric Holzman's book is unique in its kind. Most young engineers, including myself, cannot even realize that their systems might suffer from RF grounding problems, until something goes very wrong. This book is a much-needed "rude awakening" into real-life microwave design problems, and deserves to find its own vital space in microwave literature.

The book essentially begins with Chapter 2, where the author attempts a nice parallelism between electrostatics and electromagnetics as a way to define the notion of "RF ground".

The core of the book comprises Chapters 3 and 4. The practical information given on proper grounding of TL's and how to make the transition between TL's is indispensable. Some nice references can be found there, too.

Chapters 5 and 6 are much more focused. Ch. 5 will benefit the amplifier designer, while Ch. 6 tries to convince the antenna designer that sometimes the ground plane is more important than the radiating element itself. Both chapters could have been much larger in extent, with many more practical examples. Unfortunately, the author and publisher decided to keep them at about 40 pages each. Nonetheless, their worth is inversely proportional to their extent.

To sum it all up, the book is worth every penny. It's a definite must for engineers who have delved into RF/MW theory but not so much into hardware and its intricacies.