
OK
About Rick Sturdivant
Education:
Ph.D. Colorado State University
M.A. Biola University
M.S. Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles
B.S. Calif. State Univ., Long Beach
B.A. Vanguard University
Patents and Articles:
Dr. Sturdivant holds seven U.S. patents and has five pending. He has published 54 journal and conference articles on engineering of systems and components. He has also author several books and book chapters.
Career Summary:
Dr. Sturdivant founded MPT, Inc in 2003 and currently serves as its CTO. MPT provides products and services for phased arrays used in radar and communication systems as well as support components such as beam forming networks, high power amplifiers, low noise amplifiers, up/down converters, and digital receivers. He has taught engineering courses at Azusa Pacific University and Cal Poly Pomona.
He worked at Hughes Aircraft Company and then Raytheon Systems developing radar system components and modules. He designed the world's first radar Tile Array Module for which he was awarded the Engineering Excellence Award by Hughes Aircraft Company. He then worked for Multilink Corporation and helped grow the company to its public offering in 2002. At Multilink, he was instrumental in developing the world's first Ball Grid Array (BGA) modulator driver (Mach-zehnder) at 12.5Gb/S. Since 2003, he has started several successful technology companies that provide products and services in the radio frequency and wireless markets.
Professional Activities:
Dr. Sturdivant regularly presents at conference workshops and other venues. For several years he has been a guest lecturer for a course on T/R Modules for Phased Array Radar at Georgia Tech Research Institute. In addition, he has been an invited speaker to IEEE local chapters such as the local MTT-S chapter in San Diego, CA and the joint MTT-S and AP-S in Baltimore, MD. He has also taught professional development courses in the U.S. and Asia.
Personal:
Rick has been married for 30 years and is the father of a daughter and son. He is an amateur radio operator and enjoys astronomy and fly fishing.
Customers Also Bought Items By
Are you an author?
Author Updates
-
-
Blog postA challenge in packaging is undesired package resonances. The cause of these resonances is a volume that is enclosed by electric conductors to create a cavity. All metal cavities filled with a vacuum will display a resonance at a frequency given by
Cavity Resonant Frequency = fr=c/2a (1)
Where:
fr = frequency of the resonance (Hz)
a = width of the cavity (m)
c = speed of light in a vacuum (m/s)
The cavity resonance predicted by (1) is the lowest frequ3 years ago Read more -
Blog postThe power grid can sustain many different types of faults in the system. A fault can occurs when there is an unexpected rapid change in current. Faults can occur for many different reasons such as lighting strikes. Other causes are failure of insulating material, salt spray, sagging lines under high current conditions, and physical disruption such as a tree touching or falling on transmission lines or other parts of the grid. Fig. 1(a) shows a tree branch across two nodes in an experiment. Fi4 years ago Read more
-
Blog postOn March 31, 2017, Dr. Rick Sturdivant presented a peer reviewed paper at the IEEE Green Tech Conference. The paper is on research for a pico-hydro electric power generation system for the Nepal Himalayas. The research has revealed seven reasons that prior systems have failed and ways to overcome them. The paper also presented the baseline concept for the pico-hydro system. The paper will appear in the IEEE online archival system called IEEE Xplore. It may take a few weeks for it to be availa4 years ago Read more
-
-
Blog postWhen performing risk analysis, some companies have pre-existing ways to catpure risks. If that’s the case and if those existing risk capturing methods are working, then follow them and figure out methods for improving them. If not, then there are at least four ways to discover risks [1]. They are:
1. Schedule Based: In this approach a large print of the schedule is developed—at least 3 feet wide and scaled to the required height. Risk meeting participants add their risks to the schedu4 years ago Read more -
Blog postA recent reivew of the book Transmit Receive Modules For Radar and Communication Systems (Artech House, 2016) authored by Rick Sturdivant and Mike Harris was published in the IEEE Microwave Magazine Vol. 18, No. 2, 2017. The review of the book was written by Dr. James Chu who is an IEEE Senior Life Member and professor at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Georgia, United States. The review was very postive and the reviewer described the book as a “Must Have” item on the shelf for anyone4 years ago Read more
-
Blog postTapered slot antennas (TSA) have been used for many decades. Possibly the most familiar form of a TSA is the Vivaldi antenna [1]. This type of antenna has found extensive use in antenna array systems [2, 3]. Numerical methods have been used for their design such as the TLM method [4] and FDTD method [5]. However, one limitation of Vivaldi type TSA antennas is they are electrically large, up to several wavelengths long [6] which can limit their application where size is a concern.
An a4 years ago Read more -
Blog postMolniya orbit satellite systems follow elliptical orbits. Becuase they can avoid interference issues with geostationary satellit systems (such as satellite TV), the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has previously alocated significant bandwidth for these types of systems. For instance, the FCC granted a license to Virtual GEO with 4.5GHz of allowed bandwidth [1]. I published an article in the IEEE Access journal. The article is open access so it can be freely downloaded.
T4 years ago Read more -
Blog postLaptop computers have multiple features or characteristics that contribute to their reliability. The result is that laptop computers are in wide use with consumers. We will examine six of those characteristics and show how they contribute to laptop reliability.
1) Use Of Protective Materials
The first is the use of protective materials and structure for the display. Users expect their displays to be reliable and present high quality images during the full life cycle. Laptop stru4 years ago Read more -
Blog postSustainable electric power can be an impoortant part of solving hunger and health issues in remote areas of the world. However, sustainable solutions are still needed. As a result, I am part of an international team working to develop a sustainable pico-hydro electric power generation system for a village in the Nepal Himalayas. We are publishing our work so that the results can be used in other parts of the world. Some of our work was resently presented at the World Renewable Energy Congress4 years ago Read more
-
Blog postI presented three papers at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference in Phoenix January 17-18, 2017. This is an international conference and draws participants from around the world including Europe and Asia. The conference consists of five related conferences that focus on the intersection between wireless communication theory, systems, circuits, and device technologies. This creates a unique forum for engineers to discuss various technologies for state-of-art wireless systems and their end-us4 years ago Read more
This book provides engineers and researchers with practical designs and 44 examples of analysis, circuits, and components used in T/R modules. It also provides a solid explanation of the theory for how T/R modules operate and how they can be optimized. In addition, this book shows how the latest technical advances in silicon germanium (SiGe) and gallium nitride (GaN) are allowing levels of performance that were previously unachievable. The book concludes with informative chapters on testing, cost considerations, and the future of next generation T/R modules.
Using practical examples, this book helps solve problems often encountered by technical professionals. Thermal management challenges, antenna element design issues, and architectures solutions are explored as well as the benefits and challenges of digital beam forming. This book provides the information required to train engineers to design and develop phased arrays and contains questions at the end of each chapter that professors will find useful for instruction.
This book presents the latest developments in packaging for high-frequency electronics. It is a companion volume to “RF and Microwave Microelectronics Packaging” (2010) and covers the latest developments in thermal management, electrical/RF/thermal-mechanical designs and simulations, packaging and processing methods, and other RF and microwave packaging topics. Chapters provide detailed coverage of phased arrays, T/R modules, 3D transitions, high thermal conductivity materials, carbon nanotubes and graphene advanced materials, and chip size packaging for RF MEMS. It appeals to practicing engineers in the electronic packaging and high-frequency electronics domain, and to academic researchers interested in understanding the leading issues in the commercial sector. It is also a good reference and self-studying guide for students seeking future employment in consumer electronics.
RF and Microwave Microelectronics Packaging presents the latest developments in packaging for high-frequency electronics. It will appeal to practicing engineers in the electronic packaging and high-frequency electronics fields and to academic researchers interested in understanding leading issues in the commercial sector. It covers the latest developments in thermal management, electrical/RF/thermal-mechanical designs and simulations, packaging and processing methods as well as other RF/MW packaging-related fields.
The booklet starts out in Chapter 1 with an introduction to heat transfer. It describes why heat transfer is important and the mechanism of heat transfer. We describe why the book focuses on conduction. We then discuss Fourier’s heat conduction equation and how it applies to the analysis of electronic components.
Chapter 2 shows how to calculate heat dissipation in amplifiers. This is important since most microwave and millimeter-wave products use amplifiers which dissipate the majority of the power. We show a hands-on example of heat dissipation from a two amplifier transmit module. We also review power added efficiency and duty cycle.
Chapter 3 describes compact and straight forward methods to determine the junction temperature in electronic devices. This is important since the junction temperature determines the long term reliability. We show how to calculate the temperature rise in the electronic packaging.
Chapter 4 presents the five steps to success with commercial FEM thermal modeling. It shows modeling the electronic device, creating a 3D model assembly, creating a successful mesh, setting boundary conditions, and running the thermal simulation.
Chapter 5 shows how to create an equivalent thermal network and use electric circuit simulators for the solution. It also describes the 1-D heat transfer equation. The chapter focuses on the real world analysis of a package fabricated in HTCC alumina and shows how to analyze the metal layers and internal vias to predict the thermal resistance of the stack.
Chapter 6 outlines how to perform reliability calculations based upon heat transfer results. This is important since one of the main purposes of heat transfer analysis in electronics is to ensure long term reliability. We describe accelerated life testing, activation energy, mean time to failure (MTTF), and industry standards used in accelerated life testing.
Chapter 7 concludes the book with a short review of the topics discussed.
If you are looking to expand your knowledge of heat transfer analysis or are looking for a reference that will provide the knowledge needed for heat transfer of microwave and millimeter-wave electronics, then this book will be a welcome addition for you.