RF Microtech SRL (RFMIC), Italy

RF Microtech is a service company developing custom products and smart solutions for industries  and system integrators operating in the field of Telecommunications, SatCom, Aerospace, Localization and Manufacturing Industry. RF Microtech offers innovative solutions in the areas of sensors for real-time industrial processes control, radars for civil and military applications, antennas, phased arrays and beam forming network, microwave filters and multiplexers, tunable and reconfigurable devices, RF systems for satellite and terrestrial communications.

Founded in 2007 as a spin-off of Perugia University, in 2018 RF Microtech has reached  a number of about 20 employees, most of them engineers with PhD. RFMIC personnel has a wide and deep expertise in the electromagnetic modeling, simulation and design of microwave sensors, RF circuits and systems.

RFMIC works at different levels, from technical consultancy to system and sub-system design, from project management to manufacturing, test and characterization. The key activities of RF Microtech are in the in the modelling, custom design, production and test of:

• Microwave Sensors for Materials, Structure and Industrial Process Quality Control
• Indoor localization, navigation and sensing systems for real time monitoring in civil and industrial enviroments.
• Advanced RF devices (reconfigurable antennas, arrays, radars, beam forming networks, filters, amplifiers)
• Tunable and reconfigurable circuits

The company is partner of international players such as Huawei, Thales Alenia Space, Selex, Elettric80, SIAE Microelettronics, Elettronica Marittima and others. RFMIC owns a well-equipped laboratory for electronic and RF measurements up to 67 GHz. The characterization activity is an advanced area of the company business, necessary to provide fully characterized RF products and complete the design-manufacturing-packaging-test development chain.

RFMIC is strongly interested in participating to the present project to increase its knowledge and competitiveness in the area of miniaturized sensors and smart system. The participation in NANOSMART project will allow RFMIC to evaluate the potential of these new technologies as for their specific applications. The future integration of the NANOSMART Tx/Rx smart module and smart sensors in the RFMIC localization systems will drastically increase power efficiency and sensing capability of the system, enabling additional functionalities and low power consumption. RFMIC is strongly interested in the development of CNT NEMS technology as well, since it is one of the most promising technology for the realization of low loss miniaturized RF switches,  key components in future RF smart systems.

Resources:

Equipment and laboratory for electronic and RF measurements up to 67 GHz. Commercial simulation tools (HFSS; AWR, ADS, CST microwave Studio). Computational platforms. Access to the Perugia University clean room (class 1000), equipped for DC and RF probe measurements up to 40GHz

Role in NanoSmart:

RFMIC will lead WP5 (demonstrator activities) and will also focus on:

• Definition of the specifications for Demo 2
• Design and simulation activity in WP2 (CNT based NEMS components, 2D based building blocks)
• Definition and characterization of passive components (RF interconnections, off chip inductors, capacitors)
• Implementation (system simulation/assembly) and final experimental validation of the IoT demonstrator
• Exploitation and dissemination (where applicable) of the project results.

 

Key personnel:

Dr. Paola Farinelli (female). PhD in Microwave Engineering from the University of Perugia (2005), co-founder of RF Microtech in 2007 and head of the RF MEMS R&D unit of the company. Her research interests includes the RF and thermo-mechanical modeling and design of RF components and subsystems (high-Q passives, MEMS, steerable antennas, interconnections and packaging). She leads or had leading roles in several UE and ESA research projects: (SPACEFIT, MEMSET, MEMSPACK, ARASCOM, RESKUE) and currently she is the coordinator of the MIGNON project on Micro-machined Multilayer Filters.

Dr. Hamza El Ghannudi (male) Ph.D. degree in Microwave and Electronic engineering from the University of Science and Technology of Lille, France (2007). Since 2009 he joined RF Microtech and he is the head of the Microwave Systems and Sensor unit of the company. He leads or has a leading role in different private and public research and development projects, like the Eurostars project MEMSET, MEMSPACK, RESKUE, VISPO.

Dr. Luca Marcaccioli (male). PhD in Microwave Engineering from the University of Perugia (2005), co-founder of RF Microtech in 2007. He is currently member of the Board of Directors, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and Head of the Antenna Division of the company. He is the author or co-author of several awarded technical papers published in international journals or conference. He leads or had leading roles in several UE, ESA and private projects (VISPO, SAET, ARASCOM, RESKUE and others).

Dr. Alessandro Cazzorla (male) He received the Master degree in Informatic and Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Perugia (Italy) in 2010. His thesis was focused on the “Automatic Characterization of an electro-optic transceiver”. From 2009 to 2012, he was employed at the University of Perugia working on Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN) for positioning/tracking applications and environmental sensors (such as moisture in pellet or woodchip). In 2011 he was responsible for the hardware (HW) and software (SW) implementation of an indoor positioning system based on UWB protocol. The latter results in several scientific publications as author and co-author. in 2015 he receive the PhD degree from the University of Perugia and he is currently working at RFM in the microwave systems division.

Prof. Roberto Sorrentino (male) Professor in Electromagnetism at University of Perugia from 1990, funded RF Microtech in 2007. He is the scientific advisor of all projects lead by RFM and University of Perugia. He has been the technical coordinator of the FP6 Network of Excellence AMICOM “Advanced MEMS for RF and Millimeter Wave Communications” He is the author or co-author of more than 300 technical papers in international journals or conference papers and several books. Since 2010 he is the Project Sponsor and Honorary President of RF Microtech