The IMS2016 team is developing a world-class technical program that will bring RF/microwave researchers and practitioners from around the world to San Francisco, CA in May 2016. IMS2016 will continue to offer technical sessions, interactive forums, plenary and panel sessions, workshops, short courses, application seminars, STEM activities, RF Boot Camp and a wide variety of other technical and social activities.

Technical Program Overview:

·         The traditional IMS Plenary session will be held Monday evening of Microwave Week, in conjunction with the IMS Welcome Reception.

·         Technical Sessions are comprised of podium presented papers, both full-length (20 min.) and short (10 min.).

·         Interactive Forum papers are evaluated through the same process as the regular session papers, and provide an opportunity for authors to present their work in a poster format and conduct detailed discussions in an informal manner with interested colleagues.

·         Presented papers, both regular and IF, are archival and will be included in the symposium digest, and will be submitted for inclusion to IEEE Digital Xplore

·         Student-authored papers which primarily represent the student’s own work may be eligible for participation in the popular IMS Student Paper Competition. 

·         Authors may also consider submitting expanded versions of their papers to the IMS Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

·         Focus Sessions highlight emerging new technical topics that are gaining importance and may be of significant interest to the microwave community. Focus Sessions may involve a specific emerging technology or may cover several technologies that are relevant to a common application. Focus Session papers are ORIGINAL works and are evaluated according to the same standards as regular paper submissions.

·         Special Sessions are designed to recognize events of historical significance to the microwave community, as well as highlight the technical achievements in a specific technical area, application space or geographical region of the world. Special Sessions may also recognize the life work of an MTT member by honoring their technical and/or service contributions to the microwave community.

·         Panel Sessions are one hour and twenty minutes long, typically held during lunchtime, and showcase technical leaders from industry, academia and government debating hot, and typically controversial, topics of the day in the RF/microwave community. Audience interaction is highly encouraged.

·         Through participation in the Student Design Competitions, IMS registered student teams from around the world will have the opportunity to demonstrate the application of strong RF/microwave engineering design principles in the development of the most elegant/efficient hardware solutions to predetermined design requirements. Student Design Competitions are proposed and organized by specific Technical Committees of the MTT-S.

·         Workshops provide an in depth and vibrant forum for academic researchers and industry experts to share in detail their recent research and development experiences/results on specific challenging and emerging RF/microwave engineering topics.

·         Short Courses offer opportunities for attendees to acquire a fundamental level of knowledge on proposed specific topics. Focused courses of broad interest from excellent instructors are encouraged. Short courses are solicited from all technical areas within MTT-S, including new microwave subject areas, as well as from related fields that directly impact the microwave community.

·         Microwave Application (MicroApps) seminars serve as a forum for exhibitors at the IMS to present the technology behind, and unique capabilities of, their commercial products. The MicroApps seminars are conducted in conjunction with the IMS Exhibition.

·         IMS has a long tradition of educating attendees through workshops, short courses, technical sessions, and other formats.  The majority of the technical programs at IMS are aimed at engineers already working in the microwave industry, with many sessions focused on specific topics.  IMS2016 will continue RF Boot Camp to provide an introduction to RF basics, targeting newcomers to the microwave world, such as new engineers fresh out of school, engineers changing their career path, and college students looking to gain practical experience.

Steven Rosenau & Anh-Vu Pham
IMS2016 TPC Co-Chairs