RFMD's Kevin Kobayashi Named 2013 IEEE Fellow

8th January 2013

ES Admin

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RF Micro Devices announce that RFMD Fellow Kevin W. Kobayashi has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers by the IEEE Board of Directors. The IEEE grade of Fellow was conferred on Mr. Kobayashi in recognition for his extraordinary contributions to monolithic microwave integrated circuits. The IEEE is the world's largest professional association for the advancement of technology. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the total IEEE voting membership is recognized each year by the IEEE Board of Directors for elevation to IEEE Fellow.

Bob Bruggeworth, CEO and president of RFMD, said, Kevin is an outstanding engineer with an extraordinary record of accomplishments. His extensive industry knowledge and deep expertise across multiple technologies are valuable assets to RFMD and to our customers. We stand with the IEEE in congratulating Kevin for his industry achievements and for his recognition as IEEE Fellow.

Mr. Kobayashi is the principle author of 130 technical publications and the inventor of 48 U.S. patents. Noteworthy are his inventions improving the broadband linearity and dynamic range of fundamental MMICs such as the Darlington pair, Gilbert cell, Doherty, cascode, and distributed amplifier topologies.

Mr. Kobayashi's early work on GaAs MMIC technology established the foundation for many of the first HBT, HEMT, and MESFET MMIC insertions in national space satellite systems and for the first commercial GaAs HBT MMIC products for the wireless industry. He was early to recognize the benefits of GaAs HBT for RF and microwave applications, and he was first to design a microwave GaAs HBT Darlington feedback amplifier, later helping to commercialize it into a high volume product.

Mr. Kobayashi's extraordinary contributions to MMICs span multiple compound semiconductor and silicon technologies. He helped prove the viability of monolithic GaAs BiFET-type solutions in challenging microwave designs. He also demonstrated the advantages of InP HBT for millimeter-wave and fiber optic applications, later inventing a wide dynamic range transimpedance amplifier currently deployed in an industry-leading 40 Gbps InP receive optical subassembly (ROSA). More recently, Mr. Kobayashi is engaged in the development of GaN MMICs, having achieved record low noise and wideband linearity expected to enable future radio architectures. One of his HEMT-HBT MMIC demonstrations (the world's first) is displayed in the MTT historical exhibit, along with a GaAs HBT MMIC he developed.

Mr. Kobayashi serves on several IEEE conference committees and has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Solid-State Circuits, applying his extensive RF and microwave experience in technical reviews of emerging silicon RF, millimeter-wave and fiber optic ICs.