 Oh, we're back. We're back yet again here on a given Wednesday at 5 p.m. the 5 o'clock clock. I'm Jay Fidel with Think Tech and this is Think Tech Tech Talks actually. All right. And we have a special guest today. He's here for the IMS 2017 conference, which is taking place next week at the convention center, the Hawaii Convention Center. And that is the International Microwave Symposium June 4th through 9th next week. And his name is Monty Watanabe. Monty, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's great to have you here. Yeah. You're a microwave person, I can tell. Tell us what qualifies you to do microwave research. Well, first of all, I went to school for it at the University of Hawaii and my advisor is Wayne Charoma. He's the general chair of this conference. So one big happy family, I'll tell you. And a lot of this symposium is out of the College of Engineering at UH Manoa, isn't it? Yes, we have quite a few volunteers who are either former students or current students at the University, so they're a big part of it. And it's out with Debbie Zimmerman's involved, isn't she? Yes, Debbie is here in studio and she is definitely involved. Yeah. And who's this woman, Amanda, sitting next to her in the studio? Amanda, she's involved in the marketing publicity and promotions. She's part of the team, the core team at IMS, and she's here. She don't want to be on camera, but... Okay, but she's with us spiritually, yeah. Okay, and the whole thing is about, oh, and you are the vice chair for marketing and publicity of this conference, this big conference. 8,000 people, am I right? Yes, that's correct. Next week. In fact, a lot of them are here already, I guess. What is it like to be the vice chair of marketing and publicity? That's interesting, you know, I'm an engineer, so publicity and marketing is not something that I'm familiar with, but thankfully we have folks like Amanda and Debbie here to kind of guide us through all of these trials and tribulations. But you know, one of the things is that, you know, as an engineer, we do have a feel for kind of what people want to see, and that's kind of what we have to do this year. Well, how's the end of the day? You want to serve the public, right? That's correct. You don't do it in a vacuum. Yes, that's correct. You want to do stuff that will change the world and make life better for all of us. Including cell phones. I'm going to take a moment for a shout out to my Samsung number 8, Samsung number 8. I love this phone. I haven't been paid for this promotional statement. I love this phone. It's my favorite phone ever. This phone lasts for days and days on one charge. This phone is faster, better, cleaner, everything. I love this phone. And you're part of that. Yes, that is correct. Yeah, because microwave technology is involved in my phone. Exactly. That's how you connect to the world. Without microwave technology, you wouldn't be talking to anyone sending text to the world. And the whole world is connecting. That's correct. And you're part of that. You must feel good. You must sleep well. I do. I'm not necessarily, you know, a direct part of what's put into the phone, but the technology that we learn about and we love is, you know, definitely in there. So where does the microwave technology fit in my Samsung 8? So you can imagine it as any, you know, it's a wireless technology. So anywhere you're sending data, anywhere you're, you know, talking with anyone, that's the microwave technology is what's sending those signals and receiving those signals. So that's really what's enabling you to connect to the world. So I know, you know, this reminds me of one of our earliest shows. We were talking about computers and this guy called up and he said, yeah, you're talking about computers, but I need to know about electricity. You got it. You guys got to stop this business and talk about electricity. And I said to the guest, I said, this one's for you. And so he went on talking about electricity. So I'm doing the same thing to you. What is a microwave? The microwave is a range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. It, you know, it covers from about anywhere from one gigahertz up to hundreds of gigahertz. So that's, you know, when you think about, well, for instance, one of the things that you evaluate your computers is the clock speed. So you have a 2.4 gigahertz processor that is actually running at microwave frequencies. That's how fast this operation. So it's sending, the processor is sending signals out of my phone, which are at those gigahertz speeds in the air and they have microwaves that are going in the air. They are, yes, they're actually radiated out of your phone. You know, there's an antenna in your phone that actually takes the, you know, the data that you have, there's a conversion to microwaves and then it's radiated out of your phone, received at the base station and then that's how you make your connection. Is that like a radio wave? It is a, is it a radio wave? It is a radio wave. Yeah, so it's very short radio wave. Yes, very short, yes, shorter than what we call radio frequency. There's a, you know, there's a whole range of spectrum. Miles long, you know, the term we use in our industry is DC to daylight. So anywhere within, you know, from the light that you see, that's electromagnetic, electromagnetic wave, but it's not necessarily the same frequency that we're dealing with. How, how big is a micro? A micro is a, a micro is a one-one million of a meter is a micro micrometer. So these, these waves are anywhere from, let's see, three centimeters and no, or three centimeters and more. So really, so it was really, really tiny and they pulse, I guess, they pulse as they move. Yes. So that is how the data is communicated across there. The actual, you can think of it like a sine wave, a wave going up and down. The data is actually modulated on there. So either by changing the amplitude, the size of the wave or kind of the phase, you know, that's how you communicate the information across. And when you say it's 2.4 gigahertz or whatever it is. That's the carrier frequency. That's the carrier frequency. That means those little waves are running at gigahertz speed. Lots of little ones all over the press, little small little things. That's really, that's really interesting. So what's the difference between a, you know, one that's at 2.4 gigahertz and has, you know, a million, a million vibrations? Yes, cycles, cycles. You know, between that and say a regular weight radio wave or a radio wave that has a long, long distance. What's the difference? So the difference is the amount of data that you could pass, you could carry with that signal. Something that's, you know, oscillating much faster, you're able to pass much more data through. So there's something called the Nyquist limit, which basically describes how much bandwidth you need to occupy to send a certain amount of data. We're all limited to that relationship. But, you know, the higher frequency you go, the more data you can transmit. That's the thing. That's why you wanted to have as many gigahertz as you possibly can. That is exactly right, yes. And that's why you want to have small waves too? That is correct, yes. So we live in a world of data. We want to pass a lot of data, photographs, documents, voice, everything, video, video, major, major video. Everybody wants that in the whole world. In every country in the world they want their Samsung 8s. I really care about this one. And they want to be able to pass all this data back and forth. So you go to the College of Engineering and you see all these guys working on, you know, microwaves. What do they do when you want to have a day of microwave and you want to get up in the morning and say, my name is Monty and I want to study microwaves. What do you do? Well, there's a range of things you could do. You know, the thing that first interested me was antennas. You know, my advisor, you know, he had me working on some antennas. And, you know, through that I came to realize that, you know, there's other things. You know, antenna is just the mechanism that you transmit the information of. It converts electrical signals into radiated signals. So that's just one aspect of it. But then when you look back at what creates those signals, kind of what you're asking, you know, all those things kind of interest you. You can be involved in them from designing components, the testing components, to, you know, designing the actual semiconductor technology that is involved in, you know, creating these devices that allows to communicate. There's a range of things that you can do. And, you know, that's one of the things that I think, you know, at our conference we really showcase is the range of... Oh, I can imagine. I'll be there, you know. Yes, yeah. I'll be very curious. I'll see you there. I know I will. So you wake up in the morning and you say, well, I think I'll work on an antenna today. Yes. Right? So it's equipment-based. It's all around the equipment. So you start out, your project is going to be, I want to make this piece of equipment work better. Or I want to invent a piece of equipment that can put in the chain of communication that helps the chain of communication. Exactly. Yeah. What are you working on? So I am... So in my day job I'm actually doing what we call Mimic Design because monolithic microwave integrated circuits. So these are the circuits that sit in your phone that, you know, allow us to transmit that high frequencies to improve battery life where one thing we're concerned about is lower output efficiency. So, you know, it takes power to transmit these signals. And the more efficient you can make your, you know, your cell phone, you know, the actual parts of the transmitting, that's really where you see the most, you know, a lot of gain as far as battery life goes. So that's one of the areas that, you know, we're helping with to improve your battery life. So your goal is to make it faster and better, more efficient. More efficient. And better quality of the transmission of the data. Smaller size. Everything that you want and that you're looking for, that's what we're working on. So how do you achieve that? And I hope you don't tell me anything that would be revealed as a patent secret or anything, but go ahead. Yeah, so one of the things that we do is we do a lot of design, a lot of tests. So really what enables us to kind of make improvements is, you know, there's new technologies that are matured at the university or research lab level and then eventually they're finding where the commercial product. So at the conference what we see is we have a lot of technical presentations that are covering the new ideas, the new things that are enabling this. And then we have the commercial exhibition which really showcases how we implement this and how we make sales and how we get, you know, these products out there with these new technologies. So it's really coming together as far as the research and the actual commercial side, which is, I personally feel as one of the interesting things about this. Oh, I'm sure. But again, at the end of the day, you're helping people changing the world because we know how disruptive and important this thing is. Yes, yes. So, okay, so precisely what are you working on right now? Precisely. To the extent you can tell me. Now, if it's something you can't tell me, it's okay, I'm still going to ask. Yeah, so it's one of the, so I'm actually doing a lot of mimic design. So actually designing the power amplifier circuit. The power amplifier circuit in the phone. In the phone. You're going to feed power into something in the mimic. Yes. That makes it, what? That makes it, that transmits the signal. So we're working on the signal. More power for the signal. And if you have more power in the signal, it's going to go further faster and so forth. And that means that you're trying to find something that doesn't exist in my Samsung 8 because otherwise you wouldn't be, it would be something at the front end. I mean at the frontier. Yes, yes. That is what, yes. In my line of work, we are looking at, the new technologies, things like Gallium Nitride, a bad semiconductor material that allows us to really push the envelope as far as. Okay, so you have the little power supply there. A little tiny thing, probably need a microscope to look at it. Yes, that is it. Very small. Yes. Okay, and the idea is, let's see. Monty wants to make this more power. Okay, so how do you achieve that? Oh, I love this conversation. How do you get more power into the power supply for the telephone? So there's different ways. There are algorithms and design tricks where you can actually, rather than having a static design, you can actually have something that has some intelligence in there. So. Software. Software. We're talking about software. Exactly, it always comes back to software. Yes, yes. There are, there's those ways, they're actually improving the fundamental technology that we're using. There are limitations in certain technologies, but as the scientists and the physicists, as they look at technology and they try to figure out, what do I have to do to make it better? And that's really, we say, we always want it better. The design engine. That's what we say here in the tech also. You can't have a day like yesterday. It's got to be a better day. I'm sure, yes. We're all pushing for that same, you know. Okay, so how do you make the power more and better? How do you do that? Give me an example. So for instance, one of the kind of the, the standard has been, Gallium arsenide semiconductor technology. The recent kind of advancements have been made in Gallium nitrite for higher power. Material science. Material science, yes, exactly. I work with, you know, folks from UCLA, who have been there for a science degree. There's a whole bunch of, you know, real, a really big team effort in as far as development. Well, that raises the whole question. I was going to ask you about patents and trying to, you know, preserve your intellectual work product. And at the same time, you have to collaborate because there's a world out there, people working on the same thing. How do you do that? Is it trust? Is it love? What is it that makes you trust the other guy to have a collaboration and not rip you off? So it's, it really comes down to this conference. You know, a lot of great ideas are shared at this conference and they do it because, you know, they really want to show that, show the work that they've done. And at the same time, when they do that, they get a lot of questions. And you know, it's really answering those detailed questions. That's really where you kind of keep the secret sauce to yourself. But you still give them enough to, you know, kind of give you the, out of the back, right? You did a good job. It's an art form. It is, it is, yes. Going to a conference is an art form. Yes, it is. You know what I'm saying? Okay, that's Mati Watanabe. And he is the vice chair for marketing and publicity at IMS 2017 next week, June 4th. And IMS stands for the international, not just the national, the International Microwave Symposium at the Hawaii Convention Center. We're going to take one minute break. We'll be right back. We're going to find out exactly what's going to happen next week at the Convention Center. I'm so excited. We'll be right back. There's possibilities in your life. Okay, we're back alive. That was a refreshing break. And guess what? Things are not, things are not the way they were before we left. Right. Before we talking to Mati Watanabe by himself. And now all of a sudden we have another face. And that's, he wanted to be here. And he's the exhibit manager for IMS 2017. Welcome to the show. Thank you. What is it to be exhibit manager? That sounds interesting. Posters everywhere, huh? Posters everywhere, yep. So we have roughly 450 companies out on the trade show floor this year. And so what our job is to coordinate everybody and make sure each exhibitor has a spot on the floor and has all of their equipment and materials they need to put on a great event. Boy, that's great. What kind of exhibits are they? Can you describe some of them? What do they look like? Well, so you have everything from 10 by 10 companies with every kind of component to build a microwave system you can imagine on up to large thousand square foot booths from test and measurement companies to RFIC companies, software companies. RFIC, yeah. So that's a radio frequency integrated circuit. Of course, I knew that. At dinner my wife and I squeaked a little ass. Oh, who doesn't? I thought it was a helpful idea, wasn't it? Yes, it is. Yes. So when I see, when I go, I'm going, when I see little objects that are, you know, scientific objects, technological objects. You will. So you'll see. Well, so the exhibitors are bringing out the building blocks of all these systems. So what you'll see is a lot of small pieces that ultimately go into a much larger, whether it's a radar system and tennis system. If I'll drop this on the floor, it's looks like it's been dropped already. If I dropped this on the floor and I took the pieces apart, they would be really tiny, teeny, wouldn't they? Yes. How do you look at them? When you're talking about the laboratory, where you have the microscope or something, you look at the circuit boards, Mike. So how do we see the circuit boards in the exhibit? It says so tiny. Well, there's not much to look at. You look at the board and it says, okay, well, that's very interesting. So really what you're seeing is the equipment that you use to be able to analyze and test that little circuit to see if they're working. Electronic equipment. Exactly. That you can see because you have to. Right, that's the interesting part. But, you know, and tennis systems and radars also are very big, you know, so you will see some of that as well. So this is more than phones. Oh, yes. But phones are probably a really important part. It's really, you know, anything that travels across the air in some form or fashion, using, you know, electronic signals. And Monty is really the expert on all of this. Well, you're having a wonderful conversation. How did you get involved in this? Was this something you studied in school or did you just decide it wasn't? No, I'm actually a business guy, so I'm not technical at all. Exhibit manages frequently. Exactly, you know. So that's when we can't go to engineering school. This is where we wind up. Chasing engineers around exhibit halls and making sure that they are where they need to be. So, you know. So, no, I've been producing conferences and trade shows for 27 years now. Oh, that's great. That's beautiful. Every day is a new day. New and interesting day. You meet a lot of people there. Well, you know, nobody grows up saying, gee, I want to become an exhibit manager. Maybe now they will. Yeah, maybe they will. But I highly recommend all you college kids out there looking for a career. You know, you can't go wrong. How do they get your job? You know, they probably want your job. Call me, you can have it. So what's going to happen next week at this conference? I mean, if I walk in on the 6th, this is on the 6th, Tuesday, was it the 5th? When does it start? It starts on actually the 4th. The 4th. Oh, that's right. Okay, Sunday. What do I see? This is the major exhibit hall there in the ground floor of the convention center. All the exhibits going to be there. Yeah, that opens on Tuesday. Okay, that's where they go. That runs Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. They've got the conference portion. So the two major components to this event are a major technical conference, and that's Monty's expertise. And then the trade show. So the major trade show. Well, you're on the trade show side. Monty is on the technical side, the engineering side. And the engineering side, can I get in as a member of the public? No, unfortunately, you have to register. We have to talk after the show. So let's assume I was an engineer and I got into the technical side and I went to these breakout sessions or whatever it is, keynotes. What am I going to hear about? So you're going to hear about the next generation, what we call 5G or the fifth generation mobile technology. That's one of the big things. 5G, oh, that's so exciting. That's point 5G. So this conference is largely about 5G then, isn't it? That's what we're focusing on this year is one of our themes, yes. Good decision. Everybody wants to know about 5G. Can you take a moment and tell us what 5G is? I do not have 5G in my Samsung. Nobody does. But they will see. Thanks for mentioning that. So 5G is actually the fifth generation mobile cellular phone technology. It's a standard that is evolving as we speak. It's set to be released in the 2020 timeframe. But at this point in time, we're really looking at the core technologies, the protocols, the actual microwave devices that allow us to get these signals across. So we're really at the forefront as far as the developments. Sounds like it. But does 5G exist now or is it still sort of an aspirational? It's aspirational at this point because there's no standard. The IEEE Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers is actually set to standard. They set to standard. They would be one of the folks involved. Why don't you just upstage them and set the standards next week? I wish I could, but that is not my experience. If I did, you guys would be mad at me because the phones wouldn't work. Well, okay, that's really interesting. So you can discuss the latest technology and how it moves forward and how the standards are going to be set and how the technology will move with the guys who are actually designing the technology. These are the key players who enable this technology to really take off. You know, I went to one of the conferences at the Convention Center. I think it was astronomy a year or two ago, and I stumbled into a bunch. I had my camera with me. I stumbled into a bunch of guys sitting at a table and they all looked friendly and everything. And I said, what are you guys doing? And they said, we're making a deal. Get lost. That's what you wanted at the trade show. That's what I wanted to hear. He's a different person anyway. So I did and I had that on tape. But I just wonder if this kind of thing happens now at your conference. Is this going to happen too? I'm not going to find people making deals right there in public like that? Absolutely. Maybe in the exhibit hall. In the exhibit hall, there's deals being made all day long. What kind of a deal? Give me an example of a deal. Because my training is in law, so I have to know the scope of the deal. What's it like? So, well, it's international scope. So you have people from all over the world. We have roughly, and typically you'll have representation, say 40 to 50 different countries around the world. And so there's certainly a lot of import, export activity going on. But really, again, this is the building blocks for much larger systems. So to carry a signal across your phone to have a really high bandwidth, low latency transmissions, for example, for 5G, that requires a whole chain of technologies to be in place. It's having better power, better transmission, better waves, I guess, microwaves, all that. So this leads to the 5G. This is part of the 5G development then. Okay. Yep. And so it's not the handset development, for example, but it is the equipment that carries that signal back and forth from your phone to wherever it's going on. I'll ask you a question. I asked that. Monty, how do you prevent people from taking the other guy's stuff? We have security. But because it wouldn't, wouldn't you be, if you were a researcher? It depends on what you mean by taking in the other guy's stuff, right? I don't mean his jacket. Right. So these, you know, exhibitors do, well, they certainly will vet their customers, of course, who they're talking to, but they're not, they're also, you know, not putting out all the secret sauce. Ah, you mentioned that. They're saying what they can do, but not necessarily how they do it. You have to know how far to go. Right. Stop. Exactly. And not to let people know when you're stopping. Exactly. Yeah. And but that's really up to the individual companies to vet their trade secrets. Of course. And then the conference itself, all those papers are, have gone through a lot of legal reviews and everything else to make sure that they're acceptable for publication because they're going out into the world as soon as they're presented. Well, we want that, right? Because science is collaboration. You can't move ahead without collaborating around the world these days. So international, international we got. So where are they coming from? Are they coming from China? Yes, we have quite a few Chinese exhibitors and attendees. That's been a really a growing segment of the last, say, 10 years. But we have a lot of activity in Japan, Korea, India's growing. It's small, but growing. And of course, a big contingent from Europe will come in. They'll make the track all the way south. Interesting. And it even makes them to come here. And it even makes them to come here. German, French, and Italian, and English. So, but like I say, they come from, you know, all over the world. So we love that. We love the diversity of these crowds that come for these scientific meetings. So how do you judge the success of next week? How will you know you've hit the mark? Well, there's a number of different metrics that we look at. Certainly the one I look at very closely is what does the exhibitor participation look like and those kinds of things. But success to us really is, you know, you can tell when you leave an event, if they're coming at you with pitchforks and size and that sort of thing. You know, maybe it's not a success. I'm just kidding. It doesn't happen too often. No, no, no. Of course, I'm still here. What do you want out of it from your point of view? So, well, you know, you want customers or exhibitors to come away with having met good leads, qualified individuals. You want those individuals to go away with having learned something, having found out what the latest technology is, having something they can go back to their company with on Monday and say, wow, I just learned this great new technique to do XYZ and those things happen. That's very successful. And we certainly look at, you know, all the social media chatter and everything else that's going on to gauge how happy they are. And generally, this is a really a very dedicated crowd. It's very important technology. Last year was in San Francisco. Okay, you're doing better this year. So, that was your decision? Of course. Nice job on that, Lee. Mind you, what are you looking at to determine whether this is successful? I mean, on two levels, you know, one is in your role as an official of the conference, but on the other is your role as an engineer and a researcher. So, from the official side, I think the one thing that I'm looking at or we've been looking at is kind of the attendee base and who's attending, how many folks are attending, kind of what they're signing up for. And all in all, you know, the numbers show that, you know, they're doing, I mean, people are attending workshops, they're signing up for our new technical events. So, I think we've, as far as, you know, setting bar, we've met our mark, I think, as far as what personally what I was looking for. The personal side, you know, I think the technology that I'll learn about, all the new things that I'll see, you know, some, I've had a chance to look at the program and there's quite a few talks that I want to, you know, check out and kind of see what the secret sauce is. Yeah, me too. And what's your advice and I'll bring my camera down, what's your advice on where I should go, what I should be looking at, what's really hot? So, I think one of the, probably, you know, as you walk, if you're up in the sessions, one thing you want to take a look at is whenever you see a big crowd, you know, typically you can judge the interest in the topic by the amount of people sitting in the audience. Look for the crowds. Exactly, look for the crowds. And, you know, that's really where you'll find some interesting technology. Okay, Lee, there's camera one. Okay. They're all out there. Millions and millions of them are out there, including on their cell phones. You have a chance to talk to them and tell them about this and what they should know and what they should do about it. Okay, well, you should come down, see what we're doing. We do have the Come On Up program, so come take advantage of that and we look forward to seeing you next week at the Hawaii Convention Center. That's Lee Wood, exhibit manager of the International Microwave Symposium, IMS 2017. And, of course, Monti Watanabe, who is the vice chair for marketing and publicity of IMS 2017. Wish you a great show, you guys. And I'll be there to help you make it happen. All right, thank you. Thanks for coming to see me. All right.