Introduction to Numerical Electrostatics Using MATLAB

Preface

My graduate work was in the area of microwave oscillation mechanisms in semiconductor devices. My contribution was the prediction, analysis, and verification of yet another mode of semiconductor microwave oscillation. After graduation, I taught for a brief period (2 years) and worked part-time for a local electronics firm designing positive–intrinsic–negative (PIN) diode attenuators for their line of microwave signal generators. Then, in 1974, I went to work for Motorola, Inc., in southern Florida.

The part of Motorola that I joined designed and manufactured two-way portable radios (for police, fire department, etc.) and radio pagers, along with the supporting infrastructure systems. The developmental push at the time was to extend the product base up to the (then new) 900-MHz bands.

This organization had no interest whatsoever in my semiconductor physics background. They were, however, keenly interested in the skills that I had acquired during my graduate and part-time work designing stripline and microstrip (transmission line) circuitry. Motorola needed capability with stripline and microstrip filters, interconnects, materials, and so on, and my job was to help develop this capability. I never returned to semiconductor physics, and 40 years after finishing graduate school, I think it's safe to say that I never will.

Transmission line circuit design consists of two parts: (1) the actual circuit design based on the transmission line parameters and (2) the relationships ...