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This story really buries the lede. You can get 250W of radiated RF power out of a transistor! That is pretty neat. Back in college I got to hear how the magnetron would not ever be feasible in a solid state device, the free electron path length was too short. Another impossible thing, now available from Digikey. Also a bit scary as it makes some previously impractical weapons more so (like the MASER).

If they are cheap enough (and I suspect they are) they might make a good bird abatement device as well.




It'd be interesting to build a phased array of them (which you can't do with magnetrons) and try to aim at individual birds flying. Except, swarms of mosquitos instead of birds.


I think that's what Goji is doing with these power transistors. Go to the Freescale site in the Electronic Design article, or go here:

http://www.gojifoodsolutions.com/

Their claim is that they cook food more rapidly and uniformly (no hot spots).

The site says little about how the tech works, but guessing, I think their oven beam-forms and scans the food. By looking at the reflected power as a function of the scan position, you should be able to calculate the spatial power absorption profile of the food. That would let you control beam geometry and power to eliminate hot spots.

Would be fun to try an oven that has this tech. Beam forming at microwave frequencies has been common in military systems for decades, but I didn't think I'd see it get cheap enough to use in my kitchen in my lifetime. Yum!

Now about that poached salmon...


A press release[1] indicates the price is $26 - $37 each in 10k lots.

[1] http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141005005052/en/Free...


That puts the cost at over $100 for a 1kW oven though; seems like it will only be in high-end ovens at first.


Basically what happened with LCD panels and televisions. Once Freescale ramps up and someone else, like Triquint, enters the market the price will come down.


And also what happened with magnetrons in microwave ovens. They were so very expensive 6 decades ago. Now I can go to Costco and get a 1kw microwave source for less than $100. It's great for home-brew plasma deposition systems.


My samples are on their way, I can't wait. :-)


> Also a bit scary as it makes some previously impractical weapons more so (like the MASER).

Well, Raytheon has a crowd-control microwave gun already, but that's only available to very big buyers.


That's probably this thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

It operates at 95GHz, which is firmly in vacuum tube territory (gyrotron, crossatron, etc.) for some time to come.


Would this make desalination more efficient, and therefore cheaper?


No. A simple resistance heater is more efficient if all you want is heat.

But the best desalination units use a membrane not heat.


But with a well-controlled compact microwave emitter, you can build a compact, fast-reacting heater for shower. Finally.


You can, but there are easier ways. A low mass resistance heater for example.


Yeah but the pipes are still cold!


Are you going to Microwave the bird with that?




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